Former SVP of AI at data cloud company Snowflake, Sridhar Ramaswamy, has been appointed as the company’s CEO, following the retirement of Frank Slootman who will continue to serve on Snowflake’s board chairman. 

Slootman was optimistic at the news of Ramaswamy’s appointment and stated that there “was no better person” to lead Snowflake into its next phase of growth. 

Ramaswamy spoke to Verdict in October 2023 on generative AI’s potential in search engines and his role in leading Snowflake’s AI development since joining the company in May 2023. Snowflake acquired Neeva, an internet search engine that integrates AI, of which Ramaswamy was the co-founder. 

Since then, Ramaswamy has led the release of Snowflake’s AI service Cortex, a service which enables enterprises to build their own AI models and analyse data. 

Earlier in his career, Ramaswamy led Google’s advertising products including in search, travel, analytics and shopping. 

“In the last 12 years, Frank and the entire team have established Snowflake as the leading cloud data platform that is providing enterprises with the secure, scalable and cost effective data foundation and cutting-edge AI building blocks they need to build for the future,” stated Ramaswamy. 

“I am honoured to have been chosen to lead the company into this next chapter of growth. We have an enormous opportunity ahead to help all customers leverage AI to deliver massive business value,” he said, adding that his focus would be on creating innovative products for Snowflake customers.