Contentful announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Karthik Rau as CEO. Mr. Rau succeeds Steve Sloan, who has held this role since 2019.
Karthik Rau brings over 20 years of experience as a business builder and seasoned operations manager to Contentful. Most recently, Karthik Rau was the founder and CEO of SignalFx, a cloud monitoring company focused on DevOps teams, later acquired by Splunk for $1.05 billion. Previously, Karthik Rau served in several industry executive roles, including vice president of product management and global marketing at VMware during the company’s early years of growth. Karthik Rau was among the managers who led VMware’s IPO, the largest technology IPO of 2007.
“Content has become one of the pillars of any company’s digital strategy,” said Rau. “The emergence of generative AI will drive exponential growth in content and accelerate the shift from legacy content management systems to Contentful’s composable, scalable, flexible and market-leading content platform. I look forward to building on our platform and commercial success to deliver great value to our customers, first with Contentful Studio, our recently launched product.
“Karthik Rau is simply the perfect person to guide us through the next phase of our growth journey,” said Sascha Konietzke, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Contentful. “He is a visionary and brilliant entrepreneur, experienced in creating markets and creating value for businesses. And, what is vital for us, Mr. Rau is also a remarkable leader of men. He galvanizes teams through his leadership based on active listening, collaboration and determination.
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Sascha Konietzke added: “We extend our sincere gratitude to Steve Sloan for his four years of dedicated leadership. During this period, Contentful’s annual recurring revenues grew from $40 million to nearly $200 million, our customer base exceeded 4,000, and our team now grew to nearly 250 people located primarily in Berlin and 800 in the world. We warmly thank Steve Sloan for his remarkable contribution to our Company. We know Contentful is well positioned to capture the exciting opportunities that lie ahead in the future.
SOURCE: BusinessWire