I Am Taking on Founder Role, Ann Schlemmer Takes Over as Percona CEO

I Am Taking on Founder Role, Ann Schlemmer Takes Over as Percona CEO

I have decided to step down from the role of CEO at Percona and take on the Founder role.  Ann Schlemmer takes over as Percona CEO.

I believe at this point this is the right step for the Company and myself personally. When – together with Vadim – we started Percona more than 16 years ago, we never thought it would grow to more than 350 staff members, have an impact on the Open Source community, and build a customer base that many companies would be proud to have!

I believe my strengths are as an early-stage Entrepreneur, Technologist, and Engineer but not the Leader of a company as large as Percona. What were keys for success in the early stages of the company, in my opinion, have the potential to become liabilities as we continue to grow and scale.  I want to make sure I continue to contribute to Percona in the best way possible, and it is CEO no more.

I’ve grown a lot with Percona, grown as CEO and as a person. However, I do not think I’m growing as fast as Percona needs me to, probably because I don’t really want to become the person Percona needs at its current stage. One of these growth areas for me is recognizing my strengths and weaknesses, and ensuring I am leveraging my strengths for greater success (and hiring other leaders who are strong where I know my weaknesses are).

What does the “Founder” role mean?  It means I’m not going to go anywhere and I’m going to continue supporting Percona in a part-time capacity in any way possible. I plan to continue speaking at conferences, blogging, doing webinars, and interfacing with customers and staff – activities which I both love and I believe I can provide value. I will remove myself from the direct management chain as we have an outstanding management team that does not need me to be involved in this capacity anymore.

This move also formalizes our company structure for all of us and resolves some uncertainty. Specifically, with myself having the Founder title and Ann being CEO, this makes it clear that my opinions (however strongly worded) are exactly that – opinions – and it is Ann who makes Percona’s business decisions. Ann has already proved herself in Percona Leadership first as General Manager and more recently as President, and I think this is a very natural next step. In reality, Ann already was handling a lot of the work that the CEO usually does.

I said I will continue with Percona part-time, so what does that mean? First I have recognized I have a bit of burnout. 16 years is a long time. So I’m expecting to work a bit less… for a bit.

Second I’m planning to pursue other ventures, in areas matching my interests and experience, as an advisor, investor, and mentor – I find this is where my wide range of interests are, and the variety is where I have a lot of strengths (as opposed to focussing on one thing).

I have full confidence that I’m leaving Percona in good and capable hands with Ann and the rest of our Executive Management Team to grow as a business and continue to serve the Open Source community as we’ve done for the last 16 years. In reality, if I did not have this confidence then I would not be stepping down – this is the best indication I can give in the confidence of both Percona as a company and the ability of all Perconians to continue to thrive and succeed.

I want to thank everyone in our community and our Customers who made Percona possible. I thank each and every Perconian – both past and present – for your commitment and support over the past 16 years. Seeing the success of Percona over the first 16 years of its life is my proudest business achievement. I am excited by what the future holds, and I continue to support the EMT, and Percona as a whole on its future journey.