Freshworks has appointed Srinivasan Raghavan as its new Chief Product Officer and to the executive management team. It follows the departure of Prakash Ramamurphy in August. He left to pursue another professional opportunity after five years at Freshworks. Ramamurphy joined Huntress in October as President and Chief Product Officer.
Raghavan will now lead the Freshworks’ product strategy and vision for its people-first AI service software. He will be responsible for scaling that strategy and continue delivering exceptional customer experiences (CX) and employee experiences (EX). Raghavan will report directly to Chief Executive Officer and President Dennis Woodside.
Woodside commented, “Srini is a key addition to our team to lead innovation that delivers a scalable trajectory for growth across our three key business priorities: employee experience, artificial intelligence, and customer experience. Srini’s track record driving enterprise growth and managing complex multi-product scaling efforts, coupled with his bold vision for the future of AI, make him uniquely qualified to lead our CX and EX product strategy.”
Who is Srinivasan Raghavan?
Raghavan has more than 20 years of experience in the SaaS industry. He joins from RingCentral, where he was Chief Product Officer for nearly two years. At RingCentral, he led the product management and user experience design for RingCentral customers and partners. He also led the creation of a new cloud-based contact center, marketing, and sales intelligence solutions, which helped the company create new revenue sources.
Before RingCentral, he spent four years at Five9, a leading provider of cloud contact centre software. As Senior Vice President of Product at Five9, he spearheaded the development of AI-powered digital engagement and automation solutions. Including a platform for workflow automation, virtual agents, and assistive tools for contact centre agents.
He had joined Five9 as Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development. In this role, he helped establish the strategy, corporate development and GTM operations. He also led the acquisition of three companies, Whendu, Virtual Observer and Inference, integrating them into Five9 over eighteen months.
He also spent three years at Cisco as Director of Product Management and Strategy within the software applications group. The products included Collaboration Software (Unified Communications, Web Conferencing, Contact Center), Application Monitoring (AppDynamics) and IoT.
Earlier in his career, he worked in multiple roles across a variety of industries, bringing him broad experience. During his career, he has held leadership positions in the US, Europe and Asia.
Raghavan commented, “Joining Freshworks at a time when AI is unlocking new possibilities for businesses worldwide to drive growth and improve operational efficiency is an incredible opportunity. By continuing to integrate AI and workflow automation across the Freshworks platform and solutions, we can add significant customer value and shape the future of CX and EX together.”
Raghavan attained his Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science from Osmania University. He holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
After Ramamurphy’s sudden departure in August, in Raghavan, Woodside has found an experienced leader with proficiency in building new products both organically and through acquisition. His global experience will also be useful for the company, which recovered significantly following its strong third quarter. However, its share is still down 27.58% year to date. Woodside will hope that Ramamurphy can reinvigorate the product engine and, as he did at RingCentral, deliver new products to market and enhance those it already has.
