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APPOINTED: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Thriller)

NIGERIA'S FORMER finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been appointed to the board of directors of Twitter.

Okonjo-Iweala shared the news on Twitter, saying she was "excited" to work on a platform that connects people and ideas.

"Excited to work with @Jack and an incredible team on the Board of Twitter, a global platform that is such a strong connector of people and ideas," she wrote.

Excited to work with @Jack and an incredible team on the Board of Twitter, a global platform that is such a strong connector of people and ideas.

— Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (@NOIweala) July 19, 2018

Okonjo-Iweala served under President Olusegun Obasanjo from 2003 to 2006 and President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011 to 2015.

With her new role, Twitter's 10-member board now has three women, two of whom are black.

The social media company has been criticised in the past for its lack of diversity, joining the likes of many other Silicon Valley tech companies.

A report published in 2017 revealed less than 5 percent of all tech workers are African-American, and less than 11 percent are Hispanic and Latinos.

Double minorities face and even tougher glass ceiling in the tech industry, as only 25 percent of computing jobs are held by women — but a black woman in tech without a traditional education is unheard of.

Twitter has acknowledged it needs to improve diversity in its ranks and has ambitions to increase the percentage of female employees in the company to 43% by 2019 from 38% at the end of 2017. It has also committed to increase the percentage of black and Latino employees to 5%; both groups each represented 3.4% of Twitter’s staff at the end of 2017.

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