Twitter hires a former Goldman Sachs banker to serve as CFO

Twitter, everyone's favorite social network for seeing inside President Donald Trump's mind, has struggled with pleasing Wall Street and struggled to improve its diversity numbers.

On Tuesday, the company announced a new member of the flock who might be able to help with the first problem (but sure doesn't help with the second): Ned Segal will start as Twitter's chief financial officer in August.

CFO is an important position to fill, especially for a company that has a time-stressed staff and wants to be profitable this year.

Anthony Noto has been serving as both CFO and chief operating officer ever since Adam Bain stepped down from the latter role in November. Twitter cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey's time is also divided since he also serves as CEO of payments company Square.

Segal's qualifications as a banker seem legit. He most recently served as senior vice president of finance at Intuit, a publicly-traded company that has a market capitalization of nearly $34 billion. That's nearly three times the size of Twitter, which has been valued between $13 and $14 billion.

Prior to that role, Segal worked as CFO of the RPX Corporation from 2013 to 2015. He worked in banking at Goldman Sachs from 1996 to 2013. Noto also worked at Goldman Sachs during that time, leaving in 2008 to serve as CFO for the National Football League.

Clearly, Segal knows banking and has years of experience working for a Silicon Valley tech company. And, according to a tweet that he shared on Tuesday, he's pumped for the role:

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Interestingly, Segal seemingly isn't that active on the platform — at least when it comes to sending his own tweets (which is not unlike other hires and board members at Twitter who also personally use Twitter sparsely). As of Tuesday, he had only sent 19 tweets from his account, two of which were him being excited about joining Twitter.

A lack of tweeting does not mean Segal does not use Twitter. We all see tweets embedded online and flashed across television screens, of course.

As CFO, Segal will be tasked with convincing Wall Street investors and analysts — Twitter's worse enemy as, over the years, they watched user growth and advertiser interest stagnate and even dwindle — of the company's value.

Another disappointment to investors: Twitter was the talk of an acquisition by Google, Salesforce, or Disney last year, but nothing came to fruition.

Dorsey and Noto have promised that the independent company is on a path to profitability this year. Twitter laid off hundreds of employees and shattered businesses, like the 6-second app Vine, last year.

"He brings a principled, engaging and rigorous approach to the CFO role, with a track record of driving profitable growth," Dorsey said in a statement, according to CNBC.

Twitter's stock rose in 3 percent in after-hours trading Tuesday but fell back to below 1 percent soon after.

While Segal does fit the white male narrative typical of Silicon Valley and of Twitter, the company did hire a new head of diversity and inclusion. Candi Castleberry-Singleton started earlier this month, replacing Jeffrey Siminoff who had stepped down in February.

As typical across tech companies but vocally opposed by diversity advocates, Castleberry-Singleton is ranked as a vice president and not in the C-suite.

Twitter has brought in other leadership to steer the company forward. Cofounder Biz Stone, praised internally for his energy, returned last month to focus on the company's culture.