Zack Urlocker, the tech industry veteran and open source software expert, has stepped down as COO at next-generation customer service software provider Zendesk, sources tell TechCrunch.
The move hasn’t been announced formally, but Urlocker’s biography and photo are now absent from Zendesk’s official management team webpage. We’ve reached out for comment from Zendesk but have not received word back yet.
It’s a significant change at the top executive levels for Zendesk, as Urlocker’s hiring back in January 2011 was seen a big coup for the company as it looked to continue turbo-charging its growth. Before Zendesk, Urlocker had previously worked as an executive at MySQL where he was instrumental in growing its annual revenues to more than $100 million prior to its $1 billion sale to Oracle in 2008.
In a blog post back in January 2011, Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane described Urlocker’s management style like this:
“Before we hired Zack, I had a long and good talk with Mårten Mickos, the former CEO of MySQL. He told me that Zack would come to me with all the stuff that I didn’t want to hear, but needed to hear in order to scale the company. That turned out to be true. In the short time that Zack has been with Zendesk, we have tried to look at our business with new eyes. It’s not always easy, but man, it’s rewarding.”
We’ve reached out to both Urlocker and Zendesk for more details on the departure and what’s next for both him and the company, and will be sure to report back with any additional information.
