India-born Parag Agrawal, has been named the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter. The company’s Board has unanimously appointed Twitter’s chief technology officer Parag Agrawal as his successor. The 37-year old will be succeeding Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey who on November 29 stepped down from his position, ending his nearly 16-year stint with the social media giant.
Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and rose through the ranks to become the firm’s chief technology officer. He was appointed as the company’s CTO in 2017.
Twitter stock went up by as much as 10% with the news in opening trade. Agrawal will join the league of several India-born chief executives, such as IBM’s Arvind Krishna, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, to lead large US technology companies that have a presence globally.
The resignation of Dorsey, who has been heading Twitter as its CEO since 2015, will come into effect immediately. However, he will remain a member of the Board till around May 2022 to enable a smooth transition.
“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders,” Dorsey said.
The 45-year-old outgoing CEO expressed faith in his successor, Agrawal. “My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul. It’s his time to lead,” Dorsey wrote in a statement.
“He’s (Agrawal) curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware, and humble. He leads with heart and soul, and is someone I learn from daily. My trust in him as our CEO is bone deep,” Dorsey added.
Before joining Twitter, Agrawal was involved in large-scale data management research with collaborators at firms such as Microsoft Research, Yahoo! Research, and AT&T Labs.
Agrawal did his B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, one of the premium institutes of India. He later pursued PhD in Computer Science from the prestigious Stanford University in California.
As CTO in Twitter, Agrawal has been responsible for the microblogging site’s technical strategy, heading initiatives to improve development velocity and advancing the state of machine learning across the company. Prior to being appointed CTO, Parag had risen to be Twitter’s first distinguished engineer due to his work across revenue and consumer engineering, including his impact on the re-acceleration of audience growth in 2016 and 2017, the company said in its statement.
In a statement issued shortly after he was announced as the new CEO, Agrawal said, “I am honoured and humbled. And I’m grateful for your (Dorsey’s) continued mentorship and your friendship. I’m grateful for the service that you built, the culture, soul, and purpose you fostered among us and for leading the company through really significant challenges”.
“I joined this company 10 years ago when there were fewer than 1,000 employees. While it was a decade ago, those days feel like yesterday to me. I’ve walked in your shoes, I’ve seen the ups and downs, the challenges and obstacles, the wins and the mistakes. But then and now, above all else, I see Twitter’s incredible impact, our continued progress, and the exciting opportunities ahead of us… Our purpose has never been more important. Our people and our culture are unlike anything in the world. There is no limit to what we can do together.” Agrawal added.
