Twitter CEO Announcement Spotlights Rare Executive Move

CTOs and chief information officers are now more visible within the C-Suite as technology becomes an increasingly critical part of businesses. Still, they need to have the right combination of personality, leadership skills, and experience before they can grasp the top spot—making the direct transition from tech chief to CEO uncommon.

“Going directly from CTO to CEO is a pretty dramatic change on the surface,” says Tim Crawford, CIO strategic adviser at Los Angeles-based advisory firm AVOA. “Those two, at least historically, have tended to be very different. Very different priorities, very different skill sets and focus areas.”

The transition typically makes sense within tech companies when the tech chief has enough experience with other aspects of the business and the right leadership skills head up the company, Mr. Crawford said.

In an email that Mr. Dorsey posted to his Twitter account Monday, he called Mr. Agrawal “curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware, and humble.” He added: “He’s been my choice for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs.”

Mr. Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 as a software engineer and became CTO in 2017. He holds a PhD in computer science from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, according to his bio on Twitter’s website.

Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst for Constellation Research Inc., said Mr. Agrawal has proven himself in various elements of the business, including fixing Twitter’s advertising platform and helping launch a host of new paid services.

“He’s shown that he can actually do that with the team that they have, and that’s very important,” says Mr. Wang.

The transition from CTO to CEO has some precedent. Verizon Communications Inc. Chairman and CEO

Hans Vestberg

was the company’s chief technology officer until his 2018 promotion.

But it is more common for a CTO or CIO to go onto an intermediary role, such as chief operating officer, before becoming CEO, experts say.

In a 2019 study by executive search firm

Korn Ferry,

51% of technology officers surveyed said they wanted to be a CEO during their career. But only 12% said it was the role they wanted next.

Gerry McNamara, vice chairman of Korn Ferry’s technology officers practice, says technology officers know they need additional experience to be ready to run a company. Especially critical for an incoming CEO is experience with profit-and-loss responsibilities, he said.

Intel Corp. CEO

Pat Gelsinger

was the chipmaker’s CTO between 2000 and 2005 before becoming president and COO of EMC Corp. He then became CEO of VMware Inc. in 2012. He returned to Intel as CEO in 2021.

Satya Nadella,

Microsoft Corp.’s chief executive, previously held leadership roles on both the enterprise and the consumer side of the business, including vice president of the Microsoft Business Division and executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group.

Similar career paths are being traversed more frequently at tech companies, according to John Keller, a managing director at executive search and leadership consulting firm Raines International. He says that is because those tech chiefs are typically “right in the center of where a company needs to go.”

“You’re going to be seeing more and more of this happening” according to Mr. Keller.

Outside of technology companies, the journey from tech chief to chief executive is less common, but still occurs.

Steve Squeri,

the chairman and CEO of American Express Co., served as the company’s CIO from 2005-2009. He then became the group president of global services and vice chairman, before taking the reins as CEO in 2018.

Greg Carmichael

was CIO of Fifth Third Bancorp before becoming COO and eventually CEO in 2015.

Transitions such as these are becoming more plausible as tech plays an increasingly vital role in other types of businesses, according to Emmeline Kuhn, who co-leads the operations and information technology practice at executive search firm Leathwaite.

“Technology is the core of every business going forward,” Ms. Kuhn said.