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Contact center software leader Five9 unveiled its choice for its next CEO today. Amit Mathradas, most recently CEO of business process automation platform company Nintex, will succeed Mike Burkland, CEO and chairman of the board, on February 2, 2026.
As discussed in last month’s “Five9 AI products create cycle of CX, EX improvement,” the company announced in July 2025 that Burkland would retire once a successor was named and stay on as board chairman. And as the company promised in July, the search has concluded before the end of 2025.
Amit Mathradas, Five9’s new CEO
The sections below outline Mathradas’ qualifications as seen through the lens of the parameters for a new CEO that Burkland and his board set at the beginning of their search. Burkland elucidated them at Five9’s industry analyst summit in September 2025.
Like Five9, Nintex began embedding AI technologies like computer vision, natural language processing and predictive analytics into its platform in the years before the generative AI wave began with the announcement of ChatGPT in November 2022.
A year after becoming CEO of Nintex in March 2023, Mathradas spearheaded the announcement of major generative AI-powered capabilities in March 2024, including an AI process generator that automatically generates workflows from natural language descriptions.
In my opinion, Mathradas has solid AI experience, but will be learning about the nuances of the contact center and CX platforms on the job.
Burkland expanded on this criterion to include that the new CEO would ideally have experience at public company and working with investors.
Mathradas gained investor experience at both Nintex and Avalara. Nintex is owned by private equity firms TPG and Thoma Bravo. Before joining Nintex as CEO, Mathradas was president and COO of Avalara (2019–2023), responsible for day‑to‑day operations during its acquisition by Vista Equity Partners for $8.4 billion in 2022.
Five9 was especially interested in attracting an executive with experience in rapidly changing and challenging markets – though in the age of AI, there are not many execs that would not qualify on this parameter.
From a scaling perspective, during Mathradas’ leadership, Avalara’s revenue grew significantly. When he joined Avalara in early 2019 as President and COO, annual revenue for the prior year was $272 million. At that time of the acquisition by Vista Equity Partners in October 2022, Avalara’s revenue run rate had more than tripled to $826 million.
In terms of transformation, in September 2024, Nintex announced a strategic pivot to agentic business orchestration, representing a new AI transformation phase.
Burkland explained that what he meant by “battle-tested” is someone who has led through transformational market changes and could develop the right strategy to win.
When I spoke to Burkland on the eve of the announcement, he emphasized what he believes is Mathradas’ strategic mindset: “Amit is a strategic leader. He will set the vision, set the strategy, and inspire the team. That is what he has done at Nintex and Avalara,” Burkland said. “’He made strategic moves in evolving markets, and that is what we are in. So, we see Amit as the ideal next leader for Five9.”
Every company has a corporate culture, and Five9’s has been unique – it’s a people-first culture. The company grew from $10 million in revenue to over $1 billion, becoming one of the first cloud call center companies, and is today a Gartner magic quadrant leader.
That people-first culture extends to the entire company. As someone who has visited Five9 in San Ramon annually for over a decade, I have personally felt it, most notably on my first visit to Five9 headquarters, on October 31, 2012; our meeting ended at 3 p.m. so that the executives could change into their costumes and join the Halloween party.
On this attribute, Burkland said “One of the top reasons we chose Mathradas is his character and his leadership style. I think he is going to be a great culture carrier. He is a genuine, honest leader that is very direct, smart as heck, and can inspire teams.”
Personally, I note that Mathradas is a fellow Northwestern Kellogg School of Management MBA. I look forward to meeting him once he has had a chance to create a plan for his first year as Five9 CEO.
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