Twitter COO Anthony Noto is leaving to become CEO of SoFi

Twitter COO Anthony Noto is leaving the company to take the CEO job at finance startup SoFi.

News first broke over the weekend that Noto, who has been with Twitter since 2014 and is the company’s most important executive outside of CEO Jack Dorsey, was considering the SoFi job. Now it’s official, with both Twitter and SoFi issuing statements early Tuesday confirming the move.

Noto will take over the SoFi CEO job beginning on March 1.

“Anthony has been an incredible advocate for Twitter and a trusted partner to me and our leadership team,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement. “On behalf of the entire team, I want to thank Anthony for his passion and his impact, and congratulate him on his new role.”

Those close to Noto say that he’s long wanted to be a CEO, and at times he’s been a de facto CEO inside of Twitter. (Dorsey, Twitter’s actual CEO, is still part-time at the company as he also runs the payments company Square.) Noto was the architect of Twitter’s big strategy bet on live video, for example, including its deal with the NFL in 2016 to stream “Thursday Night Football.”

It’s not clear who will take his place. Twitter says that Noto’s responsibilities, which include overseeing all of the company’s revenue-generating operations, will be spread out among “other members of Twitter’s leadership team.” Twitter is set to begin an executive onsite of sorts on Tuesday at its NYC headquarters with most of the company’s top leaders.

As for SoFi: The finance startup, which specializes in student loan refinancing, has been looking for a CEO since September when former CEO Mike Cagney resigned amid sexual harassment allegations. (He’s already back with a new startup.)

Tom Hutton, who had been serving as SoFi’s interim CEO, will remain on the board as the company’s non-executive chairman.

Twitter stock is down more than 3.5 percent in pre-market trading.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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