Sridhar Vembu, the founder and long-time chief executive officer of Zoho Corporation, has stepped down as CEO. He will now serve as the company’s chief scientist, focusing on research and innovation, especially in artificial intelligence and deep tech.
"I will step down as CEO of Zoho Corp and take a new role as Chief Scientist, responsible for deep R&D initiatives," he wrote on the X platform on January 27.
Vembu named the company's co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey as the new CEO.
"Our co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey will serve as our new group CEO. Our co-founder Tony Thomas will lead Zoho US. Rajesh Ganesan will lead our ManageEngine division and Mani Vembu will lead the Zoho.com division," he said.
The announcement made today, marks a new chapter for the $1 billion software giant, Vembu, widely regarded as one of India's most influential tech entrepreneurs, played a pivotal role in shaping Zoho into a bootstrapped firm with over 80 million users worldwide.
Vembu has been vocal about the importance of research and development in shaping the future of Zoho. He has frequently highlighted his interest in areas such as AI, distributed systems, and cloud technology, which he believes are critical for building next-generation solutions.
Zoho has also been expanding and diversifying from software to semiconductors and now e-commerce.
By assuming the role of Chief Scientist, Vembu aims to dedicate more time and energy to exploring these transformative technologies and their practical applications.
In fact in a recent interview with Moneycontrol he said that the larger vision for the company is to focus on R&D.
"Our growth strategy is about bringing all this technology together. This is a lot of heavy capability R&D we have to build, and a lot of nifty system integration. Cliq Rooms is an example of the integration, the Smart TV, phone, and the cloud, are all that nicely integrated, you don't realise they are integrated so well," he said in October 2023.
Bootstrapped Zoho managed to clock a revenue more than Rs 8,000 crores and profit of Rs 2,800 crores in FY23.
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