These days, you’ve probably noticed an uptick in a particular kind of announcement. It usually leads off with a picture of two people smiling, maybe candidly laughing. If you click into the announcement, the odds are pretty good the company is announcing a CEO transition. Some of the most recent examples? Over the last six months, we’ve seen Lattice, Front, and Webflow all make very similar announcements.
Source: Lattice - Jack Altman (Lattice’s co-founder, former CEO, and current Executive Chair) and Sarah Franklin (Lattice's new CEO)
Source: Front - Mathilde Collin (Front’s co-founder, former CEO, and current Executive Chair) and Dan O’Connell (Front's new CEO)
Source: Webflow - Vlad Magadalin (Webflow’s co-founder, former CEO, and current Chief Innovation Officer) and Linda Tong (Webflow's current CEO)
While CEO transitions have traditionally been associated with poor company performance or shareholder pressure, recent examples like Webflow, Front, and Lattice challenge this assumption, highlighting successful companies where founding CEOs are voluntarily stepping down to ensure continued growth and fresh leadership. It also reflects a shift in how founders view their roles, with some choosing to prioritize long-term company success over personal tenure. As Front’s co-founder and (now) former CEO, Mathilde Collin, explained:
“Even though we had strong momentum, I was looking for a fresh perspective to provide guidance and ensure we were ready to navigate the challenges of the next few years.”
Dan O’Connell took the reigns as CEO in May 2024, departing from Dialpad where he grew ARR from $30 million to over $200 million. Front is a communication platform for building customer relationships across email and customer support. The company was founded in 2013 and, far from struggling, the company shared it had grown net new ARR by 120% year-over-year across 8K customers.
The theme of Webflow’s transition release was “infectious energy,” signaling a reinvigoration and growth effort within the company. Vlad Magdalin, who stepped down as CEO, wrote:
“I’m passing the CEO baton to Linda Tong — our fearless COO and President for the last two years — to bring the full force of her deep experience and infectious energy to lead Webflow in this next chapter.”
After a company offsite where Linda delivered a “fierce and inspirational” keynote speech, many Webflow employees wanted to have “[Linda’s] unquenchable desire to win together and her infectious energy to permeate throughout Webflow”. The transition took place this month — June 2024 — after twelve years from founding the website design and hosting platform where Vlad served as the CEO and scaled the business to $100 million in revenue.
This trend of CEO transitions can often indicate companies that have achieved success, and likely longevity, but the founding CEOs may not believe they’re the person to take the company to the next level. Especially in a world with much higher expectations for companies to go public. Right now, there are zero public software companies projecting higher than 30% revenue growth, focusing instead on efficiency. Some point out that a company likely needs more than $200 million in revenue to go public. Scrappy founders aren’t always equipped to make that happen.
In other cases, like Lattice, the transition is more about the founder’s own preferences. Lattice was founded in 2015 by Jack Altman and Eric Koslow as a people management platform. However, eight years later, Altman decided to step down as CEO in December 2023, saying that he wanted to “return to his first love: the earliest stages of company-building”.
The process of leadership transition may become increasingly common, and founders like Jack, Mathilde and Vlad have shown how founding CEOs can gracefully step aside, while their companies are still performing well, and continue to contribute to the long-term success of those that succeed them.
