Anthony
Noto

While ongoing struggles at Twitter have led to a mass executive exodus for the still potent social platform, Anthony Noto has provided crucial leadership as CEO Jack Dorsey divides his focus over at Square as well. The exit of another Twitter legend, Adam Bain, made Noto the man in command. With the incentive of a $12 million stock package in hand, the CFO extended his oversight to partnerships, business development, global advertising sales, data and revenue products.

Noto has been the driver of what may be Twitter’s only current bright spot: a growing roster of live streaming deals for games from various sports and a slate of other live non-sports programming. His team has worked diligently to restock after losing to Amazon a $10 million package for 10 “Thursday Night Football” games he scored from NFL, where he used to be CFO.

A former football player and Goldman Sachs banker (where he handled Twitter’s IPO) himself, Noto has also struck similar deals with the PGA Tour, NHL, Pac 12 Networks and E League. Next up for Noto is figuring out new ways to monetize beyond advertising, such as through the Tweetdeck platform the company acquired in 2011. E-commerce is another potential area he is exploring. But he still has thornier issues to deal with, such as stimulating the platform’s long-suffering user growth. But by mid-2017 Noto was able to tout $2 billion in ad revenues and four consecutive quarters of subscriber growth, only to see that streak snap in July.