In a significant leadership transition, Sridhar Vembu, the founder and long-standing CEO of Zoho Corp (founded in 1996), has announced his decision to step down from the role of CEO. Effective immediately, Vembu will assume the position of chief scientist, focusing on deep research and development initiatives.
“A new chapter begins today,” he posted on X. “In view of the various challenges and opportunities facing us, including recent major developments in AI, it has been decided that it is best that I should focus full time on R&D initiatives, along with pursuing my personal rural development mission.”
Vembu’s departure from the CEO position marks a pivotal moment for Zoho, a company he established in 1996. Under his leadership, Zoho evolved into a prominent player in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry, offering a comprehensive suite of cloud-based applications for businesses worldwide.
In his new role, Vembu will concentrate on Zoho’s deep R&D initiatives, particularly in the field of AI. “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,” said Vembu.
New CEO
Taking over as the new Group CEO is Shailesh Kumar Davey, a co-founder of Zoho and vice president of engineering at ManageEngine, the IT management division of Zoho Corp, who AIM interviewed last year.
Davey has been instrumental in implementing engineering processes across the organisation and has a background in networking projects from his tenure at Tata-IBM. His extensive experience and leadership within Zoho position him to steer the company through its next phase of growth and innovation.
ManageEngine has 18 data centres and close to 100 POPs (point of presence), which are small one or two-rack solutions worldwide. They even opened data centres in Canada and Saudi Arabia too.
“We believe that optimising everything from the software to the server and the data centre can provide significant value to our customers,” said Davey to AIM.
This leadership change comes at a time when Zoho is intensifying its focus on AI and ML. Last year, Zoho, through ManageEngine, invested $10 Mn in NVIDIA, Intel and AMD GPUs, as told to AIM.
Last year, the company had collaborated with Intel to optimise and accelerate video AI workloads, aiming to enhance its AI-powered video security solutions. Shailesh Kumar Davey has been actively involved in these initiatives, emphasising the importance of seamless data management for AI workloads.
Vembu also confirmed that Zoho co-founder Tony Thomas will lead Zoho US, while Rajesh Ganesan will take charge of the ManageEngine division, and Mani Vembu will lead the Zoho.com division.
