HubSpot's co-founder is taking the CEO job back, and he's calling it a refounding

A founder takes the wheel again

HubSpot's co-founder Brian Halligan is coming back as chief executive, the company announced Thursday, Nov. 12, replacing Yamini Rangan, who also leaves the board 2

2

1

1

. A founder coming back to the top job signals a strategic reset rather than routine succession.

Halligan co-founded the sales and marketing software company in 2006 and ran it himself until handing the CEO role to Rangan in 2021 2

2

. The reset reaches past his seat, too. Finance chief Kate Bueker will retire on Feb. 11, 2027, a retirement the company described as "long planned" 2

2

1

1

. Karen Burgess, currently finance chief of Adobe's Creativity & Productivity unit, succeeds her 1

1

.

Growth, but a halved stock

HubSpot reported third-quarter revenue of $947.6 million, up 17% from a year earlier 2

2

. Yet the stock has lost about half its value this year, per Bloomberg's reporting, amid cooling growth and AI-disruption fears hitting software companies broadly 1

1

.

In October, HubSpot cut nearly 660 jobs 2

2

. The company said at the time it wanted fewer management layers and teams whose responsibilities were clearer 2

2

. The layoffs, roughly 7% of the workforce, came a month before the leadership change; no one has said one caused the other.

What Halligan says he wants

Halligan calls it a "refounding" 1

1

. Chapter one built the inbound marketing category. Chapter two built its customer relationship platform. Chapter three, he says, is building a "customer relationship harness" for millions of customers 1

1

. He also offered a self-critique: the company may have put too much weight on short-term financial targets and too little on product work 1

1

.

He has said he intends to overhaul the product, the culture and the sales processes 1

1

. "I don't want to see HubSpot swallowed up by a private equity firm or shrink -- I want to rebuild it and reimagine it," he told Bloomberg 1

1

.

The test of the reset is whether HubSpot can turn those AI ambitions into products customers will pay for while still growing and staying profitable 2

2

. Halligan thinks the whole industry faces a version of that question. "Companies are going to have to pivot pretty quickly to new models -- they're going to have to be very, very AI-pilled," he told Bloomberg 1

1

.