Twitter asked former Cisco executive to be its next CEO

The San Francisco-based social media company has been under the microscope from investors for months, as its stock has slipped and its top spot has remained empty.

Padmasree Warrior, a Vijaywada native, is one of the few faces in the race for the post of Twitter CEO, according to a report published by Bloomberg Business.

Though the company’s former chief executive Dick Costolo exit was not a surprised one, the board did not keep a back-up plan ready and opened itself up for the shareholders’ scrutiny that led to a decline in its share prices.

Twitter Inc.is rumored to be talking to both former Cisco Systems Inc. executive Padmasree Warrior and CBS Interactive Inc.’s Jim Lanzone about becoming its new CEO.

Additionally, a report from Re/code on Wednesday said that according to people inside Twitter, Dorsey is “definitely acting like he’s sticking around”.

Jim Prosser, a spokesman for Twitter, declined to comment.

Another potential candidate is Adam Bain, now serving as the company’s revenue chief.

“Jack Dorsey, on paper and with his history, is probably a great candidate, but not if he’s also going to be CEO of Square”, Sinan Aral, a corporate governance professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, told Bloomberg.

The unnamed sources also indicate that those choices aren’t serious considerations, given that Dorsey is the founder of Twitter.

Investors are getting impatient and want Twitter to appoint a permanent and full-time leader as Dorsey is already a CEO of Square – which is on the verge of an initial public offering. Trevor O’Brien, another product leader, has also left.

In the meantime, while it’s better to get the CEO pick right than to rush, the board needs to provide some answers after its meeting this week, or risk more employee departures and stock volatility.