June 29, 2026 • 4 min read
Five9 Overhauls Leadership With new CTO, Chief Sales Officer, and EVP of Transformation and Strategy
CX Analyst & Thought Leader
June 29, 2026
Today, intelligent CX platform Five9 announced several key leadership changes effective June 29, 2026: Nintex alum Niranjan Vijayaragavan as Five9 CTO, Redaptive and McAfee alum Rob Hornish as Chief Five9 Sales Officer, and Workday alum Sven Linsmaier as Five9 Executive Vice President of Transformation and Strategy.
Current Five9 CRO Matt Tuckness, EVP of Product Engineering Panos Kozanian, and CTO Jonathan Rosenberg will stay on for a limited time in advisory capacities to ensure a smooth transition.
The decision to replace three incumbent leaders in one day cashes a check CEO Amit Mathradas wrote during Five9's April Q1 Earnings call, when he promised leadership changes, new product announcements, and less bureaucracy during his Five9 tenure.
Jay Lee, who was appointed as as Chief Marketing and Growth Officer in was the first of those leadership changes to land.
The announcement, which comes on the heels of Five9's Voice AI Agents launch, didn't have a major market impact: Five9 shares rose roughly 2% in premarket trading.
Niranjan, Rob, and Sven bring the kind of proven leadership and operational discipline that are critical as Five9 enters this next chapter. Niranjan’s deep expertise across product, technology and AI, Rob’s track record leading high-performing sales organizations, and Sven's proven ability to drive strategic transformation and scale operations will help us build on our momentum, deepen customer and partner impact, and execute with clarity across the business.
Amit Mathradas
A Closer Look At Five9's New C-Suite
Vijayaragavan's appointment as CTO means that, for the first time at Five9, product management, engineering, AI Automation, and Architecture will be handled by one leader. The goal is to speed up product lifecycle execution while reducing miscommunications caused by "too many cooks in the kitchen."
Like Mathradas himself, Vijayaragavan comes to Five9 directly from Ninetex, where he served as Chief Product and Technology Officer for roughly three years.
Five9 is at the center of one of the most important shifts in customer experience as AI reshapes how companies engage with their customers. I’m excited to work with the team to accelerate innovation across the platform and deliver technology that helps customers move faster and operate with greater intelligence.
Niranjan Vijayaragavan
Rob Hornish, Chief Sales Officer of Five9, most recently served as Chief Sales Officer at Redaptive. He brings over 30 years of experience as a go-to-market leader, including helping to position McAfee Enterprise America for its IPO and eventual sale for $4 billion. Hornish also held leadership positions at both Cisco and Polycom.
Five9 has an incredible market opportunity and a strong foundation of customers, partners and innovation. I’m excited to work with the team to build on that trust and bring disciplined, customer-first execution to the next stage of growth.
Sven Linsmaier most recently served as VP of Business Finance and Operations at Workday, the COO of Convex, and spent nine years at Boston Consulting Group. The role, which hints at a potential increase in Five9 M&A and partnerships, is a genuinely new one for Five9.
Five9 is at an inflection point, with real momentum in AI and a clear opportunity to accelerate how we operate and grow. I'm excited to help build the strategic infrastructure that lets this team move faster and execute with greater discipline across the business.
Sven Linsmaier
While the appointments today seem to underscore Five9's bullish strategy, the fact that Jonathan Rosenberg will move to an advisory capacity after over 7 years at Five9 is somewhat shocking.
Rosenberg's influence on the industry as a whole can't be overstated: he was one of the main architects of SIP and dynamicsoft network application engine. He spent over 20 years of his life in the VoIP space, and is a long-term IETF member. Most importantly, he built Five9 into what it is today.
While Five9 is trading a visionary architect CTO for one who owns the full product-to-ship pipeline, it's undoubtedly losing one of its most important leaders in Rosenberg's departure.
What This Signals For Five9
Today's announcement represents the most comprehensive Five9 leadership overhaul since Mathradas replaced long-time Five9 CEO Mike Burkland earlier this year.
With this org redesign, Mathradas reshapes how products are built and sold, investment allocations, and Five9's overall growth strategy. While the reality of three new simultaneous C-Suite executive appointments may prove more challenging than originally anticipated, today's shakeup indicates that the Mathradas era is in full effect.
Now, all that's left is to wait for the Five9 Q2 earnings call, which will tell us more about the true impact of today's leadership changes.