Twitter Inc Appoints Jack Dorsey as Permanent CEO; Shares Jump

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The board of directors of Twitter announced the appointment of its co-founder Jack Dorsey as permanent CEO. He will continue to serve as a member of the Board, but will no longer serve as Chairman.

Mr. Dorsey will also remain as CEO of Square, the mobile payments and financial services company, which he co-founded in 2009, according to Twitter in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The stock price of Twitter climbed more than 5% to $27.65 per share at the time of this writing, around 11:45 AM in New York.

Twitter believes in Dorsey’s ability to revive the company

The board of directors Twitter selected Mr. Dorsey to become its permanent CEO because of its perspective and experience as one of the founders and one of the largest shareholders of the social media company. The Board also noted that Mr. Dorsey has extensive experience with technology companies.

Mr. Dorsey served as Twitter’s interim CEO since July 2015, Chairman of the Board since October 2008, and member of the Board since May 2007. He served as Twitter’s President and CEO in May 2007 to October 2008.

Additionally, Mr. Dorsey is a member of the boards of directors of Square and Walt Disney Company.

According to Twitter, currently, there are no plans to provide Mr. Dorsey with direct compensation for his role as CEO.

Dorsey will focus on making Twitter easy to understand

“My focus is to build teams that move fast, and learn faster. In the past 3 months we have increased our speed and urgency at both companies,” posted Mr. Dorsey on his Twitter account.

He also emphasized that Twitter is the “most powerful communications tool of our time,” and they will work forward on making the social media “easy to understand by anyone in the world, and to give more utility to the people who love to use it daily.”

Mr. Dorsey is confident that Twitter and Square are well positioned to grow their impact to the world. He said, “I will do whatever it takes to ensure that. We’re working hard at Twitter to focus our roadmap on a few things we can make really great. And we’re strengthening our team along the way.”

Twitter names Adam Bain as COO

The board of directors of Twitter appointed Adam Bain as chief operating officer. Mr. Bain previously served as president of global revenue partnerships of the social media company.

Gartner analyst Brian Blau commented, “Adam is going to be running the business. If Adam can execute, and Jack can come in and focus on the next thing, the next product — that is a good partnership.”

On the other hand, Jeff Sica, president of Sica Wealth Management said, “Jack Dorsey, as talented and strategic as he is, is going to have a hard time with it and I think realistically he’s going to have to make a choice. Some point within the next six months at least, even by the end of the year, I think he’s going to have to really think about what he’s going to do.”

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