- Push-out Score determined
- After about six years in the position
- Praise and thanks for Merritt
- Graham Smith taking over temporarily
- Search for a successor
- Merritt spoke at length and said 158 words
(exechange) — San Francisco, California, November 15, 2021 — Doug Merritt, chief executive of Splunk, leaves. As announced by Splunk Inc. in a news release on Monday, November 15, 2021, Douglas (Doug) Merritt leaves his post as chief executive officer at the data-analytics software maker, after about six years in the role, effective immediately.
Splunk will undertake a search for a successor.
Doug Merritt’s duties as CEO will be taken over temporarily by Graham Smith, Chair of Splunk’s Board of Directors at Splunk Inc., as Interim Chief Executive Officer.
“Now is the right time”
Doug Merritt’s departure from the CEO post is explained as follows. Merritt said: “As the Board and I considered how to best position Splunk for long-term success and continued growth, we determined now is the right time to transition to our next phase of leadership – in particular, the Board is focused on identifying a leader with a proven track record of scaling operations and growing multi-billion dollar enterprises.”
Precise information regarding Doug Merritt’s future plans was not immediately available.
“Stepping down”
Splunk said: “Smith succeeds Doug Merritt, who is stepping down after having served as President and CEO for the past six years.”
Share price decline since November 2020
The announcement follows a decline in Splunk Inc.’s share price of 12% since November 2020.
In the position of CEO since 2015
Doug Merritt became CEO of the Company in 2015.
Douglas Merritt has served as the Company’s President, CEO and a member of the Company’s Board since 2015.
Merritt served as the Company’s Senior Vice President of Field Operations from 2014 to 2015.
Prior to joining the Company, he served as Senior Vice President of Products and Solutions Marketing at Cisco Systems, Inc., a networking company, from 2012 to 2014. From 2011 to 2012, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Baynote, Inc., a behavioral personalization and marketing technology company.
Previously, Merritt served in a number of executive roles and as a member of the extended Executive Board at SAP A.G., an enterprise software company, from 2005 to 2011.
From 2001 to 2004, Merritt served as Group Vice President and General Manager of the Human Capital Management Product Division at PeopleSoft Inc., a software company (acquired by Oracle Corporation). He also co-founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Icarian, Inc., a cloud-based company (since acquired by Workstream Corp.), from 1996 to 2001.
Merritt has served as a member of the board of directors of Dragoneer Growth Opportunities Corp., a special purchase acquisition company, since 2020.
Merritt holds a B.S. from The University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.
Push-out Score determined
The Push-out Score™ determined by exechange gauges the pressure surrounding Doug Merritt’s move on a scale of 0 to 10.
exechange reached out to Splunk and offered the company the opportunity to comment on the score.
Read the full story in the exechange report 47.2021 ($).