Twitter's Noto Is Said to Be Among Finalists as SoFi CEO

(Bloomberg) -- Anthony Noto, Twitter Inc.'s chief operating officer, is in talks with Social Finance Inc. to become the online lending company's new chief executive officer.

San Francisco-based SoFi has been searching for a leader since September, when co-founder and CEO Mike Cagney departed amid turmoil at the firm. Noto has yet to accept an offer, and talks could still fall apart, according to people familiar with the matter. He is one of fewer than a handful of finalists for the role, with as many as two women and two men in the running, said the people, who asked not to be identified since the matter is private.

SoFi declined to comment. Twitter spokeswoman Kristin Binns said, “As a policy, we don't comment on rumors and speculation.”

The news was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Twitter hired Noto as chief financial officer in 2014 with a stock award worth more than $60 million, following a career in banking at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where he helped Twitter go public. He briefly served as the finance and operations head before taking over as chief operations officer in 2016. Noto has played a large role in leading the company's product vision, especially in shaping the platform's future around live video streaming.

Tom Hutton, SoFi's executive chairman, has been serving as interim CEO.

Company Criticism

SoFi, one of the most valuable financial technology startups, came under criticism late this summer amid claims of sexual harassment and fraudulent actions by managers. Cagney quit amid the company turmoil, and other high ranking executives have also left, including the chief financial officer and chief revenue officer. Cagney has denied wrongdoing.

SoFi's former CEO was instrumental in the company's vision of becoming a financial supermarket for millennial. His successor will have to decide the extent to which the company, which grew by refinancing student loans taken by graduates from top universities, will continue to expand into other businesses, such as insurance and mortgages to wealth management.

To contact the reporters on this story: Julie Verhage in New York at jverhage2@bloomberg.net, Selina Wang in San Francisco at swang533@bloomberg.net, Sonali Basak in New York at sbasak7@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, Kenneth Pringle