Twitter has appointed co-founder Jack Dorsey as their new CEO. He had been holding an interim role since June when previous chief executive officer Dick Costolo resigned from the role he had been in for five years. This left the social media giant in a tricky position and was causing worry amongst shareholders. The response to the news of the appointment is positive and saw shares rise by 7%.
The delay with appointing Jack Dorsey to the full CEO role was caused by the fact that he is also the chief executive of Square, a payments company he started in 2009. It was feared that he would not be able to handle managing both companies but he managed to convince the current Twitter board and a number of the shareholders that he is up to the task.
Twitter is optimistic about the direction they will be able to take with Jack Dorsey serving as full time CEO. The company had struggled with gaining access to a wider market and continued to lag behind their biggest competitor Facebook. Whilst serving in an interim role Dorsey reshuffled personnel and it is expected this restructuring will continue as he makes necessary changes that will help take the company forward.
As interim leader Jack Dorsey also accelerated product launches so that Twitter could be quicker getting to the market with new ideas and innovation. This is crucial in social media because competition is so high and consumers are always looking for the newest features and tools. To help with this Dorsey also gave his backing to Project Lightning, a news and content platform that takes a unique look at the traditional timeline.
It will be interesting to see what other moves Twitter makes now but it is clear that something is needed to help boost performance. Their share price is currently below the initial price that shares went on sale for during the IPO (initial public offering) in 2013. Over the last year alone before the appointment they had fallen almost 50%. It is hoped that the new CEO will be able to turn things around.