Fortune India Exclusive: Leadership transition not commentary on capability, says Freshworks’ Girish Mathrubootham

When Girish Mathrubootham announced that he would step down as executive chairman of the $3.74 billion Freshworks, the SaaS company he founded in Chennai 15 years ago, the move was bold yet intriguing.

In December, the 50-year-old founder will pass on the baton to Roxanne Austin, a seasoned U.S. executive, as board chair. That will complete the transition of a home-grown SaaS firm to an all-American top management given that Dennis Woodside, an American with a pedigree boasting of McKinsey, Google, Dropbox, ServiceNow and Impossible Foods, is already CEO. Besides, Johanna Jackman is the chief people officer, while Mika Yamamoto is the chief customer and marketing officer.

At a time when Big Tech trusts Indian-origin leaders at the helm of trillion-dollar giants, why are Indian SaaS unicorns turning West for leadership? Mathrubootham, however, sees no paradox. For him, the transition is all about pragmatism.

In exclusive comments to Fortune India, Mathrubootham tells: “Freshworks has always been about building a global company from India, for the world. Over the years, we built a strong product and engineering DNA out of India while simultaneously scaling our go-to-market in the U.S. and Europe. Leadership transitions at scale are about pragmatism and continuity, not commentary on capability.”

On the reason why the top management is an all-American one, Mathrubootham says, “The fact that Freshworks is able to attract world-class leaders from the Valley is actually a validation of what we’ve built. It shows that Freshworks has earned its place at the global SaaS table. And just as importantly, Freshworks continues to be a proving ground for the next generation of Indian SaaS leaders. I am confident many of them will go on to build and lead billion-dollar companies of their own.”

In CY25 (for the six months ended June), the Nasdaq-listed company clocked over $400 million in revenues spread over 74,000 customers, with North America making up over 46% of the top line.

So, does the reliance on American executives reflect a lack of confidence in Indian leadership, especially in go-to-market (GTM) roles? Mathrubootham rejects the binary, though.

“It’s not about ‘Indian vs Western.’ It’s about context and experience,” he says, adding, “The enterprise SaaS business is built on customer understanding, trust, and networks in the markets where your customers are. For a company with a large go-to-market footprint in North America, it is natural to bring in leaders who have lived that journey for decades.”

Interestingly, according to EMA Partners, a search firm, three in every five or 61% of the top 300 publicly listed global companies across the NYSE, Nasdaq, and LSE have C-suite executives and board directors of Indian origin.

Something that Mathrubootham is quick to acknowledge is the rise of Indian leaders at Google, Microsoft, and several other global giants. “That should give us immense confidence. In SaaS, too, the pipeline of Indian talent is growing fast. You already see Indian founders leading AI-native startups, many scaling to millions of ARR in months,” says Mathrubootham.

Founder-led or professionally led?

Another debate that Freshworks’ transition rekindled is whether SaaS companies should remain founder-led at scale, as Zoho and Druva have done. Mathrubootham insists there is no single right answer: “I have always believed founders are builders first. Staying founder-led at scale is a personal choice—some founders thrive as operators forever, others choose to step aside at the right time so that the company can grow beyond them. Neither path is wrong.”

Interestingly, early this year, Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation, the SaaS vanguard from India, too, had stepped down as the CEO to take up the chief scientist’s job in the company.

According to Mathrubootham, more than who the CEO is, what matters most is whether the company remains true to its vision and values. “Freshworks will always be a product of India’s dreams and ambitions, whether it is founder-led or professionally led,” says Mathrubootham.

The next frontier for Indian SaaS

If India has already established itself as an engineering powerhouse, the next frontier for SaaS firms, particularly Indian, is to build a bench of global-class leaders in sales, marketing, and customer success. That transformation will require a mix of exposure, ecosystem support, and belief.

More importantly, Mathrubootham sees three critical aspects to building GTM excellence.

1. Exposure – Indian leaders need to spend time in the US, Europe, and other key markets, learning enterprise sales first-hand.

2. Ecosystem – Just like SaaSBOOMi created a playbook for founders, we need platforms that groom GTM leaders—sales, marketing, customer success—for global scale.

3. Belief – The need to break the mental barrier that global-class GTM talent only comes from outside. Every Freshworks, Zoho, Chargebee, Postman, and BrowserStack alum who has carried quota or led customer success is a seed for the next generation.

“It will take time, but I have no doubt that the same way India became synonymous with engineering excellence, we will soon see Indian SaaS leaders redefining GTM excellence on the global stage,” says Mathrubootham.

The Product Nation dream

For Mathrubootham, stepping back is less about letting go than doubling down on a bigger ambition: making India a true “Product Nation.”

“The real success,” he says, “is that Freshworks has shown the world that a startup from Chennai can compete on the Nasdaq with the best of Silicon Valley. That precedent is now inspiring a generation of founders who will go even further.”

Through Together Fund and his focus on AI-native startups, Mathrubootham hopes to catalyse that next wave. In his view, the “Made in India, Managed in America” paradox is not a permanent condition but a passing phase.

“The question isn’t whether Indian leaders will dominate SaaS GTM,” he says. “The question is when.”