Brian Halligan steps down as HubSpot CEO

Brian Halligan, who along with CTO Dharmesh Shah founded HubSpot in 2005, has announced he will step down as CEO after more than 15 years in the role. He will continue to serve the company as Executive Chairman, while Chief Customer Officer Yamini Rangan will succeed him as CEO.

Halligan, one of the best-known executives in marketing technology, was injured in a snowmobile accident in March this year, and took some time away from the company, with Rangan taking over daily operations. While he has made a full recovery, the break gave him an opportunity to think how he could best support HubSpot moving forward.

Rangan joined HubSpot in January 2020 having previously served as Chief Customer Officer at Dropbox. She has also filled a variety of executive and management positions at Workday, Appirio and SAP America.

Why we care. Alan Trefler of Pega may be the longest-serving CEO in the marketing technology space (38 years) and Marc Benioff has led Salesforce since its inception (22 years), but 15 years at the head of HubSpot, the company he created with fellow MIT student Dharmesh Shah, is quite an achievement. He steps down singing the praises of his replacement, an experienced tech executive and a woman of color.

“As a trained engineer who has led sales, operations, and go to market teams, she’s able to think big on strategy while nailing the details, and she has managed to bring remarkable lessons she’s learned from previous experience while being culturally additive to every initiative she’s led at HubSpot.”