[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Badoo, a social network for meeting new people, has appointed former Google executive Benjamin Ling as COO. Mr. Ling will begin his new role at Badoo in May, based at the company’s London headquarters.

As COO, Mr. Ling will oversee product, engineering, business operations, partnerships and corporate development. Badoo currently has more than 147 million registered users around the world, and over 60 percent year-on-year growth,  says the company.

Mr. Ling joins Badoo from Google, where he was Product Management Director of Search Products and Local Business Products. He also served as Director of Partnerships and Platform at YouTube. Mr. Ling also previously worked at Facebook, where as Director of Platform, he oversaw product management and marketing, developer operations and partner solutions for the Facebook Platform, including Facebook Connect.

Mr. Ling holds a Ph.D. and MS in Computer Science from Stanford, and a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Business from UC Berkeley.