Girish Mathrubootham steps down as CEO of Nasdaq-listed Freshworks, stock plunges over 25%

Mathrubootham will remain the chairman of the Board of Directors and Woodside will also be a member of the Board of Directors, the media release said.

Nearly a decade-and-half-old company finds its roots in Chennai founded by Mathrubootham in 2010. Its journey has been from a fledgling startup in Chennai into a leading SaaS company headquartered in San Mateo, with products that make it easy for every business to delight their employees and customers, the media release said.

Mathrubootham steered Freshworks through an IPO on in September 2021, making Freshworks the first India-born SaaS firm to trade on a US exchange. Under his leadership, the business has grown to serve more than 67,000 customers globally, powered by approximately 4,900 talented employees operating globally in 13 locations, the release said.

“When I first proposed this next step to the Freshworks Board, we were starting to chart the next phase of our company’s journey. We brought Dennis on board to partner with me on crafting an ambitious growth plan, and my hope was that he could eventually lead the team of talented employees around the world to execute it, which would allow me to spend more time on the long-term product vision, innovation and AI strategy,” said Mathrubootham.

“Dennis has a deep understanding of Freshworks’ business, customers and our employees, and a strong track record of building and scaling large global teams - he is the right leader to become our next CEO. I’m thrilled to announce this transition,” he added.

Woodside joined Freshworks as President in September 2022. Since then, Woodside has accelerated Freshworks’ investments in enterprise-grade products, and driven increased focus on the growth of mid-market and enterprise customers.

In his previous stints, Woodside served as Chief Operating Officer of Dropbox, helping grow the company revenue from $250M to $1.3B and ultimately raising over $1B in a successful IPO in 2018. Before that, Woodside held various sales and strategy leadership roles at Google from 2003 to 2014, including serving as CEO of Motorola Mobility after Google acquired the company in 2012.

Shares of the Freshworks plunged over 25% in after-hours trade on Nasdaq, settling at $18.25 apiece at the time of publication.

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