Big changes are afoot at Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, as the firm announces the retirement of CEO Frank Slootman. Passing on the mantle to Sridhar Ramaswamy, who will now serve as CEO and member of the Board of Directors, Snowflake reinforces its commitment to harnessing the power of AI in cloud-based data handling. Slootman isn't stepping away entirely, with plans to continue fulfilling his role as Chairman.
Ramaswamy, whose tenure with Snowflake began in May 2023, formerly held the position of Senior Vice President of AI at the company. His previous experience includes key roles in Google's Advertising products for 15 years, as well as the co-founding of Neeva, which Snowflake later acquired.
In his new role, Ramaswamy aims to accelerate innovation and support customers in utilising AI for significant business value. "We have an enormous opportunity ahead to help all customers leverage AI to deliver massive business value. My focus will be on accelerating our ability to bring innovation to our customers and partners," said Ramaswamy.
Slootman also expressed great confidence in Ramaswamy's vision, announcing that there's "no better person than Sridhar to lead Snowflake into this next phase of growth and deliver on the opportunity ahead in AI and machine learning". Slootman further praised Ramaswamy as a "visionary technologist" with a proven track record in successfully running and scaling businesses.
While addressing his vision for the company, Ramaswamy acknowledged the significant contributions of the outgoing CEO, stating, "In the last 12 years, Frank and the entire team have established Snowflake as the leading cloud data platform that is providing enterprises with the secure, scalable and cost-effective data foundation and cutting-edge AI building blocks they need to build for the future."
Prior to his appointment at Snowflake, Ramaswamy co-founded Neeva, the world's first private AI-powered search engine, in 2019. Before that, he led several of Google's key advertising products, contributing to the growth of its advertising business from $1.5 billion to over $100 billion. He has also held research positions at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, and Bell Communications Research (Bellcore), and was a Venture Partner at Greylock Partners before joining Snowflake.
Since joining Snowflake, Ramaswamy has pioneered the company's AI strategy. He launched Snowflake Cortex, a new fully-managed service designed to make AI simple and secure for all users, driving significant business value. With this latest shift in leadership, Snowflake seems set to continue pushing the boundaries of AI in the realm of cloud data services.