A year after getting acquired by private equity firms amid declining revenue growth and a slow transition to the cloud, the longtime data management vendor has a new leader.
Alteryx has named Andy MacMillan its new CEO, continuing a time of change for the longtime data management vendor.
MacMillan, who has more than 20 years of experience working in technology, joins Alteryx from customer experience vendor UserTesting, where he served as CEO for more than six years. Before that, MacMillan's roles included chairman and CEO at Act-On Software, COO of products at Salesforce and vice president of product management at Oracle.
MacMillan, introduced as Alteryx's CEO on Dec. 5, takes over just less than a year after the vendor, long an independent, was acquired for $4.4 billion by private equity firms Clearlake Capital Group and Insight Partners. Mark Anderson, who had been Alteryx's CEO since October 2020, left the vendor shortly after the acquisition with CFO Kevin Rubin serving as interim CEO in his absence.
During Anderson's years at the helm, Alteryx -- which was slower than many of its competitors to transition its platform to the cloud and, as a result, lost growth momentum -- overhauled its executive team. It added new members who had experience with cloud-based vendors, such as Suresh Vittal as chief product officer in 2021 and Jay Henderson as senior vice president of product management in 2022.
As MacMillan takes over, one of his main objectives needs to be ensuring all the technology Alteryx has acquired in recent years is better integrated, according to Donald Farmer, founder and principal of TreeHive Strategy.
Tech priorities [should include] better integration of numerous acquisitions ... [and] supporting hybrid analytics processes and workflows. The move to the cloud has been slow and still ongoing, but Alteryx users need hybrid capabilities.
Donald FarmerFounder and principal, TreeHive Strategy
"Tech priorities [should include] better integration of numerous acquisitions from previous aggressive expansion," Farmer said. "I hear this from every customer. In addition, supporting hybrid analytics processes and workflows. The move to the cloud has been slow and still ongoing, but Alteryx users need hybrid capabilities."
Less than a month ago, Alteryx unveiled new capabilities for supporting all types of analytics and data management system deployments, whether on-premises, in the cloud or a hybrid of both. Earlier this year, in May, Alteryx joined the group of vendors developing generative AI-powered assistants, unveiling Aidin Copilot. However, unlike many peers such as Informatica and Qlik that have made their assistants generally available, Alteryx's remains in preview.
A new CEO
Alteryx was long among the more respected and successful data integration vendors when data management and analytics were on-premises endeavors.
The vendor, however, was slower than some of its competitors to react when enterprises began migrating their data management and analytics operations to the cloud. Alteryx didn't unveil its first cloud-native tool until May 2021, and a fully cloud-native version of its platform was not made generally available until February 2023.
Informatica, comparatively, launched a fully cloud-native version of its platform in April 2021.
In an attempt to speed its transition to the cloud, Alteryx overhauled its executive team, beginning with appointing Anderson as its CEO in late 2020.
Despite emphasizing cloud-native development and finally delivering a cloud-native version of its entire platform, growth slowed for the vendor. In addition to being slower than some others to embrace the cloud, competition increased. Onetime analytics specialists such as Qlik and Tableau expanded into data integration, and tech giants including AWS and Google Cloud provided data modeling platforms that work in conjunction with their larger data management and analytics offerings.
By the time Alteryx was acquired and went private, its revenue growth had slowed, and its stock price had fallen dramatically.
In its final year as a public company, Alteryx's revenue during the fourth quarter of 2022 was up nearly 75% over the fourth quarter of 2021. By the third quarter of 2023, however, year-over-year revenue growth was below 8%. Meanwhile, the vendor's stock price peaked at $178 per share in 2020 before falling below $30 per share in August 2023, and then rebounded to $48 per share when Alteryx was acquired.
Andy MacMillan
Not surprisingly, growth was a prominent theme of the news release Alteryx put out to introduce MacMillan as its new CEO. MacMillan, meanwhile, cited platform development, including advancing Alteryx's AI capabilities, and culture development as priorities in a post on LinkedIn.
"In addition to advancing our platform and expanding AI capabilities, I'm deeply committed to fostering a collaborative, high-performing culture that aligns with Alteryx's vision," he wrote. "With a team passionate about redefining analytics, we're ready to take bold steps toward a data-driven future."
Given that MacMillan has an extensive leadership background not simply in technology, but in technology that incorporates data and AI such as UserTesting's platform, his hire makes sense for Alteryx, according to Sanjeev Mohan, founder and principal at SanjMo.
"It is refreshing to see that Alteryx is bringing in a CEO who has demonstrated previous experience in deploying AI," he said. "At this juncture, it is critical for Alteryx to modernize its solution to be more AI-ready and cloud-native."
Farmer likewise said Alteryx was wise to hire a CEO with experience integrating AI into existing applications. Beyond making sure the technology the vendor has acquired in recent years is better integrated to reduce the complexity of using Alteryx's platform, revenue growth needs to be a priority for MacMillan, he continued.
"MacMillan is a solid hire," Farmer said. "His expertise aligns well with what Alteryx needs. In terms of business priorities, revenue growth has slowed significantly – dramatically, even -- so that's critical."
What's ahead
As Alteryx plots its product roadmap under MacMillan, AI needs to be a focal point, according to Mohan.
The vendor unveiled Aidin, a generative AI-powered engine, in May 2023 and Aidin Copilot a year later. But as AI quickly evolves, Alteryx should now focus on agentic AI, Mohan said.
Until recently, most of the generative AI-powered tools vendors have built and the capabilities they developed aimed at enabling customers to build their own generative AI-powered tools centered on being reactive. These were AI assistants that let users ask questions about their data using natural language and receive responses.
Agentic AI is about being proactive rather than reactive. Instead of waiting for a user to ask a question, AI agents can act autonomously to surface insights and execute tasks without being prompted.
"Alteryx should double down on converging data and AI toward building data AI agents," Mohan said. "They should concentrate on converging data and AI to make it easy for developers and business users to build and deploy data and AI agents."
Farmer likewise said Alteryx should improve its AI capabilities.
"I would suggest [that Alteryx] expand the Aidin platform beyond basic generative AI features to include more prescriptive AI capabilities," he said.
In addition, Alteryx still needs to improve its cloud-native capabilities, Farmer continued, noting that it needs more cloud-native connectors and integrations with data sources, and better integrations with cloud data warehouses.
"Alteryx is undoubtedly behind," Farmer said. "The Fall 2024 platform release was focused on building basic cloud connectivity. And in AI, although they have some smart AI features for workflows in their Aidin feature set, they are quite far behind in the use of AI for analytics and in natural language user experiences."
Eric Avidon is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial and a journalist with more than 25 years of experience. He covers analytics and data management.
Andy MacMillan
