HubSpot’s co-founder returns as CEO to ‘refound’ it; Rangan leaves after five years

01Who runs HubSpot now

Chapter three is building the customer relationship harness that will enable millions to grow better. This is a refounding, and I can’t wait to start!

Halligan, 59, was chief executive from 2005 to September 2021 and executive chair from then until May 2025, and has sat on the board throughout; he co-founded Propeller Ventures, a climate-focused venture firm, in 2022, and has advised Sequoia Capital since May 2024.² HubSpot says he “will reimagine HubSpot from the ground up – across product, go-to-market, and culture”.¹ His pay has not been set; HubSpot will file the terms once its board approves them. The board shrinks from eleven seats to ten.²

Rangan joined HubSpot as chief customer officer in January 2020, from Dropbox, where she held the same title; before that she worked at Workday and SAP.⁵ She leaves on the severance terms of HubSpot’s Executive Severance Plan, subject to signing a release of claims.² For a chief executive, that plan pays a year’s base salary plus a pro-rated target bonus over twelve months, up to twelve months of health-insurance premiums, and vests the equity that would have vested in the following year.⁵

Burgess, 49, has been at Adobe since 2002 and has run finance for its Creativity & Productivity unit since December 2023. She joins on 30 November on a US$535,000 salary, a US$500,000 signing bonus and share awards worth US$2.5m and US$8.5m. Bueker stays as an adviser until the end of 2027; HubSpot says her retirement is not the result of any disagreement.² It is the third change at the top in five weeks: the chief legal officer, Erika Fisher, resigned with effect from 6 November.⁶

02The company he takes back

In July–September HubSpot’s revenue was US$947.6m, up 17%, with 311,704 customers paying an average of US$12,038 a year each, up 4%. On 4 November it guided October–December revenue to US$945–947m, up 12%, and the full year to about US$3.69bn, up 18%.³ In October it cut about 660 jobs, roughly 7% of staff, at a cost of US$65–75m, and began reorganising product teams around customer outcomes instead of its product “Hubs”.⁴ Its prices for AI agents are in our analysis of what an agent costs on top of a CRM seat.

HubSpot’s shares closed at US$202.88 on 11 November, down from US$233.49 on 2 November, before the results. At 9:58am New York time on 12 November, half an hour into trading, they were 5.0% higher, at US$213.00.⁷ What to watch: Halligan’s pay, which HubSpot must disclose in an amended filing, and the fourth-quarter results, the first under the returning founder.