Slack founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield has confirmed that he will leave the company in January 2023.
According to reports, Butterfield announced his departure via an internal message to Slack employees.
As confirmed by Slack, his replacement will be Lidiane Jones, an Executive Vice President at Salesforce.
Following her appointment, Jones tweeted: “Today is a new and exciting day for me, @SlackHQ and @Salesforce.
“I am proud to be named Slack’s new CEO, accepting the baton from the thoughtful and innovative found @Stewart [Butterfield].
“Thank you @Stewart [Butterfield] for what you’ve built and for trusting me with the most important of my life. Simply put, there would be no Slack without Stewart.
“He’s built an incredible company that has redefined modern collaboration with a team grounded in humility and innovation.
“As we look forward, we are grounded by Slack’s mission: to make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant and more productive.
“We have so much opportunity to bring the digital HQ to every Salesforce customer and many more as we continue to grow together.”
1/ Today is a new and exciting day for me, @SlackHQ and @salesforce. I am proud to be named Slack’s new CEO, accepting the baton from the thoughtful and innovative found @stewart. In true Slack fashion, here’s a 🧵on my thoughts.
— Lidiane Jones (@LidianeJones) December 5, 2022
Butterfield’s announcement comes days after Bret Taylor, the co-CEO of Salesforce, revealed that he was stepping down from his role.
Sources say Tamar Yehoshua, Slack’s Product Chief, and Jonathan Price, SVP of Marketing, Brand and Communications, will also leave the company.
Salesforce acquired Slack in July 2021 for a figure of $27.7bn.
Salesforce integrated Slack’s technology into its Customer 360 CRM suite after the deal.
Employees had previously used Salesforce Chatter, but a Slack director told UC Today in July 2022 that Slack is transforming the way Salesforce operates internally.
