After nearly three decades of leading Zoho Corporation as its CEO, Sridhar Vembu has announced his decision to step down from his role.
The enterprise tech giant’s cofounder shared in a post on X that he will now serve as Zoho’s Chief Scientist, dedicating his time to deep research and development (R&D) initiatives, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
“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,” Vembu said in his post.
Leadership Restructuring at Zoho
Following Vembu’s transition, Zoho’s leadership team has undergone a significant reshuffle.
Shailesh Davey, Zoho’s cofounder and vice president of the company’s IT management division ManageEngine, will step into the role of group CEO.
Meanwhile, fellow cofounder Tony Thomas will lead the Zoho US division, and Rajesh Ganesan will oversee ManageEngine.
Mani Vembu, the company’s COO and Sridhar Vembu’s brother, will take charge of the Zoho.com division.
Focus on AI Amid Industry Disruption
Sridhar Vembu’s move to focus on R&D comes at a time when generative AI (GenAI) is rapidly transforming industries worldwide, creating both challenges and opportunities for businesses.
Companies, including Zoho, are fine-tuning their AI strategies to adapt to this wave of innovation.
Under Sridhar Vembu’s leadership, Zoho has already laid the groundwork for a robust AI roadmap.
The company has been working on developing smaller, context-specific AI models tailored for tasks such as document creation, summarization, customer churn prediction in CRM, and anomaly detection in IoT.
Zoho has also made strides in building large language models (LLMs) while collaborating with major AI providers to integrate their technologies into its systems.
Sridhar Vembu’s transition reflects a commitment to staying at the forefront of technology while addressing the challenges and opportunities brought by AI.
