Twitter announced Monday it was recruiting eleven people in Ghana, the company’s first hires on the African continent, and plans to open an office there later.
The social media giant joins Facebook and other tech companies moving into Africa, where founder Jack Dorsey spent a month in 2019.
“Africa will define the future,” Dorsey said at the time, after visiting Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa.
The jobs advertised in Ghana include positions for engineering, marketing and communications specialists.
“Today, in line with our growth strategy, we’re excited to announce that we are now actively building a team in Ghana,” the company said in a statement.
Twitter said that its new team members would be working remotely under work-from-home policies while it explored “the opportunity to open an office in Ghana in the future.”
Ghana’s support for free speech and online freedoms made it the company’s choice for its first African location, Twitter said.
It added that the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) base in Ghanaian capital Accra had played into the decision.
“This is the start of a beautiful partnership between Twitter and Ghana, which is critical for the development of Ghana’s hugely important tech sector.”
Facebook has several offices in Africa, including in Ghana’s neighbour Nigeria, where Mark Zuckerberg has been on a visit.
Why Ghana?
As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate. Furthermore, Ghana’s recent appointment to host The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area aligns with our overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support our efforts to improve and tailor our service across Africa.
Whenever we enter new markets, we work hard to ensure that we are not just investing in the talent that we hire, but also investing in local communities and the social fabric that supports them. We have already laid foundations through partnerships with Amref Health Africa in Kenya, Afrochella in Ghana, Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) in Nigeria, and The HackLab Foundation in Ghana. As part of our long-term commitment to the region, we’ll continue to explore compelling ways we can use the positive power of Twitter to strengthen our communities through employee engagement, platform activation, and corporate giving.
We still have much to learn but we are excited to listen, learn, and engage. Public conversation is essential to solving problems, building shared ideas, and pushing us all forward together. We can’t wait for the next step on that journey.
Establishing Twitter’s presence in Africa
Twitter’s mission is to serve the public conversation, and it’s essential, for the world and for Twitter, to increase the number of people who feel comfortable participating in it. To do this, we need to make it easier for everyone to join in and provide more relevant experiences for people across the world.
Today, in line with our growth strategy, we’re excited to announce that we are now actively building a team in Ghana. To truly serve the public conversation, we must be more immersed in the rich and vibrant communities that drive the conversations taking place every day across the African continent.
We are looking for specialists to join several teams including product, design, engineering, marketing and communications. Full details on current job openings can be found on the Twitter Careers site. Aligned with our existing WFH policies, we look forward to welcoming and onboarding our new team members remotely so that we can make an immediate impact while we explore the opportunity to open an office in Ghana in the future.
