As two executives step down, Twitter’s new CEO, Parag Agrawal, begins restructuring

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down earlier this week. He named CTO Parag Agrawal as the company’s new CEO, effective immediately. According to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Agrawal, who joined Twitter as an engineer in 2011, has already announced a major reorganization of the company. Twitter also confirmed the news to TechCrunch.

As part of this restructuring, two executives have stepped down: Twitter’s Chief Design Officer Dantley Davis, who joined the company in 2019, and Head of Engineering Michael Montano, who joined in 2011.

The New York Times reported in August on Davis’ “tough love” workplace policy, which company officials said went too far at times. This behavior appeared to contradict Twitter’s #LoveWhereYouWork and #OneTeam slogans, which emphasize “creating a supportive, respectful, and pretty cool vibe.”

“Dantley’s departure is solely focused on shifting our organizational model to one that has one lead manager supporting a key company objective,” a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We don’t have any additional information on these changes to share out of respect for the individuals involved.”

“Parag is focused on operational excellence and setting Twitter up to hit its goals; these changes were made with that in mind. For our teams working within the product and technology organizations, we’re moving to a General Manager model and having one person lead work that supports one of our key company objectives. This will allow us to operate more cross-functionally and enable faster, more informed decision-making,” the Twitter spokesperson added.

Dorsey was chastised and even sued earlier this year by a shareholder for his dual CEO roles at Twitter and Square, the fintech behemoth he also co-founded. Twitter had previously been slow to innovate, but for the majority of this year, the platform has rapidly added new features such as its subscription Twitter Blue service, Spaces audio rooms, Super Follows, Ticketed Spaces, crypto features, and more. Agrawal has expressed a desire to keep up the pace at Twitter.

“We’ve recently updated our strategy to hit ambitious goals, and I believe that strategy is bold and correct,” Agrawal wrote in an email to employees on Monday, which he then tweeted. “How we work to execute against it and deliver results is our critical challenge — that’s how we’ll make Twitter the best it can be for our customers, shareholders, and each of you.”

It’s been a week of enormous change for both companies Dorsey co-founded. Square announced a rebranding to Block just days after announcing his resignation as CEO of Twitter.