Twitter is losing the head of its Asia Pacific business, Aliza Knox, after she announced the end of her near-five year tenure with the company.
Knox was Twitter’s first hire in Asia — minus Japan — when she joined the company in 2012. (Twitter runs its Japan business separate from its APAC operations.) Prior to that, she spent five years at Google, rising to the position of APAC MD of commerce.
Knox built out Twitter’s presence in Asia, which started with an office in Singapore (now APAC HQ) and currently spans nine locations (including Tokyo) and over 100 staff. In addition, her team developed the firm’s regional advertising and partnership businesses.
Her exit comes on the back of the loss of a number of high-profile Asia-based executives last year. Those departures included China head Kathy Chen, head of India and Southeast Asia Parminder Singh, India lead Rishi Jaitly, and Australia country boss Karen Stocks. Other changes for Twitter’s Asia business included the elimination of around 20 jobs from its Bangalore office in September, and a number of roles were “transitioned” from its Hong Kong office to the regional headquarters in Singapore.
Singapore-based Knox will remain with Twitter for the next couple of weeks, the company confirmed, during which she will handover to Maya Hari, previously Twitter’s MD of India and Southeast Asia, who will replace her in the APAC leadership role.
“We thank Aliza for her contributions and leadership over the past four years and a half years. She pioneered Twitter’s Asia Pacific business (outside of Japan), championed our expansion into new markets and businesses such as Indonesia and China export advertising, set up our Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, and led our diversity initiatives across the region,” Twitter said in a statement.