CEO Jack Dorsey
tweeted late Sunday night that Four senior
Twitter executives are leaving the media company, the biggest leadership changes since Dorsey
returned as chief executive as he struggles to revive the company's
growth.Media head Katie
Jacobs Stanton, product head Kevin Weil, the head of the engineering
division, Alex Roetter, and HR head Brian "Skip" Schipper will all leave
the company, he said.
Addressing
what he called inaccurate press rumors, Dorsey praised the four
executives and said he was sad to announce their departures.
Twitter's
stock has fallen nearly 50 percent since Dorsey's return last year and
is now trading below its IPO price amid concern the company has failed
to significantly boost its user base despite a quicker pace of product
rollouts under Dorsey.
On Sunday
night Jason Toff, who heads Twitter's video streaming service, Vine,
tweeted that he was also leaving Twitter to join Google to work on
virtual reality. Dorsey's tweet did not mention him.
In
an earnings conference call in October, Dorsey spoke about "hiring and
investing in talent" and the need for "bold rethinking."
Twitter
may announce other executive changes, including the recruitment of a
new chief marketing officer, on Monday, according to a source familiar
with the matter. The company will announce two new board members soon,
the person added.
Dorsey tweeted that
Chief Operating Officer Adam Bain will take on additional
responsibilities as a result of the departures, including
revenue-related product teams and the HR team.
Chief Technical Officer Adam Messinger will handle the engineering team, he said.
Weil,
Stanton, Schipper and Roetter are among the highest-level departures in
recent months, but several executives have left Twitter since
co-founder Dorsey stepped in as interim CEO in July. He has since been
named Twitter CEO.
Dorsey, who is
also CEO of financial services technology company Square, has yet to lay
out a detailed plan of what he wants Twitter to do differently. Dorsey
plans a retreat with Twitter executives this week, the source said.
Weil
has been at Twitter since 2009, although he has only served as its
product head for about a year. He has often served as a face of the
company, speaking at conferences and hinting at new developments on the
site, such as a character count that would exceed the current
140-character limit.
Twitter has
shuffled through three product heads since 2014, and Dorsey has played
an increasingly large role in product development.
Stanton
joined the company in 2010 and was tasked with growing its audience
outside the United States. She previously worked at Google Inc and Yahoo Inc as well as the White House and State Department.
Twitter, which has
just over 300 million users, had its slowest user growth in 2015 and was
eclipsed by photo-sharing app Instagram, owned by Facebook Inc , which surpassed 400 million users last year.
Since
his return, Dorsey has launched Moments, a product developed by Weil,
which showcases Twitter's best tweets and content, laid off 300 workers
and hired former Google executive Omid Kordestani as executive chairman.
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