Tableau's helm Christian Chabot is ready to leave another experienced exec at the reins of his company, in a push to secure larger business clients and promote its cloud-computing products.
To fill in the position of CEO at Tableau, the company recruited the former leader of Amazon Web Services, Adam Selipsky. He has a history of 11 years in coordinating the sales and marketing department of Amazon's rapidly growing division of cloud computing.
Selipsky will assume his position as Tableau CEO on Sept. 16. Chabot, on the other hand, will step back from his position as leader of the company but will remain a chairman in the administrative board, and promised that his engagement with the enterprise will not decelerate.
"We have someone in Adam who brings operational scale and management experience superior to anything we have on the team today," Chabot says.
Tableau, which Chabot co-founded with Pat Hanrahan and Chris Stolte, specializes in offering tools that help companies build visual representations from data sets. The company is expected to bring north of $800 million in revenue for this year.
Meanwhile, Stolte will become the company's technical adviser, with his second-in-command Andrew Beers taking the position of chief development officer.
'The Road Beyond'
Chabot describes "great software companies" as coming in three acts in terms of annual revenue: Act One is going from zero to $100 million, Act Two is going from $100 million to $1 billion and for Act Three, from $1 billion to "the road beyond."
"Adam ... just completed all three of those acts over the last 10 years of his life," Chabot notes, expounding that this is the perfect time for Selipsky to lead Tableau into its third act.
Tableau has suffered from underperformance in the stock market during the past period, as the venture is cornered by strong rivals such as Microsoft. Some analysts are more lenient and point out that growth challenges for a company the size of Tableau are to be expected.
The company was on a lookout to replace its long-lasting chief of sales, Kelly Wright, who is scheduled to retire at the end of 2016. The last time Tableau recruited new executives was prior to its IPO in 2013. According to Chabot, the investors might be growing impatient because there is nobody suitable in sight to replace Wright.
Brent Thill, an analyst with UBS, points out that Chabot's decision to leave another exec in charge is a tad surprising, but notes that Selipsky has all it takes to fill any gaps in Tableau's growth model.
“On paper, I don’t know if you could find a better executive,” Thill says. He adds that the issues at the company were more about reaching the market than technology, and as such there is no one better than Selipsky, "the guy who’s given birth to the largest public cloud provider on the planet," to take these on.
Tableau affirmed it has a $47.5 million loss for its Q2, but it did more than double its revenue from cloud products. Investors concerned were also appeased by the new policy of the company to put more focus on subscription-based revenue. Software companies seem to jump in the subscription model bandwagon, mainly because of the predictability in revenues.
In a statement, Chabot added that as chairman of Tableau, he will focus on long-term planning and promoting the brand to customers. The company currently counts north of 46,000 customers.
The venture employs more than 3,240 people on a global scale and is currently building a new headquarters in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood.
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