Twitter’s China boss Kathy Chen quits after eight months

Twitter Incorporated executive Kathy Chen, brought in to run Greater China just over eight months ago, has quit, according to a tweet sent by her over the weekend, Reuters has reported.

Twitter has been blocked in China since 2009 but is still used through virtual private networks (VPN).

Domestically, the Sina Weibo microblogging platform and Tencent’s WeChat messaging app are more widely used. But Chinese entities, including the state news agency Xinhua, use Twitter to reach audiences abroad.

Chen, who previously worked at Microsoft and Cisco, was brought in to lure more Chinese advertisers to Twitter. At the time, social media criticism focused on her early work with Chinese state-affiliated enterprises.

“Now that the Twitter APAC team is working directly with Chinese advertisers, this is the right time for me to leave the company,” she wrote.

Twitter grew its Greater China advertiser base nearly 400 percent over the past two years, she wrote, making it one of the firm’s fastest growing revenue markets in Asia Pacific (APAC).

Twitter’s top Chinese advertisers have included Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, online shopping giant Alibaba Group, white goods producer Qingdao Haier and flag carrier Air China.