CFO Barry Zwarenstein named Interim CEO
EVP Dan Burkland Promoted to President
SAN RAMON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Five9, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIVN), a leading provider of cloud software for the
enterprise contact center market, today said that Mike Burkland,
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, has informed the
Company's Board of Directors that he will be transitioning from his
roles as CEO and President to become Executive Chairman of the Board in
order to focus more of his time on his health and family. In October,
Mr. Burkland was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and will be undergoing
aggressive treatment over the next several months.
Reflecting an orderly transition of duties, the Board has named Barry
Zwarenstein, Five9's Chief Financial Officer, to the additional post of
Interim CEO while a search for a permanent CEO commences. Dan Burkland,
Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Services, has been promoted
to President. These leadership changes will take effect December 2, 2017.
Mr. Burkland, Five9's President and CEO said, "While this is an
extremely difficult situation for me personally - my decision was clear.
With the ongoing leadership from Barry, Dan, the extended Five9
executive team and our Board, who have all been together for several
years, I am extremely confident that Five9 will not miss a beat and
continue its strong execution in this tremendous cloud contact center
market opportunity. I would also like to express my confidence in the
entire Five9 team of 800+ employees, who in my opinion are the best in
the industry, period. For nearly 10 years I've had the honor and
privilege to lead an amazing team of people on an incredibly exciting
journey. I've enjoyed every minute of it and I want to thank each and
every Five9 employee for their camaraderie, teamwork, dedication and
great work over the years.
"While my health situation is a true life challenge, it gives me great
comfort to know that Five9 is in such trusted hands as I make this
transition to executive chairman.
"Barry has been CFO of six public companies over his career. He joined
Five9 over five years ago, when we were a much smaller private company,
and he has helped me in so many ways to grow Five9 into the successful
public company that it is today.
"Dan has spent nearly 30 years in and around the contact center market
and is a true industry veteran. He joined Five9 almost eight years ago,
and has led our sales, business development, professional services and
customer support teams. Dan's leadership has been key in scaling Five9's
annual revenue from around $20 million to nearly $200 million.
"As I transition to Executive Chairman, I plan to remain actively
involved with Five9 and continue to work closely with our Board and
management team," Mr. Burkland concluded.
Dave Welsh, Five9 Board Member and Lead Independent Director, said, "We
respect and understand Mike's decision and are extraordinarily thankful
to have benefited from his leadership. We are also appreciative that he
will be continuing as Executive Chairman. In addition to his many
accomplishments, he has built a broad, deep, and enduring management
team, and we are pleased that Barry and Dan will be stepping into new
roles during this transition period. We have engaged an executive search
firm to find Mike's permanent successor as CEO in a thoughtful manner.
"On a personal note, Mike has been a special colleague for many years,
and I speak for the entire Board in wishing him and his family the
strength and support they need during this very challenging period. The
Five9 family will be with him every step of the way."
Executive Bios
Barry Zwarenstein
Barry Zwarenstein has been Five9's Chief Financial Officer since January
2012. He's managed three successful IPOs (Five9, VeriFone and Logitech),
and played a significant role in the sale of SMART Modular Technologies
to Silver Lake Partners for $635M and the sale of Acuson to Siemens
Health Care for $700M. Barry was also CFO of Iomega Corporation and
Mellanox Technologies. From November 2007 to October 2015, Barry served
on the board of directors of Dealertrack Technologies, Inc. Barry holds
a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South
Africa and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, University of
Pennsylvania. He is qualified as a Chartered Accountant (South Africa).
Dan Burkland
Dan Burkland joined Five9 in 2009. As Executive Vice President of Global
Sales and Services, he is responsible for global sales, including all
direct, channels, and business development, as well as all
implementation, professional services, and customer support
organizations. His organizations cover the entire customer life-cycle
from sales to implementation to ongoing support - all critical to
customer success from a Cloud Software company. Dan has nearly 30 years
of experience building and scaling successful sales and leadership
teams. Before Five9, Dan was SVP of Sales at Transera Communications. He
also ran worldwide sales for IP Unity, growing the business tenfold, and
held sales management positions at Cisco and GeoTel.
About Five9
Five9 is a leading provider of cloud software for the enterprise contact
center market, bringing the power of the cloud to thousands of customers
and facilitating more than three billion customer interactions annually.
Since 2001, Five9 has led the cloud revolution in contact centers,
helping organizations transition from legacy premise-based solutions to
the cloud. Five9 provides businesses reliable, secure, compliant and
scalable cloud contact center software designed to create exceptional
customer experiences, increase agent productivity and deliver tangible
business results. For more information visit www.five9.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This news release includes certain forward-looking statements concerning
events and trends that may affect the Company, including regarding Mr.
Burkland's continuing role with the Company, the Company's future
performance, execution and operation and the other statements in Mr.
Burkland's quote. Our actual results may be materially different from
what we discuss in this news release and you should not unduly rely on
such forward looking statements. Please refer to our most recent
quarterly and annual reports on Form 10-Q or Form 10-Q under the caption
"Risk Factors" and elsewhere in such reports, for detailed information
about factors that could cause our results to differ from those set
forth in such forward-looking statements. Such forward looking
statements speak only as of the date hereof and we undertake no
obligation to update any such forward-looking information.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171108006449/en/
Investor Relations Contact:
Five9, Inc.
Barry
Zwarenstein
Chief Financial Officer
925-201-2000 ext. 5959
IR@five9.com
or
The
Blueshirt Group for Five9, Inc.
Lisa Laukkanen
415-217-4967
Lisa@blueshirtgroup.com
Source: Five9, Inc.
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