Snowflake appoints Sridhar Ramaswamy as CEO as Frank Slootman steps down

Snowflake has appointed Sridhar Ramaswamy as the Chief Executive Officer, who held the position of the Senior Vice President of AI at the company. He replaces Frank Slootman.

Sridhar Ramaswamy replaces Frank Slootman as the CEO of Snowflake. (Business Wire)

American cloud computing company Snowflake has announced the appointment of Indian-origin computer scientist Sridhar Ramaswamy as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The announcement follows the news of Frank Slootman retiring from his position and Ramaswamy taking his place. Slootman, however, will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board. The new Snowflake CEO joins a vast list of Indian-origin CEOs heading top tech companies around the world, including Sundar Pichai at Google, Neal Mohan at YouTube, Satya Nadella at Microsoft and more.

Sridhar Ramaswamy becomes Snowflake CEO

Announcing the handover of the top position, Slootman said, “There is 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. He is a visionary technologist with a proven track record of running and scaling successful businesses. I have the utmost confidence in Sridhar and look forward to working with him as he assumes this new role.”

Prior to joining Snowflake, Sridhar Ramaswamy spent 15 years at Google, leading its advertising division, following which he served as the CEO of AI search engine Neeva, a company he also co-founded. The company was then acquired by Snowflake, resulting in Ramaswamy joining Snowflake in May 2023. He spearheaded the company's AI strategy and led the launch of its new AI service called Snowflake Cortex.

Post announcement of his appointment, Ramaswamy said, “I am honored to have been chosen to lead the company into this next chapter of growth. 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.”

He becomes Snowflake CEO at a time when the company is facing revenue woes. According to a Bloomberg report, analysts had predicted $769.5 million in product revenue in the first quarter, which fell to between $745 million and $750 million. Thus, it will be up to the newly appointed CEO to reinvigorate the company now.

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