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Three chief executives in 1 year will do that
It ’s not often you see an naturalized fellowship burn through three CEOs in less than a class . But through consideration beyond its control , that ’s what has happened at Slack , the companySalesforce acquiredin 2020 for $ 28 billion . In November , Slack introducedDenise Dresseras the latest somebody to occupy the corner office .
Dresser acknowledges it was n’t easy to ill-use into the role under these fortune , but she is settling in . “ You lie with , like anything , it ’s always hard to step into any fresh company and do it in a way that ’s refined , but I guess the team gave me good deal of coaching job , and we really realise the vision together , ” Dresser tell TechCrunch .
She produce up in the suburbs outside of Boston ; was educated at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst , where she analyse describe ; andworked at Salesforcefor the last 12 years in various executive roles .
Her herald , Lidiane Jones , was just 10 month into the task when she announce she was provide to beCEO at Bumble , drive by the temptingness of run a stand - alone public company . Jones had replaced troupe co - laminitis Stewart Butterfield when he announce thathe was leavingat the ending of 2022 .
It ’s unmanageable interchange a laminitis - CEO as Jones did . It could be even more challenging to take over just 10 months afterward for his successor , but some executive dollar volume is expected in the years following an acquisition , says Arjun Bhatia , a William Blair analyst who follows Salesforce . “ You need a unchanging leadership squad , of track , and you want someone who ’s focusing on it , but the chief operating officer dollar volume we ’ve take in is not refer at this point , ” Bhatia told TechCrunch . “ If that becomes more recurring , certainly that view might vary , but I think it ’s a innate form after an learning like this for a fellowship like Slack to find its office inside the Salesforce ecosystem . ”
Dresser says that she ’s plainly building on what her predecessors did before she got there , while bringing her own personality to the problem . “ I ask a mountain of doubt , and I definitely am an accountant at heart , ” she say . “ So I like to be organized and I ’ll continue that on , but it ’s not like it ’s a magnanimous clout . I think the foundation is already there , and it ’s an incredibly well - track down organization . ”
How has Slack fared at Big CRM?
When you take care at the toll that Salesforce paid to own Slack , even open some leeway for 2020 stock prices and the over - exuberance of the period , it still feels like a reach . The opinion at the time was that Slack could be the communicating layer on top of all the business software that Salesforce sell . It ’s still the Bob Hope , in fact , but tax revenue growth has slow down dramatically at Slack since its accomplishment .
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We do n’t have exact gross numbers because Salesforce stopped account them last spring , but it does apportion the portion of growth from the anterior twelvemonth . Growth has slowed significantly from 46 % YoY in Q3 2023 to just 16 % in Q4 2024 . For the most part , the movement has been down — and it ’s up to Dresser to sour that around .
Slack could transfer this movement by finding new business organisation chance and keeping existing client happy while at the same clip not being so closely tie to Salesforce that it loses customers who are n’t Salesforce - centric .
Dresser may be grab between these seemingly conflicting prerequisite , says Brent Leary , principal analyst at CRM Essentials . He , too , has been tracking Salesforce since its earliest day . “ She ’s get to be able to reckon out what the right balance is between Slack as a support - alone brand that continues to attract non - Salesforce client , while enable Salesforce customers to apply Slack everywhere within the platform they need to collaborate , ” Leary said .
But Dresser does n’t think it ’s all that complicated . “ I do n’t know if I think it ’s that tough . I think it was the original vision when the two fellowship came together , ” she said . “ I retrieve there ’s a veridical recognition that there ’s something very special here that we desire to nurture and retain . And I think that ’s been a pretty consistent musical theme from the very beginning . ”
After investing $ 28B in Slack , Salesforce bets on one of its own as fresh chief operating officer
The potential of generative AI
One big change she demand to manage has been the ontogeny of generative AI in package , in Slack and across the Salesforce family of products . Dresser enunciate that AI is a raw scene for Slack because as a communication platform with lots of embedded knowledge , it will help users harness , understand and find knowledge nugget in the mass of data .
“ When you think about it from a high - layer linear perspective , Slack has so much of the world ’s conversation happen in unstructured data , ” she read . “ And then you call up about Salesforce having this unbelievable set of customer data , some of the world ’s most appreciate data . The opportunity to convey structured and unstructured datum into Slack and integrate those really create this muscular platform for the future . ”
All of that depends , of course , on murder : You ca n’t just sprinkle AI poof dust on a product and trust it ’s give way to work . But Dresser arrogate that AI help her get up to speed in her new position much more quickly than would have been possible without being able to get at sum-up of long product thread . Summarization is a big selling point for generative AI , and using it to economise time understanding prospicient colloquial threads could be a big use case . But again , it bet on the quality of the summary .
Another grownup consequence Dresser faces is how to vie with Microsoft , which brings Teams to the table combined with Office 365 , Dynamics 365 , and AI in the form of Microsoft Copilot roll out across the platform , say J. P. Gownder , an analyst at Forrester Research . “ It ’s logical for Slack to adjudicate to expand its user base by integrating Salesforce more closely , but it must be careful not to alien existing customers , who are tremendously loyal to what ’s bid today . In the meantime , Microsoft Teams is a behemoth that has a chance to snap up even more transactions via Copilot , ” Gownder state TechCrunch .
But Bhatia points out that Microsoft still works best inside the Microsoft ecosystem , and Slack may have an vantage in that regard . “ Microsoft does n’t have that interoperability play as much . Their reward by far is dispersion . And two bragging advantages that Slack has in their marketplace are interoperability and easiness of use , ” he said .
One more degree of trouble for Dresser is that the continue Slack co - founder , CTO Cal Henderson , left at thebeginning of March , replaced by none other than Salesforce Colorado - founder and CTO Parker Harris . Even though Harris bring a long history of building Salesforce , Slack is losing a mortal who has a deep understanding of Slack ’s technical underpinnings .
Dresser certainly understands that she face these challenge onward , that she needs to win over employee and client and discover a elbow room to keep Slack acquire and full of life inside the vast Salesforce ecosystem . But she says her role is really about making human connections , and the eternal rest will wreak itself out .
“ I endeavor to just help the great unwashed understand that I ’m here because I am deeply , deep passionate about what we can do for the world , for our users , and our employee as well at Slack and the broader Salesforce — and I would n’t be here if I was n’t . ”
Why Slack and Salesforce EXEC recollect they ’re better together
