Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu said he will step down as CEO and become Chief Scientist at the company "responsible for deep R&D initiatives."

Vembu announced the move on X. He also said he will focus on rural development too. Vembu said:

"The future of our company entirely depends on how well we navigate the R&D challenge and I am looking forward to my new assignment with energy and vigor. I am also very happy to get back to hands on technical work."

Zoho co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey will become CEO. Co-founder Tony Thomas will lead Zoho's US business. Rajesh Ganesan will lead our ManageEngine division and Mani Vembu will lead the Zoho.com division.

Under Vembu, Zoho has cultivated a unique culture that has created disruptive technology in the SaaS market, a model that generates value vs. larger rivals, and builds up offices in smaller communities where it can have a larger impact.

In an interview last year, Vembu outlined the approach.

"It's really about getting closer to the customers at one level, and just talking about business first. But beyond that, it's also putting back into communities that income needed from technology, create good jobs, in smaller communities, which people are not doing enough."

In that interview, Vembu also noted that Zoho has a strong bench. Vembu said Zoho can't run out and hire and have a productive employee in two weeks. "We believe that first we have to nurture the talent and that automatically brings in good people to us over time," he said.

 

Business Research Themes

Data to Decisions, Future of Work, Innovation and Product-led Growth

Roles

Chief Information Officer

Tags

Zoho