Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde has been appointed as the social media giant's director of communications alongside her existing legal role.

The news comes as Securities and Exchange Commission filings show she has cashed in nearly 20% of her stake in the company over the past year, during which time the company's share price has fallen significantly.

Legal Week reported last year (22 September) that her total holding at that time of 829,229 shares was worth $42m (£25.8m), based on a trading price of $50.88 (£31.10) per share.

She received 145,000 share options last September, and since then has disposed of 152,775 shares for nearly $5.8m as well as acquiring some shares and options.

Twitter's share price at the close of Tuesday (6 October) was $27.60 (£18) a share. At that price, Gadde's current holding of 678,095 shares are now worth a total of $18.7m (£12m).

Gadde has been leading Twitter's communications function on an interim basis since mid-July, when communications director Gabriel Stricker departed alongside former chief executive Dick Costolo. She will report directly to new chief executive Jack Dorsey, whose role was also made permanent this week (5 October). He had been serving as interim chief executive following Costolo's departure.

Gadde, who has been Twitter's GC since 2013, joined the company in 2011 as legal director after a stint as corporate senior director and associate GC at networking equipment company Juniper Networks. She previously worked as an associate at US law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Gadde replaced former Twitter GC Alexander Macgillivray, who joined the tech company in 2009 from Google, where he was deputy GC of product and intellectual property. Macgillivray is now deputy chief technology officer for the US Government.