Could This Guy Be Twitter's Next CEO?

Twitter's board is leaning toward picking an insider to be the company's next CEO, and the company's revenue boss, Adam Bain, is under more serious consideration than anyone on the very short list of outsiders, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Jim Edwards | BI

Bain is the "number one candidate that the board is focused on right now," this person said. "It's Bain's to accept or reject."

Some of the most commonly floated names of outside CEO candidates, including Flipboard's Mike McCue, are not under consideration, this person said. There are no more than three outside candidates under review, we also heard.

The internet company's CEO search process began in earnest two weeks ago when the board hired the headhunting firm Spencer Stuart.

Twitter declined to comment on the CEO search process.

We haven't found out who the outside candidates under consideration are. But according to this person, some of the commonly floated names including Flipboard's McCue, Google's Neal Mohan, Instagram's Kevin Systrom, and Ross Levinsohn, who once served as interim CEO of Yahoo, are not under consideration.

Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey took the reins as interim CEO earlier this month after Dick Costolo stepped down, ending a six-year run that saw the company grow from a no-revenue startup to a publicly listed company. The company has come under increasing Wall Street pressure during the past year however, amid stalling user growth stalls and disappointing financial performance.

There was initially speculation that Dorsey could be angling for the permanent CEO job. But the fact that he already has another full-time job as CEO of the digital-payments company Square has apparently ruled him out, to judge by a recent statement from Twitter's board of directors.

"The committee will only consider candidates for recommendation to the full board who are in a position to make a full-time commitment to Twitter," the company's board of directors said in a statement last month, noting that it was conducting a "thorough" search that would include both internal and external candidates.