Tableau Software Hires New Chief Executive
August 22 2016 - 5:32PM
Dow Jones News
By Jay Greene
Tableau Software Inc., a maker of data-visualization software
whose stock tumbled earlier this year on a sluggish sales outlook,
hired a former Amazon.com Inc. executive as its new president and
chief executive.
Tableau named Adam Selipsky, 49 years old, to run the Seattle
company. Mr. Selipsky previously ran sales and marketing at Amazon
Web Services, the retailer's unit that rents computing time and
storage to other companies.
Mr. Selipsky succeeds Christian Chabot, Tableau's co-founder and
current CEO. Mr. Chabot, 44, will remain chairman of Tableau's
board.
Tableau is among several business-software makers having trouble
living up to investor expectations. Its shares are down 42% so far
this year; they fell by nearly half in one day in February when
Tableau reduced its projected revenue for the year.
Brent Thill, an analyst with UBS Group AG, lauded Tableau's
technology, but said it has struggled to close big, complex deals
with large corporations. He believes Mr. Selipsky's experience at
Amazon should help Tableau address the problem.
"Who's the darling in tech? It's AWS," Mr. Thill said. Tableau
"just hired a top guy from them."
In after-hours trading Monday, Tableau shares rose 6% to
$58.01.
Mr. Selipsky has worked for AWS for more than a decade before
stepping down earlier this month. Before that, he was an executive
at RealNetworks Inc., a Seattle company that sells internet
streaming technology and services.
While Tableau is an AWS partner, last year the retail giant
began to encroach on Tableau's turf, unveiling its own
data-analytics tool, called Amazon QuickSight. At the time, Mr.
Selipsky told The Seattle Times that Amazon is "selectively
targeting" niches where its customers want more capability.
Mr. Chabot, who founded Tableau in 2002 with Chris Stolte and
Pat Hanrahan, has served as the company's CEO for 14 years. In a
statement, the company said that Mr. Chabot will continue to
"assist the company with long-term strategy and customer
evangelism."
Write to Jay Greene at Jay.Greene@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 22, 2016 18:17 ET (22:17 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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