By Nina Trentmann

WeTransfer BV hired its first chief financial officer, as the European file-sharing company looks to expand its subscription business and go carbon-neutral by the end of the year.

The Amsterdam-based company on Thursday named Melissa Nussbaum as CFO, effective Sept. 21. Ms. Nussbaum joins from King Digital Entertainment, the video and smartphone-game developer that was acquired by Activision Blizzard Inc. in 2016. Ms. Nussbaum has worked at the maker of Candy Crush for the past seven years, including most recently as head of finance. She previously held several roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers, including a stint as director of capital markets.

Ms. Nussbaum is joining privately owned WeTransfer as it looks to increase its base of paid subscribers. The company says about 65 million to 70 million people use its data- and document-sharing product a month. It doesn't disclose its revenue, but says it generates about half of it from subscription fees. The other half comes from advertising and allows the company to offer a basic version of its file-sharing tool for free. WeTransfer displays advertisements to nonsubscribers while their files are transferring.

The focus will be on providing a value-added proposition to convert users of the free product to paying subscribers, Ms. Nussbaum said.

The pandemic has led to an increase in usage of WeTransfer's services in recent months, Chief Executive Gordon Willoughby said. Many of WeTransfer's customers are freelancers and work in creative industries, he said. WeTransfer also offers other products, for example a digital scrapbook and a sketching app.

The company, founded in 2009, has been profitable since 2014, Mr. Willoughby said. That sets it apart from other companies offering software-as-a-service, many of which haven't reported a profit, including public companies such as Slack Technologies Inc., the corporate communications platform.

WeTransfer has raised money through two funding rounds, most recently a $40 million Series B round in 2019, adding to $25 million in Series A-money dating back to 2014. Highland Capital Partners Europe, a venture-capital firm, currently is WeTransfer's largest shareholder.

An initial public offering isn't on the cards, at least not now, Mr. Willoughby said. "We don't need to raise money," he said.

WeTransfer earlier this year registered as a public-benefit corporation, a type of company that pursues the dual goals of doing good for society while generating a profit for its shareholders. Such a designation has gained currency in recent years as investors focus more on environmental, social and governance factors. The status is granted by B Lab, an organization which tracks and assess corporate sustainability efforts.

As a benefit corporation, WeTransfer allocates about 30% of advertising space on its sharing platform to charitable organizations for free. It also plans to become carbon-neutral by the end of the year and have an equal number of men and women in its workforce, Mr. Willoughby said.

Ms. Nussbaum will be involved in managing the company's ESG efforts, including evaluating the company's carbon footprint and working with its suppliers to curtail its footprint. For instance, WeTransfer plans to work with Amazon Web Services, which it uses for the file-sharing service, to make sure that its data is transferred only through renewable-energy powered AWS data centers.

She also will grow the finance team, currently consisting of six people. WeTransfer employs about 200 people.

Write to Nina Trentmann at Nina.Trentmann@wsj.com