Freshworks appoints former ServiceNow exec Murali Swaminathan as CTO

Murali Swaminathan

Nasdaq-listed Software-as-a-Service firm Freshworks announced on September 3 the appointment of Murali Swaminathan as its Chief Technology Officer. This move comes over a year after the company's co-founder and former CTO Shan Krishnaswamy exited the firm.

Swaminathan has joined Freshworks from ServiceNow, where he served as Vice President of Engineering, overseeing the company’s IT Service Management and Strategic Portfolio Management portfolio of products that scale to work for large enterprises.

"Swaminathan brings around 30 years of tech and engineering experience, most recently he was working at ServiceNow where he helped take the company from $1B to $150B+ in 4 years," the firm said in a statement.

Prior to ServiceNow, the newly-appointed CTO has served as Vice President of Engineering at Recommind (now OpenText). Before that he held several key positions at CA Technologies (now part of Broadcom Inc.), where he played a critical role in advancing the company's enterprise software solutions.  He holds a master’s degree in Software Engineering Management from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor’s degree in electronics and instrumentation from Annamalai University in India.

"Murali’s experience aligns exceptionally well with our commitment to deliver products that provide rapid impact and real returns on AI investment, and his leadership in employee experience is particularly valuable as we become the platform of choice for enabling mid-market and enterprise customers to compete at global scale," said Dennis Woodside, Chief Executive Officer and President of Freshworks.

The announcement comes two years after the company's cofounder and CTO Shan Krishnaswamy exited the firm. Krishnaswamy left the company in September 2022 amid a management rejig, the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) major said on March 8 in response to queries about the exit.

There has been a slew of management changes within the SaaS firm over the past six to eight months.

Prakash Srinivasagopalan Ramamurthy, the Chief Product Officer (CPO), has tendered his resignation.

Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) Pradeep Rathinam also resigned from the firm earlier this year in February. Freshworks in a media statement on February 7 said that it has appointed Abe Smith as chief of global field operations.

The firm appointed former Adobe and F5 executive Mika Yamamoto as its first chief customer and marketing officer (CCMO), last year. Freshworks also appointed Johanna Jackman as the new Chief People Officer (CPO).