Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield is leaving Salesforce two years after deal was announced

Salesforce said connected Monday that Slack laminitis and CEO Stewart Butterfield is leaving the company. He'll beryllium replaced by Lidiane Jones, an enforcement vice president astatine Salesforce who joined successful 2019.

Butterfield's announced departure comes days aft Salesforce said co-CEO Bret Taylor was stepping down conscionable a twelvemonth aft being promoted to the stock the apical occupation with Marc Benioff, Salesforce's co-founder.

Benioff informed employees connected a telephone connected Monday that Butterfield was leaving, according to radical acquainted with the substance who asked not to beryllium named due to the fact that they weren't authorized to talk connected the record. Salesforce acquired Slack for astir $27 cardinal past year, its largest acquisition ever. The woody was announced successful precocious 2020.

"Stewart is an unthinkable person who created an amazing, beloved institution successful Slack," a institution spokesperson told CNBC successful a statement. "He has helped pb the palmy integration of Slack into Salesforce and contiguous Slack is woven into the Salesforce Customer 360 platform. Stewart besides was instrumental successful choosing Lidiane Jones arsenic the adjacent Slack CEO to pb it into its adjacent chapter. Lidiane has a beardown inheritance successful lawsuit and endeavor tech and has been among Salesforce's enactment for implicit 3 years. We're grateful for Stewart and excited for Lidiane arsenic she takes implicit the reins of Slack."

Tamar Yehoshua, Slack's merchandise chief, volition besides depart, on with Jonathan Prince, elder vice president successful complaint of marketing, marque and communications, the radical acquainted said. Noah Weiss, elder vice president of merchandise astatine Slack, volition regenerate Yehoshua, Butterfield said successful a Slack connection to each Salesforce employees that CNBC viewed.

Jones spent implicit 12 years astatine Microsoft, earlier leaving to articulation Sonos successful 2015. She's been astatine Salesforce since 2019 and is presently enforcement vice president and wide manager of integer acquisition clouds.

Butterfield primitively worked with the different co-founder of Slack, Cal Henderson, astatine photo-sharing website Flickr, which Yahoo acquired successful 2005. In 2009 the 2 men founded Tiny Speck arsenic they sought to physique an online video crippled named Glitch. The crippled failed to go a world-beating deed and Tiny Speck unopen it down. Tiny Speck had developed bundle employees had utilized to physique Glitch, and the startup made the bundle disposable to the nationalist arsenic Slack successful 2014.

It grew quickly, mobilizing Microsoft. When Microsoft launched Teams successful 2016, Slack took retired an advertisement successful the New York Times to invited Microsoft to the market.

"I'm not going to bash thing entrepreneurial," Butterfield wrote successful the Slack message. "As I said successful my announcement to Slack team, these days my fantasies are astir gardening. As hackneyed arsenic it mightiness sound, I truly americium going to walk much clip with my household (as good arsenic enactment connected immoderate idiosyncratic projects, absorption connected wellness and mostly enactment clip into those things which [are] harder to bash erstwhile 1 is starring a ample organization)."

In March 2020 Butterfield met with Taylor and told him Slack wanted to get Quip, the productivity app Taylor sold to Salesforce successful 2016, from Salesforce. Months later, Taylor told Butterfield that portion Salesforce wasn't funny successful selling Quip to Slack, Salesforce was funny successful buying Slack.

Butterfield said that the enactment changes astatine Slack were not related to the announcement of Taylor's resignation from past week. "We've been readying this for a while," Butterfield wrote.

WATCH: Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff connected Bret Taylor's departure from the company