In a statement, Twitter Inc said, "Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) today announced that Jack Dorsey has decided to step down as Chief Executive Officer and that the Board of Directors has unanimously appointed Parag Agrawal as CEO and a member of the Board, effective immediately. Dorsey will remain a member of the Board until his term expires at the 2022 meeting of stockholders."
Agrawal has been with the company for more than a decade and has served as CTO since 2017, Twitter added.
Born in India, Agrawal did his B.Tech from IIT Bombay and MS, PhD from Stanford University in California. He joined Twitter in October 2011 and held several positions at the company most recently including "Distinguished Software Engineer".
Prior to joining Twitter, Agrawal held leadership positions at Microsoft Research and Yahoo! Research.
Dorsey, who has been Twitter CEO since 2015, decided to step down because he believes that the company is ready to move on from its founders.
"My trust in Parag as Twitter's CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I'm deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul. It's his time to lead," Dorsey said.
"There's a lot of talk about the importance of a company being 'founder-led.' Ultimately I believe that's severely limiting and a single point of failure. I've worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders," he added.
Notably, Dorsey had cofounded the social media giant in 2006. He later went on to become one of the topmost technology entrepreneurs.