Venkat Venkataraman has been appointed as Vice President of Product – AI Platform and Strategy at Freshworks, bringing with him over two decades of experience in driving product innovation, scaling global engineering teams, and delivering transformative results in the SaaS space. In his new role, Venkat is leading the company’s AI product strategy and execution across Freddy Copilot, Freddy Insights, and AI Agents. His focus lies in building scalable, agentic AI platforms that deliver tangible business impact and elevate customer and employee experiences across SMBs, mid-market, and global enterprises.
Before joining Freshworks in June 2025, Venkat was serving as Vice President of Engineering & AI at RingCentral, where he led an expansive organization of more than 500 engineers and product managers across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. During his tenure, he was instrumental in driving AI-led innovation and revitalizing RingCentral’s video capabilities to compete with platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. He also spearheaded the successful integration of Hopin’s Events business, resulting in a significant boost in annual recurring revenue.
Venkat’s career trajectory includes key leadership positions at Hopin, Nielsen, LiftIgniter, Vonage, and CA Technologies. At Hopin, he led the transformation from monolithic to microservices architecture, guided strategic acquisitions, and significantly improved engineering engagement metrics. At Nielsen, he oversaw engineering for the Video Platform at Gracenote, delivering AI solutions for major clients including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Roku.
In addition to his executive roles, Venkat actively contributes to the tech ecosystem as a seed investor, mentor, and strategic advisor at ComplexChaos. He is an Official Member of the Forbes Technology Council and previously served on the advisory board for the Big Data Certificate Program at San Francisco State University. With a track record of building high-impact teams and driving innovation in AI and cloud computing, Venkat’s appointment marks a strategic move for Freshworks as it accelerates its AI-driven product vision.