Twitter India head Taranjeet Singh quits, Balaji Krish named interim chief

Taranjeet Singh, who was promoted as Twitter Inc.’s country director for India in May 2017, has resigned from the microblogging company.

Singh announced his resignation in a series of tweets on Tuesday. Twitter's global head of revenue strategy and operations, Balaji Krish, will become the interim India head.

Hello everyone, after 4 amazing years, I have decided to move on from @TwitterIndia - from being one of the first @Twitter employees in #India, to building up the sales team from the ground up, to leading our expansion and investments as the India Country Director #AmazingRide pic.twitter.com/qMG4QDvL4a

— Taranjeet Singh (@taranjeet24) September 4, 2018

According to his LinkedIn profile, Singh had been business head of Twitter’s India operations since January 2015, a role that encompassed striking partnerships with brands and agencies to use the microblogging site as a digital marketing platform.

“India is one of our largest and fastest growing markets worldwide today. We have hired many Tweeps at @TwitterIndia, diversified our client base across the country and continue to be the pulse of Indian society - breaking news, sports, entertainment, politics #Growth,” Singh tweeted.

Singh said he will spend the next month transitioning his duties to Krish, who is coming from the US to be the interim country head until a permanent replacement is hired. He didn't specify any reason for his departure. He also didn't say where he is headed next.

An INSEAD alumnus, Singh has spent a significant part of his career with the media industry. Before joining Twitter, he served as a sales director for BBC’s Southeast Asian operations. He has also worked at other media publications in the past, including Outlook magazine and the Pioneer newspaper.

Singh's departure comes at a time when Twitter’s global user growth has stalled in the past few quarters and India revenues have been uninspiring, even as the company tries to win back advertisers.

In the first quarter of 2017, Twitter registered a stronger-than-expected profit despite stiff competition from Facebook and Snapchat. 

As part of its monetisation strategy, Twitter last year said it was exploring a premium version of its popular Tweetdeck interface. 

Also last year, it launched a faster version of its mobile service, Twitter Lite, aimed at emerging markets, where slow data network is a widespread phenomenon.