• Indian-origin technology executive Parag Agrawal has been appointed as the new CEO of Twitter after the social media giant’s co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down on November 29.

• Agrawal, an IIT Bombay and Stanford alumnus, joined Twitter in 2011 and rose to become its chief technology officer by 2017.

• The CEO change is effective immediately and Dorsey will remain on the board until his term expires at the 2022 annual shareholder meeting.

• The appointment of Agrawal, 37, marks an endorsement of a strategy the company previously laid out to double its annual revenue by 2023 and also indicates an increasing focus on Twitter’s long-term ambition to rebuild how social media companies operate.

Company’s goal to double annual revenue

The early days of Twitter began with a tweet sent by Dorsey on March 21, 2006, that read “just setting up my twttr”. Twitter went through a period of robust growth during its start, but as the growth slowed the San Francisco company began tweaking its format in a bid to make it easier and more engaging to use. Dorsey initially became Twitter CEO in 2007, but was forced out the next year. He returned to the role in 2015.

Twitter was caught up in the heated political atmosphere leading up to the 2020 election. Former President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter, with Dorsey defending the move, saying the January 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s tweets after the event resulted in a risk to public safety and created an extraordinary and untenable circumstance for the company. Trump sued the company, along with Facebook and YouTube, in July for alleged censorship.

Over the past year, Twitter has fought to end years-long criticism that it has been slow to introduce new features for its 211 million daily users and was losing ground to social media rivals like Instagram and TikTok.

Under Dorsey’s leadership, Twitter acquired email newsletter service Revue and launched Spaces, a feature that lets users host or listen to live audio conversations.

The company also rolled out advertising improvements to help brands find Twitter users likely to be interested in their product, a key component of the company’s goal to double annual revenue by 2023.

Indians holding key positions in tech companies

• Parag Agarwal, the newly-appointed CEO of Twitter, has joined the high-profile league of Indian and Indian origin honchos, who are calling the shots at global corporations.

• Agarwal joins Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Adobe President and CEO Santanu Narayan and IBM Group CEO Arvind Krishna, who are currently leading global corporations.

• Besides, the elite club has other honchos like Mastercard’s CEO Ajay Banga, Arista Networks’ CEO and president Jayshree V. Ullal, Micron Technology’s CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and Reckitt Benckiser’s CEO Laxman Narasimhan.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store