Twitter Inc.'s
leadership was thrown into disarray Thursday after one of its top executives,
Ali Rowghani, resigned as chief operating officer amid a dispute with Chief
Executive Dick Costolo.
The
sudden resignation of Mr. Rowghani, a well-respected manager who in his four
years at Twitter rose to become Mr. Costolo's most-trusted lieutenant, comes at
a particularly thorny time in the company's young history as a public company. Twitter's
stock has fallen about 42% this year amid mounting concerns the company's user
base is stalling after years of strong growth.
Also on
Thursday, hours after Mr. Rowghani's departure, another veteran executive
announced on Twitter her own plans to leave the company. Chloe Sladden, head of
North American media, was in charge of aligning the social-media company with
television.
Her
boss, Mr. Rowghani, was responsible for a number of groups within the company,
including the business development, international and media teams. Weeks before
the company's public offering in November, Mr. Costolo put Mr. Rowghani in
charge of the product team with the understanding he would oversee it for
several quarters to fix waning user-growth rates.
In recent weeks, however, the
relationship between the two executives soured, people familiar with the matter
said, when Mr. Costolo unexpectedly demanded that Mr. Rowghani give back
control of the product team months earlier than planned. Mr. Costolo sought to
place product and engineering under himself to streamline the reporting
process, according to another person. The dispute ultimately led Mr. Rowghani
to resign, these people said.
Some of
the people close to the company suggest that his departure speaks to a deeper
managerial issue of insecurity as Mr. Rowghani gained more influence at the
company.
People
familiar with the matter also said there were grumblings among lower-level
employees when Mr. Rowghani sold 300,000 shares of stock, pocketing $9.9
million, at a time when other senior executives and backers of the company
vowed to hold on to their shares as a vote of confidence in Twitter's future. A
question about why Mr. Rowghani parted with such a big chunk of shares was
asked at Twitter's regular companywide meeting known as "tea time,"
according to people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Rowghani said he wanted to
make a significant donation to brain research after his father passed away.
Tweets from the Twitter accounts of both executives on Thursday
showed no signs of animosity between the two. "Goodbye Twitter. It's been
an amazing ride, and I will cherish the memories," said a tweet from Mr. Rowghani's account on the
social network. Mr. Costolo's Twitter
account replied: "Thank you for being an incredible executive &
partner. Twitter could not have succeeded without you."
Twitter said Mr. Rowghani will continue to
be employed by the company, acting as an adviser to Mr. Costolo. Twitter said it
doesn't intend to hire a new COO and other
members of the management team will assume the duties.
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for the full article in the Wall Street Journal.