Parag Agrawal

Parag Agrawal became Twitter CEO on Monday after Jack Dorsey announced his resignation. The move was apparently months in the making. There were rumours that the Twitter board was looking to replace Jack Dorsey with someone else. The search, it seems, finally ended with an in-house candidate. Parag, who until now was Twitter's CTO, is assuming the role as the company CEO immediately.

So, who is Parag Agarwal? Like another big Indian-origin tech CEO — we are talking about Sundar Pichai at Google — Parag is also from IIT. Although he is from IIT Mumbai. Aged 37, Parag has been at Twitter for a while and, apparently, he is well-liked by Jack Dorsey, one likely factor that helped him clinch the top post at Twitter.

In its press note, Twitter gives some details of Parag's career within the company. Twitter notes, "Parag Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and has served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) since October 2017. As CTO, he has been responsible for the Company's technical strategy, leading work to improve development velocity while advancing the state of Machine Learning across the company. Prior to being appointed CTO, Parag had risen to be Twitter's first Distinguished Engineer due to his work across revenue and consumer engineering, including his impact on the re-acceleration of audience growth in 2016 and 2017."

Twitter also provides more details about Parag's studies. "Parag holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay," the company says. Here is Parag's brief profile in 10 points.

1- Parag, aged 37, is an alumnus of IIT Mumbai. He did his bachelors in engineering in computer science here. Then he moved to the US for further studies, with his doctorate coming from Stanford University. He did his schooling from Atomic Energy Central School. Parag's mother is a retired school teacher. His father was employed in the atomic energy sector and held senior positions there.

2- Parag joined Twitter in 2011. Before that, he briefly worked at Microsoft, AT&T and Yahoo. In all three companies, his work was mostly research-oriented. Initially, at Twitter, he worked on ad-related products, but gradually he also dabbled in artificial intelligence. In 2017, when he was promoted to the role of Twitter CTO, here is what the company said in a statement: "In his capacity as CTO, he's focused on scaling a cohesive machine learning and AI approach across our consumer and revenue product and infrastructure teams."

3- Parag is apparently well-liked by outgoing CEO Jack Dorsey. In his email on Monday sent to all Twitter employees, Dorsey wrote: "The board ran a rigorous process considering all options and unanimously appointed Parag. He's been my choice for some time, given how deeply he understands the company and its needs. Parag has been behind every critical decision that helped turn this company around. He's curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware, and humble. He leads with heart and soul and is someone I learn from daily. My trust in him as our CEO is bone deep."