Given new position as Senior VP, Head of Strategic Investments.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Corporate re-shuffling at social media giant Twitter has led to Mike Gupta becoming the company’s new Senior Vice-President and Head of Strategic Investments, meaning that he is no longer the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
As Gupta becomes a Senior Vice-President at Twitter, his old position has been assumed by Anthony Noto, the co-head of the Technology, Media, and Telecom Investment Banking group at Goldman Sachs. The changes were announced by Twitter on Tuesday.
Gupta became Twitter’s CFO in December of 2012, taking over for Ali Rowghani, who moved on to become the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) – Rowghani left the company in May, and although it has not been publicly confirmed, insiders believe that Rowghani’s departure jump-started the job shuffle.
Taking to Twitter after the announcement of the new moves, Gupta apparently does not have any problem with being replaced, and said that he is ready to get started in his new role.
“Thanks [Twitter CEO Dick Costello.] Thrilled to start my new role as Head of Strategic Investments. Looking forward to having [Noto] on the team,” Gupta tweeted early Tuesday morning.
Noto thanked the Coatue hedge fund on Twitter, saying that it was their “support” that made this “once in a lifetime opportunity at [Twitter] possible.” Noto had announced last month that he was going to be leaving Goldman Sachs to head up the Coatue hedge fund, and his tweet implies that he needed to amicably back out of that arrangement in order to proceed with becoming Twitter’s new CFO.
Considered a market analyst wunderkind, Noto was a major player in Twitter’s hugely successful IPO last year. Unlike Facebook, which practically face-planted after going public in 2012, Twitter experienced robust growth and kept investors happy – Noto has received much of the credit for that.
Gupta, meanwhile, joined Twitter in 2012 after being involved with Zynga Inc. and Google Ventures. He earned his B.S. in Accounting and Economics from New York University, and his M.B.A. (with honors) from the University of Chicago. BusinessWeek reports that Gupta’s annual salary as CFO of Twitter was just shy of $25 million.