- Twitter has appointed Patrick Pichette as the company chairman
Twitter has appointed Patrick Pichette as the company chairman. Pichette previously served as the chief financial officer of Google. Prior to this promotion, Pichette was the company’s lead independent director at Twitter since December 31, 2018. Omid Kordestani — who was also a former executive at Google — had stepped down as the executive chairman at Twitter and is going to remain on the board as a non-employee director.
“Given the strength and depth of Twitter’s management team and board, we believe that now is the right time to evolve our governance structure in-line with best practices,” said Pichette in a statement. “Omid has been a valued member of our executive management and brought important leadership and stability to the team over the past five years. We are pleased to demonstrate our commitment to good governance and be in the position to make this important change. We look forward to continuing to benefit from Omid’s expertise on the board.”
“It has been my great pleasure to work alongside Twitter’s management team and help advance its mission over the past five years. I have seen firsthand the significant changes Twitter has undertaken to strengthen and stabilize its leadership structure to achieve long-term sustainable growth and feel confident that I can now step back from my active role as executive chair. Patrick has been an important, independent voice in the boardroom and is the right person to assume this new role as an independent chair. I look forward to continuing my work as a member of the board,” added Kordestani.
At Google, Pichette worked as SVP and chief financial officer between August 2008 and May 2015. And before joining Google, Pichette worked as an executive at Bell Canada. Before that, Pichette worked as a principal at McKinsey & Co. and as VP and CFO of Canadian telecommunications company Call-Net Enterprises.
Pichette is also listed as a director and board member of Bombardier and the Trudeau Foundation (a charity set up in the name of Justin Trudeau’s father). And Pichette is also a general partner at Canadian venture capital firm Inovia Capital.
There are 11 board members at Twitter, including 3 new directors. Jesse Cohn of Elliott Management, Egon Durban of Silver Lake, and Fei-Fei Lei are Twitter’s newest board members.
