Twitch announces hat trick of new hires, including Sara Clemens as new COO

Twitch has announced a hat-trick of key hires.

The streaming platform has today announced Sara Clemens as COO, Mark Weiler as SVP, head of platforms & services and Amir Shevat as VP of developer experience. In a press release announcing the hires, Twitch says that the hires reflect the company’s "commitment to growing its executive team to best serve the community."

“Twitch has continued to grow at an amazing rate,” said Emmett Shear, CEO, Twitch. “With our focus on listening to our community and providing the products and services to fuel their success, it’s important that we continue to invest in a leadership team that will ensure we are bringing these things to market in a timely and effective manner. To that end, Sara Clemens, Mark Weiler, and Amir Shevat are all recognized leaders in their respective fields and extend Twitch’s role as a leader in social video.”

Clemens was most recently the COO at Pandora, and was part of transitioning the company from an internet radio service to a more personalised approach, connecting artists and fans together. While with Pandora she was named on Billboard’s list of Most Powerful Women in Music for 2015 and 2016. Clemens has also held senior roles with LinkedIn, Xbox and parent company Microsoft.

“Brands with a creator-first ideology have the greatest potential for success because they are driven by the customer, not competitors,” said Sara Clemens, COO, Twitch. “Twitch is a uniquely creator-centric company as demonstrated by the level of social engagement on the service. My goal is to apply my global experience from the technology, gaming and entertainment industries to optimize how the teams at Twitch work together to further the brand’s mission of enabling creators to connect with fans and build amazing real time experiences.”

With Clemens hiring, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin will be stepping down from the COO role at the company, amid a series of new executive hires. Lin will stay on at Twitch in an as-yet-unnamed role leading the company’s “Culture, Strategy & Innovation,” reporting directly to Twitch CEO Emmett Shear.

Weiler meanwhile brings 25 years of experience in software engineering to the role, while Shevat has 15 years of experience building development tools