The revolving executive door at Slack is still spinning. Three executives, including Neil Shah, who served as the workplace messaging service’s COO for the past eight years, are leaving.
The changes follow three upheavals in Slack’s CEO suite since the company was acquired by business software giant Salesforce in 2020.
Denise Dresser, a Salesforce executive, became Slack’s CEO after Lidiane Jones, another Salesforce executive, departed in November after just one year in the position. After Slack founder Stewart Butterfield stepped down as CEO role last December, Tamar Yehoshua, Slack’s product chief, and Jonathan Prince, senior vice president in charge of marketing, brand, and communications, left with him.
The latest COO departure comes just after Ali Rayl, Slack’s senior vice president of product who has worked at the firm for the past 11 years, announced her exit last week, telling staff in a message viewed by Coins2Day that “it’s simply time.” One source at the company told Coins2Day she’s the “the cultural heart and soul of Slack.” Michael Peachey, who’s worked at Salesforce for nearly 13 years, most recently as chief marketing officer for Slack, also announced last week that he would leave.
Replacing Shah as COO is London-based Salesforce executive Sarah Walker, who’s worked at the company for almost five years. A source at the firm told Coins2Day that Walker will be moving to Washington, D.C., for her new role.
“I know from our conversations that Sarah is deeply motivated to continue Neil’s legacy, to build upon his best practices, and to get the transformational power of Slack into the hands of as many customers as possible,” Dresser wrote to staff in a Slack message viewed by Coins2Day. “I know you’ll all love getting to know her, and when you talk to her be sure to ask about her US/UK dual citizenship, her law degree and double MBA and favorite karaoke song.”
On Friday, Slack also announced its first chief customer officer, Peter Doolan, who’s been at Salesforce for 10 years and was formerly the EVP of digital transformation and innovation. The company is also seeking a chief revenue officer.
In a statement, Slack said about the executive changes: “We are excited to begin the new year with the strongest team in place to transform how the world’s leading companies work with Slack.”
The culture clash between Slack and Salesforce is well-documented, with Butterfield even telling staff in January that he “wasn’t very successful” integrating the two cultures. Slack is defined by its product culture, which places a premium on advancing, refining, and innovating its product. Salesforce, by its very name, is a sales culture, which tends to focus on performance metrics and trainings like reaching Ranger Status. With the two cultures at odds with each other, installing Salesforce executives into leadership roles at Slack often causes some resentment in its ranks.
“It’s changing as a lot of the more tenured folks leave, but there’s still a lot of long-term people that are rolling their eyes,” a Slack employee who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly told Coins2Day. “Especially considering execs have like a year shelf life here. A lot of jokes about what they’re actually going to accomplish here. Lots of concerns around the pivot from product culture to sales culture too.”
In Walker’s introduction to staff in a message viewed by Coins2Day, she said she’ll be “setting up 100 1.1s between now and the end of the fiscal year” in order to “listen and learn” from Slack staff, using an abbreviation for one-on-one meetings. In Shah’s going-away message, he told staff that he bonded with Dresser over the last month in Hawaii, and that everyone is in great hands.
Update: Dec. 19, 2023: This article has been updated from the original with additional information.
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