With Pinterest on the offensive in France, Twitter is waking up – especially with their deadline coming up to have a 10-person team in France – and announced last Friday that they have picked up former Facebook Sales team head Aurélien de Sorbay. The announcement, which came from UK General Manager Tony Wang, specifies that Sorbay will be “one of our senior leads in France, working with brand partners.” More specifically, he’s not the French GM.
Excited to welcome @Aureliencds to Twitter. He'll be one of our senior leads in France, working with brand partners: http://t.co/XR4XEGT8Wu
— Tony Wang (@TonyW) May 24, 2013
Sorbay confirmed the announcement on his first ever Tweet – confirming also that, despite the rumors, it is not he who will take the role of French GM. Having previously worked at Facebook and Google as an account executive, it’s no surprise that he hadn’t gotten on Twitter earlier; nonetheless, given Twitter’s very particular job description for country manager, Sorbay would be too old (in age) and too young (on Twitter) to qualify for the GM job – although, his experience at the consulate would make him one of the rare Internet sales guys with a public sector background.
While some sources are reporting that Sorbay will indeed be the GM (I’m looking at you Numerama), it seems highly unlikely that the GM would deny his position and that a fellow colleague would follow up with a purposefully ambiguous Tweet. More likely, while it’s possible the social network has already found its GM, it’s more likely that they’re asking themselves, “Where in the World is Twitter’s French GM?”