BENGALURU: SaaS unicorn Zoho Corp’s co-founder Sridhar Vembu will step down as the company’s CEO and assume a new role as Chief Scientist. He will be responsible for the company’s R&D initiatives.
Vembu in a post on X said, “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.”
The company’s co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey will serve as the new group CEO and another co-founder Tony Thomas will lead Zoho US. Rajesh Ganesan will lead the company’s ManageEngine division and Mani Vembu will lead the Zoho.com division. “The future of our company entirely depends on how well we navigate the research & development challenge,” he added in the post.
The Chennai-headquartered tech company last year announced its foray into the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) network. Vembu in an interaction with TNIE had said that he expects India to be the company’s largest market in terms of revenue in another ten years.
Currently, India is the company’s second largest after the US. “New vendors do very well in the growing market as new customers are easier to persuade,” Vembu had said, adding that he is also bullish on Global Capability Centre’s (GCC) boom in the country.