Workday's Board Replaced Its CEO With the Man Who Had Been Supervising Him
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Workday’s board replaced its CEO with the man who had been supervising him.
On February 6, Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and executive chair, took the chief executive title back from Carl Eschenbach. Permanent, effective immediately, no interim. Workday disclosed no search.
Bhusri was co-CEO to 2014, sole CEO to 2020, co-CEO again to 2024, then executive chair. Eschenbach shared the job with him for 14 months, then ran it alone for 24.
Bhusri held the chair through the whole decline. The stock had fallen roughly 40% since the start of 2025, including 26% in the month before the change.
Eagle Talon has tracked what a departing CEO keeps at Apple, ConocoPhillips and The Walt Disney Company this year. A predecessor with a formal board seat keeps governance authority. An advisor keeps access. Eschenbach gave up the seat and kept an advisory title. Bhusri never gave up the seat at all.
Seven months on, the operating record is split.
Subscription revenue in the July quarter grew 14%. Total revenue grew 13%, the same rate as the year before he came back. Adjusted operating margin reached 31.1% and Workday raised full-year guidance.
Two days before the CEO change, the company cut about 2% of staff, a year after cutting roughly 1,750 roles. Headcount paid for some of that margin.
So far Workday looks more profitable and no faster.
When a co-founder returns because a succession he helped build has failed, we ask two questions. Whether the board diagnosed the failure before reinstating him. And whether he changes the growth rate or only the cost base.
AI products bring in roughly $600 million a year against subscription revenue guided to $9.94 billion. Six percent. Enough to prove the products sell. Not yet enough to raise the growth rate. Whether he can diagnose a decline he presided over is unproven.
If subscription growth is still 14% when Workday guides fiscal 2028, the board changed the CEO and kept the cause.
Would you have given Eschenbach another year?
🔗 Source: Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach Is Stepping Down, Co-Founder Aneel Bhusri to Take Over
