Four senior Twitter executives to exit the media company

25 Jan 2016

Four senior Twitter executives will be leaving the media company, founder and CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted late last night, marking the biggest leadership changes since Dorsey returned as chief executive to revive the micro-blogging site's fortunes.

According to Dorsey, media head Katie Jacobs Stanton, product head Kevin Weil, the head of the engineering division Alex Roetter, and HR head Brian "Skip" Schipper will leave the company.

Addressing what he termed 'inaccurate press rumors', Dorsey praised the four executives and said he was sad to see them go.

Twitter's stock had fallen by around 50 per cent since Dorsey's return last year and now traded below its IPO price as concerns grew that the company had failed to significantly boost its user base despite a quicker pace of product rollouts under Dorsey.

Last night Jason Toff, who headed Twitter's video streaming service, Vine, tweeted that he too was leaving to join Google to work on virtual reality. He was not among the executives Dorsey had named in his tweet.

In an October conference call, Dorsey had spoken about "hiring and investing in talent" and the need for "bold rethinking."

Twitter might announce other executive changes, including the recruitment of a new chief marketing officer today, Reuters reported citing a source familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, CNNMoney cited a source familiar with the matter, as saying Roetter, Stanton and Weil had made the decisions separately within the last few weeks.

Another source told CNNMoney there might be a number of factors behind the departures, including burnout.

Weil, who had been at Twitter since 2009, worked his way up from analytics engineer to VP of product while Stanton, who joined the company in 2010, was instrumental in helping build Twitter's media team and grow an international audience.

According to a tweet fro Dorsey, COO Adam Bain and CTO Adam Messinger would be taking on additional responsibilities for the time being.