Spiceworks Steals Away Twitter VP Amir Movafaghi to Prepare for IPO

Spiceworks, one of the biggest social networks you’ve never heard of, is one step closer to going public. The company, which caters to IT professionals around the world, has landed the CFO that will help get them there. Amir Movafaghi, a Twitter executive who helped the company IPO during his four-year run there, will take the financial helm at Spiceworks starting at the end of April.

This is the latest in a long line of high-profile Twitter executive departures over the last year, including its head of product; its head of developer relations; its COO; and its CFO (the latter didn’t leave entirely, just changed positions). At 34 years old, Movafaghi is VP of the social network’s global business operations and was previously its director of corporate finance. Since he wasn’t listed as a company officer, his departure will likely not cause as much Twitter investor grumbling as the others.

“This decision was not about leaving Twitter. This decision was about coming to Austin and joining Spiceworks,” Movefaghi told Re/code in an interview. He added that he considered Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, “a mentor and a friend — I’m their biggest fan and I’m going to be cheering them on from Austin.”

Movafaghi was instrumental in Twitter’s trajectory. Sources familiar with his work told Re/code he had a huge hand in writing Twitter’s S1, the massive financial document that companies need to file before going public. How, then, did a company with a far less sexy premise — connecting IT workers — and a far less recognizable name — Spiceworks — snag Movafaghi and convince him to move from San Francisco to Austin?

He hit it off with CEO Jay Hallberg in a breakfast meeting that ran hours long, according to Movafaghi. “I really think it’s a special time to be [at Spiceworks], which is the driver for why I made the move,” he said.

Although Spiceworks isn’t a household name, it pioneered the niche professional social network industry. Founded in 2006, it carved the way for the category versions of LinkedIn that would come later — like Edmodo for teachers, Doximity for doctors and ResearchGate for scientists. As the godfather of the industry, Spiceworks is the closest to going public.

“We’ll pave the way hopefully for others,” Hallberg said in an interview. “Amir will help us figure out how to measure things, how to report on things and how to value the business.”

Spiceworks has raised $111 million to date, with the last round led by Goldman Sachs. Hallberg wouldn’t put a timeline on when the company could expect to go public. “That’s what Amir will help us figure out,” he said.

Additional reporting by Kurt Wagner.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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