Tableau Software has a new leader, as Salesforce veteran Ryan Aytay was named CEO of Tableau on Tuesday.
Aytay was previously president and chief revenue officer of Tableau. He replaces Mark Nelson, the former CEO of Salesforce-owned Tableau who stepped down in December.
Aytay, based in San Francisco, joined Salesforce in 2007 and became chief business officer in 2020 before taking the president role at Tableau in February 2022.
Aytay’s appointment comes four years after Salesforce paid $15.7 billion to acquire Seattle-based Tableau, a leader in the data visualization sector.
Tableau reported revenue of $623 million in the most recent quarter, up 6% year-over-year, accounting for about 7% of Salesforce’s overall revenue. The company continues to face competition in the business intelligence software sector from Microsoft and others.
Most of the Tableau executives listed on its leadership site when the acquisition was announced have left the company, Bloomberg reported earlier this year.
Earlier this year a group of current and former Tableau employees gathered at a brewery near the company’s Seattle headquarters to reflect on the company’s 19-year journey. Some who attended the “Irish wake” noted a general sentiment that Tableau’s unique identity is becoming lost inside the customer relationship giant.
Salesforce, which also acquired Slack and MuleSoft in recent years, has promised to continue developing Tableau’s technology.
Last month Salesforce confirmed that it is putting more than 200,000 square feet of Tableau office space in the Seattle region up for sublease.
The sublease decision comes after Salesforce said in January that it would reduce its real estate footprint as part of other cost-cutting moves, including a 10% workforce reduction that impacted many longtime Tableau employees and senior leaders.
We’ve asked Salesforce if Aytay will remain in San Francisco, and we’ll update this post when we hear back. Update: Aytay will remain in San Francisco.
Note: Tableau’s revenue growth rate corrected since original post.
