RingCentral stock fell by 18.6 percent on Tuesday after the news that Founder and long-term CEO Vlad Shmunis was standing down was revealed during the company’s latest earnings call.
The Q2 2023 earnings call itself was relatively positive, described by Shmunis himself as “another solid quarter” to maintain the business’s momentum after a similarly encouraging Q1 2023. The earnings surpassed guidance for the quarter, with total revenue increasing 11 percent year over year to $539 million.
In the earnings call, RingCentral emphasised that its focus on profitability was reaping the rewards sooner than estimated. Not only had revenues exceeded guidance, but operating margins had, too. Non-GAAP operating margin was recorded at 19.4 percent — up 800 basis points year over year and a quarterly record for RingCentral.
However, as reassuring as these postings were, they couldn’t disguise the market’s shock at seeing Shmunis, RingCentral’s visionary leader for almost 25 years, stand down.
Shmunis will move to the position of Executive Chairman with responsibility for driving RingCentral’s strategic product vision and innovation.
“When I founded RingCentral two decades ago, we were a tiny, unfunded startup with an ambitious mission to improve how businesses around the world communicate internally and with their customers,” Shmunis explained. “From those humble beginnings, we have become a recognized leader in our space and one of the largest pure-play SaaS companies in the world.”
RingCentral also announced that Mo Katibeh, President and Chief Operating Officer, will stand down. Katibeh will stay as an advisor to RingCentral to allow a smooth transition.
Meanwhile, Tarek Robbiati was announced as RingCentral’s new CEO.
Robbiati has been a RingCentral Board of Directors member since last December and was formerly Chief Financial Officer and EVP of Finance and Strategy at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Robbiati will be CEO effective August 28, 2023, and will remain a member of the Company’s Board.
Robbiati’s CV showcases almost three decades as an acclaimed strategic and financial operator, respected for his leadership roles within the telecom, media, technology and financial services industries.
Robbiati’s respected reputation and depth of experience suggest a suitability for the role that could potentially have otherwise encouraged investors if Shmunis had not been such an industry legend and steward of reliable leadership.
A Hectic Few Weeks for RingCentral
Even putting the news about Shmunis and its impact on the market to one side, it’s been a busy time of it for RingCentral.
This week, RingCentral launched RingCX, the native, AI-powered contact centre solution.
RingCX is an easy-to-deploy offering that combines RingCentral’s central UC services — including message, video, phone, SMS, and fax — with contact centre and enhanced by a generative AI feature set. The end product is a next-gen, AI-powered solution that offers a complete, native omnichannel experience and enhances customer journeys.
RingCX is also integrated with RingCentral’s UCaaS platform, RingCentral MVP, for a unified employee and customer experience. RingCX is currently available in beta, with general availability scheduled for later in 2023.
RingCentral also announced it was expanding its flagship AI platform, RingSense, across its portfolio of products this week. RingSense for Phone leverages AI to empower businesses to transform their voice conversation data into usable insights that can improve productivity and business outcomes.
RingCentral acquired the events business of Hopin last week, reinforcing its presence in the virtual event space.
RingCentral explained that the deal also included “engineering, product and go-to-market talent from Hopin”, complementing the acquired technology. Hopin Session is also integral to the agreement, which is designed to host virtual webinars.
The deal illustrates RingCentral’s portfolio of products expanding beyond collaboration and into the events space.
