Twitter loses chief operating officer Anthony Noto to finance firm

Twitter has lost one of its most high-profile employees, chief operating officer Anthony Noto.

The social media platform announced on Tuesday (23 January) that Noto had been offered a chief executive position elsewhere and had chosen to leave Twitter. According to the Wall Street Journal last week, Noto was weighing up an offer from tech startup SoFi.

SoFi has confirmed its capture of Noto and interim chief executive Tom Hutton lauded the company's move.

"We are simply thrilled to have found someone of Anthony's expertise and knowledge to lead SoFi," Hutton said.

"The SoFi board unanimously agrees that Anthony's deep understanding of technology, consumer and financial businesses make him the perfect fit to be SoFi's CEO."

Hutton, who will become non-executive chairman of the board, added: "We could not be more excited to have someone of his calibre on board."

SoFi's former chief executive, Mike Cagney, was removed last year amid sexual harassment complaints, according to Tech Crunch.

SoFi is a finance company which offers loans to students, mortgages and financial management.

Noto has previously worked for Goldman Sachs and the NFL as chief financial operator. He joined Twitter in July, 2014.

He will officially move to SoFi in March. Twitter said it would replace him with "other members of Twitter's leadership team", Tech Crunch reported.