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SurveyMonkey Names William Veghte CEO

SurveyMonkey Names William Veghte CEO

By Quentin Hardy, The New York Times | Updated: 8 July 2015 15:03 IST

SurveyMonkey, a fast-growing online company whose chief executive, David Goldberg, died in May, said Tuesday that William Veghte would fill the job.

The appointment is the company's most significant move since Goldberg's death, which left employees and the board juggling how to handle grief and the search for a new leader.

Until last week, Veghte oversaw the split of Hewlett-Packard's businesses and was chief operating officer of the company. Early in his career, he was one of the first members of Microsoft's Office business, now a critical producer of Microsoft's revenue.

He also knew Goldberg for three decades, beginning from their time together at Harvard. That relationship played a role in choosing him to lead the company, according to Zander Lurie, chairman of SurveyMonkey's board.

"Bill was prepared to join the board after several years of courtship" just before Goldberg died, Lurie said.

After Goldberg's death, Lurie said, the board chose Veghte in part because of his experience in building up Office, and then working at HP, at a level where he had significant contact with senior executives at big companies.

On Monday, the company said that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer and Goldberg's widow, would join the board. The company said her appointment was part of a major realignment aimed at growing the company.

SurveyMonkey creates surveys and polls that are used by consumers and businesses. Goldberg, who had led the company since 2009, expanded it into efforts like gauging employee morale and analyzing the success of consumer products Goldberg, 47, died while on vacation with friends in Mexico.

Veghte indicated that SurveyMonkey could become much more important as a way of managing employees and customers.

"A new style of business is emerging," he said, "with businesses operating at greater size and speed."

From merely monitoring sentiment after the fact, Veghte said, SurveyMonkey could become a tool for making decisions faster. He did not say what new products and services might look like, but he cited the kind of customer and driver feedback that Uber, the on-demand car service, uses as a "canonical example" of how businesses will work in the future.

His appointment is effective Aug. 3.

Under Goldberg's watch, SurveyMonkey grew to 550 employees from 14, and achieved a valuation of about $2 billion (roughly Rs. 12,719 crores). He was a "significant" shareholder in the company, according to Bennett Porter, a company spokeswoman.

Sandberg said in a statement that as a board member she intended to "help to realize Dave's vision of building a lasting company that will impact the way we all do business." She declined a request for a separate interview, although she has published on Facebook a widely read post on grief and her life after Goldberg's death.

SurveyMonkey also named to the board David Ebersman, a co-founder and chief executive of Lyra Health, a company that specializes in behavioral health issues like depression and substance abuse. He was previously chief financial officer of Facebook, and he took the social network through a difficult initial public offering.

Lurie said that SurveyMonkey "absolutely" wanted to be a public company, adding, "We want to do it on our own timeline. There's a lot of hard work" before that is possible.

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