Turmoil at Twitter India, second big exit in three days

Singh released a number of tweets on his feed as he announced his resignation on Twitter. After saying that he had quit, he said that his position and responsibility of India & Southeast East Asia region will now be managed by Maya Hari who currently works as Senior director, Product Strategy & Sales for the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa regions.

Twitter India seems to be going through a churn as the Indian arm of the company has seen two high profile exits in just two days with Parminder Singh, managing director for Southeast Asia, middle east and India, has quit the company after a 3 year stint. This comes within three days of Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly’s resignation.

Singh released a number of tweets on his feed as he announced his resignation on Twitter. After saying that he had quit, he said that his position and responsibility of India & Southeast East Asia region will now be managed by Maya Hari who currently works as Senior director, Product Strategy & Sales for the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa regions.(via Twitter)

Singh released a number of tweets on his feed as he announced his resignation on Twitter. After saying that he had quit, he said that his position and responsibility of India & Southeast East Asia region will now be managed by Maya Hari who currently works as Senior director, Product Strategy & Sales for the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa regions.

Hindustan Times had first reported that other high profile resignation following Jaitly’s. “Rishi Jaitly’s resignation is possibly just the beginning of the end of the current leadership in India and more resignations might follow,” a person in know of the developments had told HT.

After Jaitly, Parminder Singh (managing director of middle east and north Africa or MENA/Southeast Asia/India), Arvinder Gujral (senior director, business development) and Raheel Khursheed (head of news, government, tech and other portfolios, India market) might also resign from their individual positions, the source said.

However when asked, Twitter in a statement, said that the company thanked Parminder for his stint and contribution.

“Parry felt now is an appropriate time for him to pursue other passions and work on his next adventure to help a content-based startup in Singapore and India. Over the next month, he will be closely involved in transitioning the business to the new leadership for continuity and momentum,” the company said.

“As part of our sales restructuring process, the MENA region will now be part of our EMEA business, while Southeast Asia & India remain part of our Asia Pacific business, headed by Aliza Knox, our VP of Asia Pacific,” it said adding that Hari will report to Aliza Knox.

It also said that Taranjeet Singh will continue to be Twitter’s business head for India and remains the key client contact for Indian brand marketers and advertisers.

Singh, who started his journey in Twitter in November 2013, was previously responsible for leading the display advertising business for the Asia Pacific region.

His previous stints include working for Google India division as business head for approximately three years. It was at Google where Singh led monetization efforts of the IPL cricket tournament streaming on YouTube. His other efforts include looking after monetization for other Google properties like Search, Google Display Network and Orkut.

When HT published its first report, a twitter executive said “there was a bigger story in this”. Twitter is looking to focus on higher advertising revenue, with a leaner and flexible team focussing on building a sales and marketing team in India, in line with the company’s global strategy.

In its new avatar, Twitter will focus on building traction in multi-format videos, also an important area for Facebook and Google. It has also moved away from its 140-character limit, it no longer includes videos and pictures within that.

India is the silver lining in Twitter’s operations,and the company’s co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey, doesn’t want to let go. According to data from San Francisco-based app intelligence firm App Annie, Twitter’s monthly active user base grew 35% in the country in September, compared to the previous month, while in the US it increased only 4%. The total time spent by Indians on the micro-blogging site also grew 60% in September.

Incidentally, Jaitly had helped popularise Twitter in India, especially its adoption among government departments to respond to citizen queries.