Ali Rowghani, chief operating officer of the under pressure social media company Twitter is resigning, the company just announced in a regulatory filing.
His departure was foreshadowed in a scoop by Re/Code’s Kara Swisher overnight.
Twitter’s share price has sunk by about 45% this year amid widespread investor concerns about its sluggish user growth. Rowghani, who was hired originally as chief financial officer at Twitter, was promoted to COO in late 2012.
A recent profile by the Wall Street Journal described Rowghani as “Mr Fix-it,” because he was responsible for fixing its user growth problems. That report even said he was being described internally as “co-CEO.” But for some shrewd observers, the writing has been on the wall since then.
At any rate, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has been nothing but complimentary this morning.
Twitter said Rowghani “will continue to be a Twitter employee and act as a strategic advisor to the CEO” but that it is effectively killing the COO role, and all of Rowghani’s operating responsibilities will be assumed by other members of the executive team.
Rowghani recently netted a profit of nearly $10 million profit after selling a large parcel of stock in the company.
We have previously written about the long, slow, decline of the COO position: This appears to be another telling example.