by Jim Lundy
The ink is barely dry, but today, Five9 announced during their earnings call that Rowan Trollope is joining the company as CEO, effective May 3rd. For Five9, this is a huge win. Rowan, who is very well known in Silicon Valley, was most recently the SVP of Collaboration at Cisco.
Five9 Wins with New CEO
Rowan Trollope will bring leadership, detailed product expertise, customer relationships, and much more to Five9. While Five9 has been growing at a strong clip, adding Rowan Trollope as CEO will cause many Cisco customers to consider Five9 as a new contact center option that they might have ignored before.
We expect that with this move, a number of Cisco executives may also join Five9. (Note: Current President Dan Burkland and VP Marketing Niki Hall are both Cisco alums.)
Cisco Announces Amy Chang to Backfill Rowan
Today, Cisco also announced that it is buying news aggregator site Accompany for $270M and that Accompany CEO Amy Chang was named SVP of the Cisco Collaboration Group. Amy has a solid product background; she was formerly Head of Product for Ads Measurement and Reporting at Google. Amy has big shoes to fill with Rowan’s departure, as Cisco has been making money in collaboration and growing share. Amy was also a board member at Cisco, a position she resigned from after the announcement.
There is more to come in analyzing this change, but for now, Five9 just became better known by adding a CEO who is synonymous with collaboration. Developing.