Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Stepping Down

(RTTNews) - Micro-blogging site Twitter Inc (TWTR) said Thursday that Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo will step down on July 1. Costolo has held the CEO position since October 2010.

Co-Founder and Chairman Jack Dorsey will serve as Interim CEO while the board conducts a search for next CEO, the San Francisco, California-based company said in a statement. Previously, Dorsey served as President and CEO of Twitter from May 2007 to October 2008.

Costolo will remain on Twitter's Board of Directors, and Dorsey will continue to serve as CEO of Square, Inc., the payments and financial services company he co-founded in 2009.

Twitter's Board has formed a CEO search committee, which includes board members Peter Currie, Peter Fenton and Evan Williams. The committee will hire an executive search firm to help conduct a global search, in which both internal and external candidates will be considered.

"I am tremendously proud of the Twitter team and all that the team has accomplished together during my six years with the Company. We have great leaders who work well together and a clear strategy that informs our objectives and priorities. There is no one better than Jack Dorsey to lead Twitter during this transition," said Costolo.

Twitter also reaffirmed its second quarter outlook, which calls for revenue of $470 million to $485 million and adjusted EBITDA of $97 million to $102 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters currently expect the company to post revenue of $481.43 million for the second quarter.

Twitter shares are currently gaining 5.55% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $35.84, down a penny. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $34.62 to $55.99.

In April, Twitter reported a wider first quarter net loss and its quarterly revenue fell short of analysts' forecast. Twitter's average Monthly Active Users for the first quarter were 302 million, an increase of 18% year-over-year and an increase of 4 million from the prior quarter. Twitter is still trying to catch up with social networking giant Facebook Inc. (FB), which has 1.3 billion users.