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After CEO Dick Costolo, Twitter’s M&A head Rishi Garg steps down

By Binu Paul

  • 30 Jun 2015
After CEO Dick Costolo, Twitter’s M&A head Rishi Garg steps down
Credit: Rishi Garg

Rishi Garg, an Indian-origin executive who led Twitter's mergers and acquisitions team, has quit the micro-blogging site to “pursue some exciting new projects.”

This is the second high-profile exit from Twitter this month after Dick Costolo stepped down from his position as CEO in yet another top-deck shakeout.

“After a fantastic ride as Twitter’s VP corporate development and strategy, I’m saying farewell today (Saturday)”, Garg tweeted.

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"Our team has built a stronger Twitter with a dozen acquisitions in the past year including @periscopeco, @zipdial, @tellapart, @joinniche...I’m off to pursue some exciting new projects; more soon!,” he added.

The development was first reported by technology blog Re/code.

As vice president for corporate development and strategy, Garg was at the forefront of 12 acquisitions made by the company, including that of Bangalore-based missed call-based customer engagement platform Zipdial.

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Machine learning startup Whetlab, digital ad platform TellApart, live streaming app Periscope and social content distribution services startup JoinNiche are among the other assets acquired by Twitter during this period. Garg had joined Twitter in 2011.

“It's been a privilege to bring incredible entrepreneurs into the #flock like @kayvz, @crazyfoo, @valwagoner, @jeffma, @dlach5 and @gabor. I can't wait to witness the company's next chapter under @jack, a truly gifted leader and human being," Garg’s twitter post said.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Garg worked at Square as head of corporate development before joining Twitter. Square was founded by Jack Dorsey, who now also serves as the interim CEO of Twitter after Costolo stepped down.

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Before joining Square, Rishi co-founded FanSnap, a live event ticket search company that was acquired by Nextag Inc. Previously, he served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at General Catalyst Partners and worked at Google, where he built the first operating plan and business model for Google PrintAds.

Garg has a Bachelor in Arts (in economics) and MS in industrial engineering from Stanford University. He also received an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Twitter has seen a string of top-deck shakeouts of late. Costolo’s departure was said to be triggered by the social media giant’s stalling user growth. Twitter’s director of corporate development and strategy Jessica Verilli announced her decision to leave the company last month to take up a role at Google Ventures.

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Meanwhile, Twitter’s board has formed a search committee led by lead independent director Peter Currie along with Peter Fenton and Evan Williams to scout for a permanent CEO. The committee will use the services of a leading executive search firm which will consider both internal and external candidates for the CEO position.

In its second quarter outlook for this year, Twitter expects revenue to be in the range of $470 million to $485 million and adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $97 million to $102 million.

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