Gainsight Founder Nick Mehta Names Hand-Picked Successor Chuck Ganapathi as CEO
From SaaS to RaaS: Gainsight Ushers in Agentic Era of Customer Retention
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gainsight, the retention engine powering the world’s most customer-centric companies, today announced the promotion of Chuck Ganapathi to Chief Executive Officer. After 13 years as CEO, Nick Mehta will step into a new role as Board Member and Special Advisor to the CEO.
“Chuck has been transformational to Gainsight,” said Mehta. “Under his leadership, we have launched our CustomerOS product strategy, accelerated our AI transformation, spearheaded key acquisitions, and strengthened our human-first culture and the Pulse community. He’s the right person to guide Gainsight into the agentic era.”
Ganapathi, previously Gainsight’s President and COO, has over 25 years of experience in CRM, AI, and enterprise software innovation, including leadership roles at Salesforce, Siebel, and Tact.ai.
“Nick Mehta created a category, built a beloved brand, and led with heart and conviction,” said John Stalder, Managing Director at Vista Equity Partners and Gainsight board member. “As Gainsight enters this next chapter, we’re excited for the future with Chuck. He brings the perfect blend of strategy and operational excellence to extend Gainsight’s leadership and accelerate its vision for retention-as-a-service.”
The Next Chapter: Retention-as-a-Service (RaaS)
Retention has become existential for SaaS companies. In a world where software is commoditized overnight and switching costs are near zero, every customer relationship is critical to survival. Gainsight has deliberately transformed into an AI-first company to lead this shift, pioneering Retention-as-a-Service: a new operating model for post-sales, powered by Atlas AI Agents and a unified CustomerOS platform.
“As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, we’re entering the ‘fast fashion era of SaaS,’ where outcomes are the only real moat,” said Ganapathi. “That means you have to treat every customer like your best customer, and that’s what Gainsight is designed for. Nick has been a great friend for 25 years, and I’m grateful for his leadership in the first chapter of Gainsight. I’m honored to carry the torch into Gainsight’s next chapter and thankful for our team and the broader Customer Success community.”
Product & Platform Momentum
Since joining the company 18 months ago, Ganapathi has led the company’s transformation, expanded the CustomerOS platform, and accelerated growth through its agentic product roadmap.
Recent highlights:
- Tripling down on agentic innovation with the acquisitions of Staircase AI, UpdateAI, and ModerateKit.
- Early traction for Renewal AI, the first autonomous agent in the Atlas family, is already in pilot with charter clients and hundreds of organizations on the waitlist.
- Breakout growth with 4x ARR expansion for Staircase AI and a record-breaking quarter for Skilljar, now one of Gainsight’s biggest product lines.
- Enterprise momentum with iconic new wins and expansions at Adobe, Docusign, and a landmark rollout at SAP, the largest in Gainsight’s history.
Gainsight is also launching a new version of its flagship CS product, now with natively embedded agentic capabilities powered by Staircase AI—making Gainsight the first platform to bring AI agents directly into the core workflows of Customer Success teams.
Continued Community Commitment
Over the past decade, Gainsight has become the home for one of the largest professional communities in enterprise software—with six books published and more than 30,000 attendees across Gainsight’s global CxO and Pulse events. This transition doubles down on what has always set Gainsight apart: a human-first culture, deep community roots, and a relentless focus on outcomes.
“All of the Gainsight you love—Pulse, our thought leadership, our platform—is only getting stronger,” added Mehta. “I’m proud of what we’ve built together, deeply grateful to our team and community, and excited to keep supporting Gainsight’s future on the board.”
To learn more about Gainsight’s vision for the future of agentic AI, watch the latest episode of the [Un]Churned podcast and visit www.gainsight.com/atlas.
About Gainsight
Gainsight is the retention engine behind the world’s most customer-centric companies. The Gainsight CustomerOS platform orchestrates the customer journey from onboarding to outcomes. More than 2,000 companies trust Gainsight’s applications and AI agents to drive learning, adoption, community connection, and success for their customers. Learn more at www.gainsight.com.
Media Contact
Jocelynn Stidham
PR for Gainsight
jocelynn.stidham@gainsight.com
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
