Twitter appoints ex-Google CFO Pichette as chairman

A former chief financial officer at Google, Patrick Pichette, has been appointed as the social network’s board chairman of Twitter Inc TWTR.O on Tuesday.

According to Reuters, Pichette's appointment marks the first time in Twitter’s history that an outsider will preside over the group.

Pichette, who had been Twitter’s lead independent director since the end of 2018, will replace Omid Kordestani in leading the directors as chairman.

Kordestani, his predecessor who has been Twitter's executive chairman for nearly five years, will stay on as a director, serving on the 11-member board alongside three new directors.

The move comes three months after Elliott Management, the $40 billion hedge fund, had sought to oust CEO Jack Dorsey, pushed for improved corporate governance and wanted to see a higher share price. The two sides reached an agreement in early March that let Dorsey stay, for now, and handed board seats to Elliott among others.

Investors have been increasingly pushing for outsiders to preside over boards.

Pichette is expected to bring greater scrutiny of management and a stronger focus on financial matters to the company. Twitter’s stock price closed at $32.26 on Tuesday, down 12.5% in the last 52 weeks.

Jesse Cohn, who led Elliott’s campaign, Egon Durban, Silver Lake’s co-chief executive, and artificial intelligence expert Fei-Fei Lei joined the board as part of the deal.