• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 29, 2015

While certainly not its biggest problem, Twitter has faced ongoing criticism for a lack of diversity among its ranks. To better address the issue, the social giant has hired Jeffrey Siminoff as its new vice president of diversity and inclusion.

“Welcome to the flock,” Brian Schipper, Twitter’s head of human resources, tweeted to Siminoff on Monday. Siminoff is coming directly from Apple, where he most recently served as director of worldwide inclusion and diversity.

Siminoff is replacing Janet Van Huysse, who has been with Twitter for about six years. Critics were quick to point out the irony in replacing a woman with a white man to purportedly accelerate diversity.  

Twitter is hardly the only tech giant facing ongoing criticism about its dearth of women and minorities on the payroll.

Yet the company has recently been under exceptional pressure to rethink its hiring strategy. After an African-American engineer publicly criticized Twitter’s efforts to advance diversity, its SVP of engineering Alex Roetter pledged to accelerate a related effort.

As of this summer, Twitter said men made up 70% of its total workforce. In a statement released in July, Van Huysse said: “We are keenly aware that Twitter is part of an industry that is marked by dramatic imbalances in diversity -- and we are no exception.”