Key takeaways
- Girish Mathrubootham steps down as Freshworks executive chairman effective December 1, 2025.
- Focus shifts to Together Fund, a venture capital firm co-founded by Mathrubootham.
- Roxanne Austin appointed as new chairperson, ensuring leadership transition.
- Freshworks emphasizes no operational disagreements led to Mathrubootham's resignation.
- The company is undergoing an AI-led transformation amidst leadership changes.
Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham will step down as executive chairman of the company effective December 1, 2025, ending his 15-year association with the SaaS firm he built from scratch.
Mathrubootham said he is leaving to focus full-time on Together Fund, the venture capital firm he co-founded.
He informed the company of his decision on Wednesday. The Freshworks board has named Roxanne Austin, its lead independent director, as chairperson from December 1. Until then, Mathrubootham will work with Austin to ensure a smooth transition.
“Mathrubootham’s resignation was not the result of any disagreement on matters relating to the company’s operations, policies, or practices. Effective 1 December 2025, the size of the Board will be reduced to nine members and the total number of Class III directors will be reduced to two,” Freshworks said in a stock exchange filing.
Mathrubootham founded Freshworks in 2010 and steered it to a Nasdaq listing in 2021, making it one of the first Indian SaaS companies to go public in the US. His new focus, Together Fund, was launched in 2021 with Manav Garg of Eka Software and Shubham Gupta, formerly of Matrix Partners India.
The fund manages more than $200 million and brands itself as India’s first operator-led, AI-first venture capital firm across the US-India corridor.
Austin, who has been on the Freshworks board since May 2021, also serves on the boards of CrowdStrike and Verizon and is lead independent director at AbbVie.
She has previously held board positions at Abbott, Ericsson, Target, and Teledyne, and brings extensive experience from her executive roles at DIRECTV, Move Networks, Hughes Electronics, and Deloitte.
The exit comes at a time when Freshworks is in the middle of its AI-led transformation. In the second quarter, the company reported revenue of $204.7 million, up 18 percent from a year earlier, while its net loss narrowed 91 percent to $1.7 million.
