If you haven’t heard of the new Twitter CEO yet, it’s probably not on you, Parag Agrawal has remained behind the scenes in operations so far as the Chief Technology Officer of the company. But in a recent announcement made by Twitter on Monday, it was revealed that co-founder and CEO of 16 years, Jack Dorsey, is stepping down and passing the legacy on to Parag Agrawal.
Twitter was founded in 2006 by Dorsey, along with Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and Noah Glass, as one of its kind microblogging sites. However, with both Twitter and Square on the plate, the hustle was getting too much for the former CEO, who announced he was ready to pass along the company to Parag Agrawal from its founder-led roots.
“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders. My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart and soul. It’s his time to lead,” said Dorsey regarding his decision adding, “I want you all to know this was my decision and I own it.”
He believed that a company being founder-led is highly limiting and restrictive enough to be a point of failure.
Parag Agrawal in his response to the decision wrote, “I want to thank the board for their confidence in my leadership and Jack for his continued mentorship, support and partnership,” he has been with Twitter for more than 10 years, and became the CTO in 2017.
Agrawal is a 37-year-old immigrant from India who is more knowledgeable about his work and less involved in the face-value and popularity charts than other social media and tech CEOs such as the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg. Many analysts believe this is exactly what board members and shareholders will be looking for in the new leadership, as they move forward in the journey towards achieving the company’s upcoming goals.
With Parag Agrawal as the new Twitter CEO, we are also looking at the recurring discussion in the rise of Indian CEOs, whenever such an announcement makes the rounds in the media. In 2020, Sandeep Lakhmi Mathrani was announced as the CEO of WeWork, as was Arvind Krishna of IBM. The same discussions and discourse, lined with shock and disbelief, overtook the news, and many are asking the question, is it too unbelievable for these companies to have Indian-origin CEOs?
A global South Asian reporting website, The Juggernaut reports, compared to the 19% of all Americans, 32% of all Indian Americans have a bachelor’s degree or higher. This in line with the data regarding Indian-origin CEOs listed on the Fortune 500 shows that their companies outperform the Nasdaq during their tenure. All this to say, it is not as surprising that Indian-origin CEOs continue to rise over the period, considering their literacy level and performance in respective positions that help their firms achieve growth.
