Twitter appoints former Google exec as chairman

Omid Kordestani has been appointed Twitter's executive chairman to work alongside Jack Dorsey in his second stint as CEO

Twitter Inc appointed former Google executive Omid Kordestani as its executive chairman, holding good on a promise to appoint an outsider to work alongside co-founder Jack Dorsey in his second stint as CEO.

Twitter's shares rose in early trading after Dorsey tweeted the appointment, but were down 1.4 percent at $28.65 by mid-morning.

Announcing Dorsey's appointment as CEO last week, Twitter said it would look outside the company for a chairman to allay concerns about his dual role as head of mobile payments company Square Inc.

Kordestani, 51, joined Google as its 11th employee in 1999 and stayed for 10 years. After a few years away, during which he was an adviser to the CEO, he returned full-time in October 2014 as Google's chief business officer.
 
He became a senior adviser in August, helping the company through its rebranding as Alphabet Inc.

"It's quite a coup," said James Cordwell, analyst at Atlantic Equities. "He was very well-respected at Google both for his business skills and, apparently, his personnel skills." Twitter is working to rekindle growth after reporting in the last quarter its slowest rise in monthly average users since the company went public in 2013. It plans to lay off up to 8 percent of its workforce. Kordestani's extensive sales experience at Google would prove a good foil for Dorsey's product knowledge, analysts said.

"He has incredible business acumen and can help fine-tune the strategy and attract talent to Twitter," said James Cakmak, analyst Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co.

Kordestani - a trusted adviser of Larry Page in Google's early days - received a $60 million equity award from Google in 2014, plus a one-time supplemental equity award worth $65 million. He also received a sign-on bonus of $5 million when he returned as chief business officer - a position that gave him responsibility for revenue and marketing.

"It's rare you get to be at a company with an amazing business that's also transforming the world," Kordestani tweeted. "I've had good fortune to be at three: Netscape, @google, and now @twitter."

He hold a masters degree in business administration from Stanford University, according to his LinkedIn profile. Google wished Kordestani well at Twitter, saying he had been "instrumental in establishing Google's business and helped us develop really close, longstanding partnerships across the industry."