Thrilled to start my new journey as President & COO of Gainsight, reuniting with my good friend Nick Mehta. After the sale of Tact.ai, I took some time off to rejuvenate, read, discover new music (Doja Cat ftw) and reconnect with old friends — including Nick in mid-December. I’ve always been a huge admirer of Gainsight, but when he described the company’s incredible progress in the last couple of years and his vision for growth and expansion with AI, I was hooked. I joined Salesforce back in 2006 and I’m struck by the uncanny parallels with Gainsight: ✔️ a category creator & leader ✔️ a charismatic founder/CEO ✔️ a unique company culture ✔️ a passionate community of customers ✔️ a trajectory from single-product to a platform ✔️ a tough macro environment ✔️ a secular shift (cloud then, AI now) As I went through the process, a few things stood out: 🤩 The Gainsters I met were amazing operators, passionate about their mission and customers, and truly lived up to their human-first values. ❤️ The customers and users I talked with during my diligence on the company had a special place in their hearts for the community, the company and what it stood for. 🔥 There was no doubt the product was market leading and the possibilities for reimagining the future of customer success through AI were endless. 🚀 The company had doubled in the last couple of years to more than $200M ARR while also becoming profitable. An incredible feat by the management team, in partnership with the awesome folks at Vista Equity Partners — especially given the recent macro environment. Personally, I was nervous about transitioning from a startup founder/CEO back to an exec at a scaled company, so trust was a huge factor in deciding to work for Nick. Nick and I partnered back in 2010 when I was running Salesforce Chatter and he was CEO of LiveOffice. We both did stints at Accel as EIRs. I’d reached out to Nick several times for help during my startup journey — he is legendary in Silicon Valley for being an incredibly generous advisor and connector for so many SaaS founders. And, he’s a kind and humble human and a family man. I hope my learnings from the formative years of Salesforce and the early days of enterprise AI at Tact will play a small part in helping the company achieve its full potential as the human-first operating system for customers in an AI-powered world. I’m honored to lead with an exceptional team, including Denise Stokowski (Product), Siddhartha Gutha (Engineering), Scott S. (Marketing), Anil Chalasani (Global Operations), and Jeffrey Bigner (M&A). Hand in hand with Nick’s broader leadership team – Kellie Capote, Jim Murphy, Robin Merritt, Alka Tandan, Megha Mathur and others – we are all fired up for this next era of Gainsight. Our mission is to deliver even more success for our customers and community, and to chart our course to $1B ARR and beyond. LFG! PS: Childlike joy is one of Gainsight’s core values. Here is my first attempt at that 😉
Congratulations Nick Mehta and Chuck Ganapathi !
Boom!!
TIL: Siebel invented CRM👀 Honestly for me the association to CRM has been Salesforce all along😬😄 Which speaks to the volume of experience you both gentlemen carry🫡😄
Congratulations Chuck 🔥
Congratulations Chocka
Congrats Chuck Ganapathi. As a Gainsight alumn (but a Gainster for Life) and now a GS customer, I am all-in that you are at one of the best companies out there. Best of luck to you and the entire Gainsight team as the sky continues to be the limit. Super excited for you Nick Mehta. I am sure Chuck will be a Steelers fan pretty soon.
Congratulations Chuck Ganapathi and Nick Mehta. The both of you coming together is an awesome combo for Gainsight Chuck, you may need a new wardrobe to keep up with Nick 😀😀😀
Lol! I was hoping you started dancing too, Chuck. Disappointing! :) Congratulations Chuck Ganapathi! Super happy for you!!
Holy shit! It’s like peanut butter and chocolate. Two of my absolute favorites. Gonna be epic.
Chief Business & Product Officer @ Zensai | 2.5xIPOs 😆 | 3xCMO | Ex @Salesforce @WeWork @LinkedIn @Box @Matterport | LinkedIn Top Voice | 2024 SaaSiest Man of the Year | Dad | Runner | Made in Denmark 🇩🇰
6moTwo legends together! Congrats Chuck Ganapathi and Nick Mehta - you're going to absolutely crush it!!! - Seeing Taylor Swift in August!