Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has demoted its VP of Product Daniel Graf, who was hired just few months back. Graf, a former Google employee joined Twitter in April, will now be replaced by VP Kevin Weil, who will supervise all Twitter’s products in the future.
Graf demoted, Weil promoted
Weil has been working in the company as the vice president of revenue products and has been a Twitter employee since 2009. The Wall Street journal brought the VP shuffle to the light first.
Graf reported to CEO Dick Costolo when he was working in the capacity of Vice President of Product, but now he will report to Weil. Costolo was not happy with the pace at which the Twitter product segment was moving ahead, says the Journal citing sources familiar with the matter. During the earnings call on Monday, Costolo did indicate that he wanted to see faster speed compared to the pace at which the company is moving now.
Graf will continue to be VP of Product, but he will no longer be heading Twitter Inc’s consumer product team after being demoted. Weil, on the other hand, was promoted to the vice president of revenue product last year, and is the youngest executive to report directly to Costolo. Weil has a reputation of implementing plans quickly. Graf will now supervise the geo-location products at Twitter, according to the WSJ.
Twitter under pressure to expand user base
The feeble user growth of the micro-blogging company is exerting huge pressure on the CEO to show some significant innovation in its products and expand its membership. Costolo is fighting the perception that Twitter is meant for technologically literate folks, which needs to change if Twitter wants to turn into a major revenue generating company social media firm.
At present, users can tag their locations to a tweet, but there are other location-specific features that the company wants to integrate in the website. For instance, Twitter could show users tweets from a specific area or send out an ad based on businesses nearby.
Costolo is known for shuffling the management now and then, and this is nothing new. Previously, Costolo replaced his CFO, fired his COO and has replaced the VP of media, engineering and product over the past six months.
