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Twitter Inc has announced that Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey is stepping down from his role, handing over the position of leading the company to Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal.
The appointment of Mr Agrawal, who is a 10-year veteran of Twitter, to the position of CEO marks an endorsement of a strategy the company previously laid out to double its annual revenue by 2023.
Aside from this, the new appointment also indicates that Twitter is increasing its focus on its long-term ambition to rebuild the way social media companies operate.
Mr Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter in 2006, tweeted that it was “finally time for me to leave” after overseeing the launch of new ways to create content through newsletters or audio conversations, all the while serving as CEO of his payments processing company Square Inc.
The change is effective immediately, though Mr Dorsey will remain on the company’s board until his term expires at the 2022 annual shareholder meeting.
In his email to Twitter’s employees, Mr Dorsey stated that he chose to step down due to the strength of Agrawal’s leadership and the appointment of Salesforce Chief Operating Officer Bret Taylor as the new chairman of the board. Mr Dorsey also stated that he was confident in the “ambition and potential” of Twitter’s employees.
“I’m really sad… yet really happy,” he wrote.
“There aren’t many companies that get to this level,” adding that his move to step down “was my decision and I own it”.
Mr Agrawal, who also sent an email to employees, stated that while their bold new strategy will be hitting ambitious goals, the company’s critical challenge was how they will work to execute the strategy and deliver results.
When the news was first reported by CNBC, the company’s shares surged 9 per cent in early trading before paring those gains in the afternoon.
Over the past year, Twitter has been trying to improve its platform amid criticisms that it was slow to introduce new features, losing ground to social media rivals like Instagram and TikTok.
Under Mr Dorsey’s leadership, Twitter acquired the email newsletter service Revue. It also launched Spaces, a feature that lets users host or listen to live audio conversations.
The company also rolled out advertising improvements, a key component of the company’s goal to double annual revenue by 2023.
But with its shares slumped in recent months, pressure has been added on Mr Dorsey to end his unusual arrangement of being CEO of two companies.
In early 2020, Mr Dorsey was called to step down by Elliott Management Corp after they argued that he was paying too little attention to Twitter while also running Square Inc. Mr Dorsey then fended off the pressure by giving Elliott and buyout firm Silver Lake Partners seats on Twitter’s board.
Now resigning from his position, Mr Dorsey will be focusing on leading Square and other pursuits such as philanthropy.
Eliza Sayon is an experienced writer who specialises in corporate and government communications. She is the content producer for Public Spectrum, an online knowledge-based platform for and about the Australian public sector.
