Arvind Krishnan, who on June 30 was named the new chief technology officer at Alteryx Inc., says “AI and data analytics are becoming inseparable.”
“But, for AI to work reliably, it needs to be given accurate, well-governed, and contextually rich data,” Krishnan added. “That’s where Alteryx comes in. We’re not just adding AI features; we’re integrating AI into the full data lifecycle.”
Alteryx, which was founded in Orange in 1997, was once one of OC’s star software companies by providing data analytics. It went public in 2017, reaching a $13 billion market cap in 2020 and approaching a billion in annual sales in 2023. It moved its headquarters from Park Place in Irvine to Spectrum Terrace in 2020.
However, the pandemic and artificial intelligence led to questions about the company’s model. It was sold for $4.4 billion a year ago to private equity firms Clearlake Capital Group and Insight Partners.
Since then, the company’s undergone at least seven top-level changes, including industry veteran Andy MacMillan being appointed chief executive last December with a mandate to push the software company to “new heights.”
As its fortunes changed, Alteryx moved its Irvine headquarters back to Park Place from gleaming surroundings in the Spectrum Terrace area. The Business Journal estimates its OC workforce dropped 27% to 209 last year. Updated figures are not available. Companywide, it had an estimated 2,600 employees.
Coca-Cola, Siemens, Fender
Alteryx says more than 8,300 customers around the world rely on its technology to automate analytics, improve revenue performance, manage costs and mitigate risk across their businesses.
Customers include the McLaren Formula 1 racing team, Coca-Cola, Siemens Energy and Fender guitars.
“There’s a feeling among the board and the ownership group that there’s a lot of potential in this company that we’re here to unlock,” CEO MacMillan told the Business Journal in an interview in December shortly after the announcement that he was picked to head Alteryx.
He joined Alteryx from Los Gatos-based UserTesting, where he served as CEO.
The New CTO
Krishnan is one of those seven top-level changes at the software company.
He has experience across multiple cloud products as senior vice president of engineering at Salesforce Inc., the Silicon Valley company that has risen to a $256 billion market cap (NYSE: CRM). Krishnan was also a principal member of the technical staff at software behemoth Oracle (NYSE: ORCL).
Prior to joining Alteryx, Krishnan served as CTO at Bluecore, a retail technology company based in New York.
Nowadays, Alteryx calls itself an AI and data analytics company that powers actionable insights to help organizations drive smarter, faster decisions with AI-ready data.
Alteryx recently announced the Alteryx One platform, its AI Data Clearing-house solution.
“I am looking forward to helping our customers become truly AI-ready,” he said during a July 9 interview.” Our platform ensures that the data companies feed into their AI models is clean, traceable, and compliant, so that the outcomes are trustworthy.”
Alteryx Overhauls Top Management
Data analytics and AI firm Alteryx has made a number of changes at the top, in addition to the July announcement of Arvind Krishnan as CTO and Andy MacMillan as CEO in December. They include the following, with previous company affiliations in parentheses:
• Michelle Huff, chief marketing officer (CMO at
UserTesting)
• Ben Canning, chief product officer (SVP of Products at
Smartsheet)
• Jon Pexton, chief financial officer (CFO of Tebra)
• Steven Birdsall, chief revenue officer (CFO at Qlik)
• Nali Giliana, chief of staff and strategy (leadership positions
at HP, Adobe, OpenText and UserTesting)
