Yahoo Finance Twitter ad sales head, diversity chief resign amid turbulent Musk takeover
Twitter's Chief Consumer Officer Sarah Personette and Chief of People and Diversity Dalana Brand have left the company. Both Personette and Brand announced their departures in respective Twitter threads on Tuesday morning.
Personette, who was in charge of Twitter's ad sales business, said that she resigned on Friday, and her work access was officially cut off by Tuesday. Brand also resigned on Friday. The previous day, Musk fired four key executives immediately after his takeover: CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde.
It has been the greatest privilege to serve all of you as a leader and a partner. Many have heard me say this but the most important role I believe I played in the company was championing the requirements of brand safety.
— Sarah Personette (@SEP) November 1, 2022
With Personette and Brand out of the picture, the number of remaining pre-Musk executives at Twitter is dwindling, with more key personnel rumored to be leaving as well. Jay Sullivan, Twitter's head of product, deleted the bio on his Twitter account, which previously denoted his role at the company. The previous head of product, Kayvon Beykpour, was let go by former CEO Agrawal in May.
Brand joined Twitter in 2018, previously serving as VP of People Experience and Head of Inclusion & Diversity. She was appointed to her most recent role in February of this year, making her the first Black woman to serve in Twitter's c-suite, according to Ebony.
A former Facebook marketing VP, Personette had worked at Twitter since October 2018, when she joined as a VP of Global Client Solutions, per LinkedIn. She was promoted to chief customer officer in August 2021. That role is crucial to Twitter's business, since the majority of its revenue comes from ad sales.
After 4 amazing years, I resigned from Twitter on Friday. It has truly been one of the best experiences of my career and every moment embodied #LoveWhereYouWork.
— Dalana Brand (@DalanaBrand) November 1, 2022
With Musk expected to make changes to content moderation policies, both Personette and Brand would have had to seriously navigate the consequences of his leadership.
As newly installed "Chief Twit" Elon Musk took over on Thursday, he posted a screenshot of a letter he wrote to Twitter advertisers, vowing that the platform "obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape." Personette quote-tweeted his message, saying that she had a great conversation with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO. She added, "Our continued commitment to brand safety for advertisers remains unchanged. Looking forward to the future!"
Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022
But by the following evening, she had resigned.
"It has been the greatest privilege to serve all of you as a leader and a partner," Personette said. "Many have heard me say this but the most important role I believe I played in the company was championing the requirements of brand safety."
Update, 11/1/22, 5:30 PM ET to include information about Dalana Brand's departure.
