Twitter hires Zynga treasurer Gupta
Treasurer departs to take up finance-based role with microblogging site.
Mike Gupta has left his position as Zynga treasurer to take up the role of vice president of corporate finance and treasurer at Twitter just over a year after joining the operator.
The appointment has been confirmed by Twitter in a statement circulated today, Bloomberg reports, as the company looks to bring in management staff with experience of working in public companies in preparation for an initial public offering. Gupta will report to the microblogging site’s CFO Ali Rowghani, who previously served as the finance chief for the Disney-owned animation studio Pixar.
Gupta’s departure came just days after it was announced that Zynga CFO David Wehner had left the company for a finance position at Facebook, initiating an executive reshuffle at the company. Wehner was replaced by Mark Vranesh, who held the role of CFO from May 2008 to August 2010, while a number of other employees received promotions.
David Ko was promoted from chief mobile officer to COO, replacing John Schappert who left in July, while Barry Cottle has left his role as executive vice president of business and corporate development to become chief revenue officer. Steven Chiang has also been promoted to vice president of games.
The reshuffle, and subsequently Gupta’s departure, came after the company had seen a number of management staff leave the business, including chief marketing and revenue officer Jeff Karp and chief creative officer Mike Verdu.
The continuing poor performance of a number of key products, coupled with delays in launching new titles, has seen the company record heavy losses in its first year as a listed business, culminating in the news that a number of studios were to be closed, with 5% of Zynga’s total workforce to be made redundant. At the company’s results call chief executive Mark Pincus admitted that the business “failed to meet [its] own targets.”