Who is Shailesh Kumar Davey? Meet new CEO of Zoho Corp who will succeed Sridhar Vembu

Cloud software startup Zoho Corporation's CEO Sridhar Vembu announced on January 27 that co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey will become the new group CEO as he assumes the role of Chief Scientist in the company.  

In a post on social media platform X, Sridhar Vembu also disclosed that he would be responsible for research and development initiatives as the company's Chief Scientist.

“I will step down as CEO of Zoho Corp and take a new role as Chief Scientist, responsible for deep R&D initiatives. Our co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey will serve as our new group CEO,” said Vembu in his post on X. 

Who is Shailesh Kumar Davey?

Shailesh Kumar Davey, who co-founded Zoho Corp along with Sridhar Vembu, graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in 1992 with a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree in metallurgy, a study of science related to technology related to metals and their production and purification.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Shailesh Kumar Davey also has a Master of Technology (MTech) in Industrial Management from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Before the announcement of Davey as the new CEO of Zoho, he was positioned as the vice president of engineering at ManageEngine, the IT management division of Zoho Corporation.

Shailesh Kumar Davey has been a key figure in the engineering process of Zoho and has a background in network projects from his days with Tata-IBM, reported the news portal Analytics India Mag on Monday.

“We believe that optimising everything from the software to the server and the data centre can provide significant value to our customers,” Davey told the news portal.

Sridhar Vembu's move to step down as CEO and become the company's Chief Scientist comes as the firm looks to expand into artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“The future of our company entirely depends on how well we navigate the R&D challenge,” said Vembu in his post on platform X.