Stewart Butterfield broadcasts he’s stepping down as Slack’s CEO
Less than every week after co-CEO Bret Taylor stated he could be departing Salesforce, Slack’s founder has additionally introduced his determination to go away the corporate.
Slack / Mudassir Ali
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield has introduced he will probably be stepping down from the corporate in January. The information comes lower than every week after Salesforce’s co-CEO, Bret Taylor, stated he could be departing the corporate on the finish of the fiscal quarter.
Salesforce acquired Slack in 2020 for $27 billion, in a deal the place Taylor performed a key function.
The information was first reported by Business Insider and later confirmed by Slack. In the inner message printed by Insider, Butterfield stated the 2 departures weren’t associated, stating: “FWIW: This has nothing to do with Bret’s departure. Planning has been in the works for several months! Just weird timing.”
Butterfield additionally stated that that Chief Product Officer Tamar Yehoshua and Jonathan Prince, Slack’s senior vice chairman for advertising and marketing, model & communications, could be leaving the corporate.
A press release despatched by an organization spokesperson stated: “Stewart is an unimaginable chief who created an incredible, beloved firm in Slack. He has helped lead the profitable integration of Slack into Salesforce and in the present day Slack is woven into the Salesforce Customer 360 platform.”
While Salesforce’s sole CEO, Marc Benioff, has but to announce if he plans to exchange Taylor with a brand new co-CEO, Butterfield’s successor has already been named. Lidiane Jones, who has been the manager vice chairman and common supervisor for digital experiences clouds at Salesforce, will probably be taking up the function within the new 12 months.
Salesforce’s assertion additionally stated that Butterfield was instrumental in selecting Jones as the following Slack CEO. “We’re grateful for Stewart and excited for Lidiane as she takes over the reins of Slack,” it learn.
“Lidiane is well respected and further brings Slack closer to Salesforce in terms of integration into various product areas,” stated Jason Wong, an nalyst at Gartner, including that it’s clear that Salesforce is taking Slack is a route that’s extra aligned to extending and enabling its Customer 360 Platform, quite than selling Slack as a common productiveness platform.
Founded in 2013, Slack was not Butterfield’s first entrepreneurial endeavour. Nine years earlier, he had based picture sharing website Flickr, earlier than promoting it to Yahoo in 2005. Slack’s reputation ultimately led to the messaging platform going public in 2019 earlier than being bought by Salesforce.
Wong notes that as a result of Butterfield and Taylor had been driving the imaginative and prescient of a mixed Slack and Salesforce, their departures might trigger some turbulence as new executives form their very own methods. However, he stated Slack’s enterprise efficiency has surpassed Salesforce’s personal expectations, rising greater than 40% 12 months over 12 months within the firm’s newest fiscal quarter.
Given what he describes as Slack’s “standout in performance,”Wong stated its unlikely Benioff will make any main management adjustments in response to the resignations, as an alternative specializing in fiscal fourth quarter efficiency, given the financial headwinds over the previous two quarters.