Vivian Schiller, the high-profile media executive hired to run Twitter’s news unit, is leaving the company less than a year into the job.
Vivian Schiller, a former NBC and NPR executive, was appointed to the newly created position of head of news and journalism partnerships at the end of October 2013.
The move is part of a larger consolidation across the media division led by its new head, Katie Jacobs Stanton.
Inevitably Schiller tweeted her departure:
1/3 Stepping down from Twitter so new global media lead @katies can reorganize as she sees fit. Wish everyone at twitter nothing but best.
— Vivian Schiller (@vivian) October 8, 2014
The surprise move is one of a series of high-profile departures from the social media firm in recent months.
Chief operating officer Ali Rowghani, a former Pixar executive nicknamed “Twitter’s Mr Fix It”, quit in June as the company appeared to be struggling to attract new users. Chloe Sladden, former head of media, left shortly after. Twitter’s product chief, Michael Sippey, resigned in January; and in May, Christopher Fry, the senior vice-president of engineering, left.
Schiller’s deep ties to major US news organisations were seen as key to Twitter’s strategy to become “indispensable to newsrooms and journalists”, as the posting advertising her position stated.
Before joining Twitter Schiller was the chief digital officer for NBC News and had previously been CEO and president of NPR. She was formerly senior vice-president and general manager of the New York Times website.
In a staff memo obtained by tech news site Re/Code, Stanton wrote: “As we continue to streamline the global media team and become more operationally efficient, we have decided to merge our news, gov & elections teams in North America. These teams have always worked in close partnership and we believe the new leadership structure will allow for even better synergy and best practice sharing among these important partners. As part of this transition, Vivian Schiller has decided to step down from her role.
“I want to thank Vivian for all she has done at Twitter this year. Her knowledge and experience in the field of journalism and her respect among industry peers have been instrumental to our work and reputation with news organizations.”
