Parag Agrawal Becomes Twitter CEO After Jack Dorsey Resigns

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey resigned on November 29 as Twitter, ending his nearly 16-year stint with the social media giant. The company's Board has unanimously appointed Twitter's chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, as his successor.

The resignation of Dorsey, who has been running Twitter as its CEO since 2015, will take effect immediately. However, he will continue to be a member of the Board until approximately May 2022 to allow for a smooth transition.

"I've decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders," Dorsey said in a statement.

The 45-year-old outgoing CEO expressed faith in his successor, Agrawal, who joined Twitter in 2011 and was named the company's CTO in 2017.

"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," said Dorsey.

Before joining Twitter, between 2006 and 2010, Agrawal participated in large-scale data management research with collaborators from companies such as Microsoft Research, Yahoo! Research, and AT&T Labs.

In terms of education, Agrawal had obtained Bachelor's degrees in Computer Science and Technology from IIT Bombay, one of the best institutes in India. He subsequently earned a doctorate in Computer Science from the prestigious Stanford University in California.

As CTO at Twitter, Agrawal has been responsible for the microblogging site's technical strategy, spearheading initiatives to improve development speed and promote the state of machine learning across the enterprise.

Before being elevated to CTO, Agrawal had become Twitter's first distinguished engineer due to his booming revenue and consumer engineering efforts. The acceleration of audience growth in 2016 and 2017 is also among his contributions.

In a statement released shortly after being announced as the new CEO, Agrawal said he is grateful to Dorsey for the "mentorship" over the past decade.

"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," he wrote.

Meanwhile, Twitter, in addition to the appointment of Agrawal as the new CEO, announced that Bret Taylor, a member of the company's Board of Directors since 2016, has been appointed Independent Chairman of the Board with immediate effect.