Parag Agrawal became Twitter CEO on Monday after Jack Dorsey announced his resignation. The move was apparently months in the making.
There were rumours that the Twitter board was looking to replace Jack Dorsey with someone else. The search, it seems, finally ended with an in-house candidate. Parag, who until now was Twitter’s CTO, is assuming the role as the company CEO immediately.
In its press note, Twitter gives some details of Parag’s career within the company.
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Here is Parag’s brief profile in 5 points:
1- Parag, aged 45, is an alumnus of IIT Mumbai. He did his bachelors in engineering (BS) from here. Then he moved to the US for further studies, with his doctorate coming from Stanford University. He did his schooling from Atomic Energy Central School.
2- Parag joined Twitter in 2011. Before that, he briefly worked at Microsoft, AT&T and Yahoo. In all three companies, his work was mostly research-oriented. Initially, at Twitter, he worked on ad-related products, but gradually he also dabbled in artificial intelligence. In 2017, when he was promoted to the role of Twitter CTO, here is what the company said in a statement: “In his capacity as CTO, he’s focused on scaling a cohesive machine learning and AI approach across our consumer and revenue product and infrastructure teams.”
3- Parag is apparently well-liked by outgoing CEO Jack Dorsey. In fact, Dorsey hired him in 2011. In his email on Monday sent to all Twitter employees, Dorsey wrote: “The board ran a rigorous process considering all options and unanimously appointed Parag. He’s been my choice for some time, given how deeply he understands the company and its needs. Parag has been behind every critical decision that helped turn this company around. He’s 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.”
4- At Twitter, as CTO, Parag has been instrumental in “Twitter’s technical strategy and overseeing machine learning and AI across the consumer, revenue, and science teams.”
5- Although he has been in a leadership position at Twitter for a while, Parag was not as well-known as Sundar Pichai or Satya Nadella were when they became CEO. Parag acknowledges this in his email that he sent to Twitter employees on Monday. He wrote, “I recognize that some of you know me well, some just a little, and some not at all. Let’s consider ourselves at the beginning-the first step towards our future. I’m sure you have lots of questions and there’s a lot for us to discuss. At the all-hands tomorrow we’ll have lots of time for Q&A and discussion. It will be the beginning of ongoing open, direct conversations I wish for us to have together.”
Source: India Today
