Twitter Chief Operating Officer Anthony Noto left the social media firm in order to head online lending startup SoFi, the company disclosed in a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Noto notified Twitter of his intentions to resign on Monday, only days after initial reports about his possible departure emerged. The executive served as the firm’s second-in-command since 2014 when Twitter hired him from Goldman Sachs where he worked as the account manager for the microblogging platform and played an important role in its initial public offering in late 2013 which saw the company valued at $24 billion. Today, its shares are trading at under $23, nearly half its IPO price. Mr. Noto was persuaded to accept the COO position with a $60 million stock award.
Twitter didn’t mention SoFi by name but the startup was widely reported to have offered Mr. Noto the position of its Chief Executive Officer last week. The San Francisco company will be celebrating its seventh anniversary this summer but is without a permanent CEO since September when its co-founder Mike Cagney resigned in response to a lawsuit against the startup based on its corporate culture in which gender-based discrimination and harassment were supposedly thriving. Following the events, Executive Chairman Tom Hutton accepted the role of interim CEO. Twitter didn’t name a direct successor to Mr. Noto, having only said his responsibilities will be assumed by other top executives for the time being. Twitter VP of Global Revenue and Operations Matt Derella is expected to take over the bulk of the former COO’s duties for the time being, in addition to heading the company’s advertising unit like he did so far.
CEO Jack Dorsey officially congratulated Mr. Noto on the new role as part of a prepared statement to which he received an equally prepared response calling the COO role at Twitter “a once in a lifetime [sic] opportunity.” The departing COO played an important part in leading Twitter to the brink of profitability four years after its IPO. The social media company is expected to report a positive net income for the first time ever as part of its consolidated financials covering the final quarter of 2017 which are scheduled to be published on February 8th.