Twitter searching for new Indonesia boss as Rick Mulia quits to move back to Wego

Rick Mulia, who joined Twitter to launch its Indonesian operation just eight months ago, has left the company to move back to his former employer, Wego.

Mulia joined Twitter from Wego in November, five months before the official opening of the Jakarta office in March.

Twitter told Mumbrella that Mulia was leaving for personal reasons and is searching for a replacement to lead what is one of the micro-blogging service’s most important strategic markets.

He is to stay with the company until the end of this month.

“First, we would like to thank Rick Mulia for his contributions and leadership for opening Twitter’s office in Indonesia, one of our largest and most important markets in the world. Rick is based in Singapore and the role of Indonesia Business Head requires him to move to Jakarta,” Twitter told Mumbrella in a statement.

“However, he is unable to make the move now due to personal reasons. So we are actively looking for his replacement in Indonesia and will have some news shortly to share with you. We remain committed to Indonesia and will continue to invest in our operations there as we have many exciting plans for the rest of the year,” Twitter said.

The highly regarded former Microsoft and Yahoo! executive was brought in to lead a team to turn Twitter’s “local popularity into revenue” in Indonesia.

Mulia was previously running Wego’s media and advertising solutions function and oversaw the firm’s global real-time bidding function.

He rejoins Wego in the role of chief advertising and media officer, Asia Pacific, based in Singapore. His role is to lead both direct and programmatic sales for the firm.

“I’m extremely pleased that Rick Mulia will be rejoining the leadership team at Wego and managing our fast growing advertising & media business,” said Ross Veitch, CEO and co-founder of Wego in a statement.

“Rick is a well-respected digital professional with a rare combination of technical, sales and managerial skills that make him the perfect choice to develop and deliver advertising solutions for Wego’s travel industry clients.”

Mulia commented: “I am looking forward to returning to Wego and helping the company achieve the next level of growth. In the time I’ve been away I’ve been highly impressed to see the company’s growth in emerging regions such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and in particular, explosive growth in their mobile audience. These are both a boon for the ad tech space where these types of audience data are in high demand.”

“My focus is to make Wego and its audience data a must-have purchase for any travel advertiser investing in Direct Performance or Programmatic Ad Buying,” he said.