PROVO, Utah, March 3, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ancestry, the world's largest online family history resource, today announced the appointment of company veteran Kendall Hulet to the position of Senior Vice President of Product Management. Hulet will assume responsibilities for the global product organization and its efforts to make family history more fun and accessible to millions around the world. Hulet is succeeding Eric Shoup, who recently departed Ancestry to pursue new business opportunities.
Hulet joined Ancestry in 2003 and has held progressively senior roles in product development and management. During his tenure, he was deeply involved in some of the most popular innovations at Ancestry, including the "Shaky Leaf" hinting system that has delivered over five billion discoveries; the Ancestry Family Tree system that has led to the creation of over 60 million family trees containing six billion ancestors; and the creation of the award winning Ancestry mobile app, which has been downloaded more than 12 million times. Additionally, Hulet led efforts behind the most recent AncestryDNA launch of DNA Circles, a feature that uses genetic information to connect people who are all likely descendants of a common ancestor.
"After nine years of working together at Ancestry, I'm delighted to have Kendall take over as our SVP of Product Management," said Ancestry CEO Tim Sullivan. "Kendall has been a vital driver of innovation at our company over many years. As we look forward to a very ambitious roadmap of new products and features for 2015, I'm looking forward to working with Kendall and the whole Product team as we continue to expand interest in family history with our totally unique suite of family history products and services. I also want to thank Eric Shoup for his broad contributions to our company over the past 6 1/2 years. Eric was a terrific leader of our product group, a strong voice within our management team, and a great colleague. Everyone wishes Eric the best as he moves onto the next step in his career."
"I want to thank Tim for this opportunity," said Kendall Hulet, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Ancestry. "I am thrilled to be taking on leadership of our amazing product group, a team that works diligently every day to continually enhance our ability to deliver the most rewarding consumer experience on the Internet. On behalf of our product team, we're excited about what's in store for 2015 and beyond as we continue to serve up compelling experiences for our customers and anyone with an interest in family history."
Hulet has held a variety of roles in the product organization for over a decade including Director of International Product Management and most recently Vice President of Product Management for AncestryDNA. Prior to joining Ancestry, he worked in product marketing at Monster.com. Hulet holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Information Systems from Brigham Young University, where he graduated cum laude with university honors.
About Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com is the world's largest online family history resource with more than 2 million paying subscribers across all its websites. More than 15 billion records have been added to the Ancestry.com sites and users have created more than 60 million family trees containing more than 6 billion profiles. In addition to its flagship site www.ancestry.com, the company operates several global Ancestry international websites along with a suite of online family history brands, including Archives.com, Fold3.com, Newspapers.com, and offers the AncestryDNA product, sold by its subsidiary, Ancestry.com DNA, LLC, all of which are designed to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.