Twitter’s managing director in China, Kathy Chen, has announced her resignation from the micro-blogging company after just eight months in office, the BBC reported. Chen was hired by Twitter in April 2016 as the company’s head of operations – having worked for Cisco and Microsoft in times past.
Chen’s departure from Twitter followed after a number of high-profile resignations from the company after some restructuring were carried out on Twitter’s Asia operations. Adam Messinger, the chief technology officer for Asia left some months ago, followed by Adam Bain, the chief operating officer.
Considering that she was an engineer in the Chinese military and has considerable links with the Chinese government in Beijing, many people had never felt at ease with Twitter’s appointment of Chen. But she had kept at her job and done considerably well, even though she had never used Twitter before her appointment.
Chen worked out of Twitter’s Hong Kong office as the managing director of Greater China.
Twitter is not accessible in mainland China having been blocked by the government, but people still manage to cloak their IP address to be able to access the micro-blogging site. Twitter is however able to do business with advertisers from China who want to enlarge their business to a worldwide market.
“Working at Twitter has opened my mind,” Chen had tweeted. “My passion is to connect people to the world through cross-cultural communications and businesses.” She revealed that Twitter’s revenue from Chinese advertisers had grown 400% under her brief leadership.
“7/12. Now that the Twitter APAC team is working directly with Chinese advertisers, this is the right time for me to leave the company,” Chen had tweeted according to CNN Money.
There is no immediate replacement for Chen at the moment, but she said she wants to take her time before considering more international business opportunities very soon.
Although Chen was not specific as to the reasons for her departure, it is widely believed that Twitter’s reconstructing of operations in Asia is responsible – this having been the reason why the company’s head of operations in India, Southeast Asia and Australia also left the organization.
According to Techcrunch, Chen used to be an engineer with China’s People’s Liberation Army and later CEO of a partnership business with China’s Ministry of Public Security. She has 20 years experience in financial and operational accounting in the area of asset management. She also used to be a tax consulting manager with Author Andersen LLP and Ernst & Young before becoming the director and CFO for a branch of Credit Suisse.