Retention Cloud Leader CleverTap Names Former Freshworks CRO Sidharth Malik as Global CEO

Founding CEO Sunil Thomas becomes Executive Chairman to lead the company's strategic initiatives

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and MUMBAI, India, Nov. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — CleverTap, the world’s leading user engagement and retention cloud, has expanded its core leadership with the appointment of Sidharth Malik as global CEO. The announcement comes as CleverTap accelerates its international growth and builds new capabilities to help digital consumer brands increase their customer retention and foster lifetime value.

Malik is a proven leader with a distinguished track record of building and leading dynamic organizations in competitive markets. Formerly the Chief Revenue Officer at Freshworks, a rapidly growing SaaS provider of customer experience solutions, he was instrumental in scaling its business from a single product to a multi-product platform with a global footprint. Under his direction, Freshworks unlocked new markets and strengthened its position as a disruptor in the CRM space — all of which culminated in a successful IPO this year, bolstered by a significant stake from Alphabet’s CapitalG investment arm.

Malik’s appointment marks a new chapter in CleverTap’s own success journey. Under the leadership of CleverTap co-founder and founding CEO Sunil Thomas, the company has penetrated new markets and achieved $45 million in annual recurring revenue in less than six years of monetization, with a 235% compounded average growth rate.

“CleverTap has grown phenomenally, and through the more than 10,000 mobile apps leveraging our platform worldwide, we’re empowering mobile brands and businesses to touch the lives of over a billion people every day,” Thomas says. In a blog post on the CleverTap website, Thomas discusses the central importance of Malik’s appointment in the company’s wider strategy to deliver growth and value to employees, customers and investors.

To extend the company’s ambitious strategy and execute on its vision, Thomas will assume the role of Executive Chairman. He will focus on scaling innovation and strategic direction for CleverTap, while Malik will help provide leadership for organization-building and day-to-day business execution.

“Sidharth’s passion, insights and leadership skills, coupled with his experience in helping take a world-class SaaS startup from India to the world, make him the right leader at the right time for CleverTap,” Thomas says. “His appointment significantly strengthens CleverTap’s core foundation and leadership team, preparing the company to scale globally and chart to an IPO.”

According to Vikrant Chowdhary, recently appointed CleverTap’s first-ever Chief Growth Officer, Malik’s proficient management skills, combined with more than 20 years’ experience across all organizational functions, equip him to drive superior business results in a short timeframe.

“It’s so heartening to have Sidharth come on board as CEO to partner with me as we scale the business for faster growth, while Sunil focuses on innovation and strategic initiatives with a founder’s mindset,” says Chowdhary. “We are extremely confident in our ability to execute our growth charter and expand global leadership in our category.”

Uniquely positioning itself as a full-stack Retention Cloud, CleverTap has introduced an entirely new product category and expanded its capabilities. Earlier this month, the company further cemented its leading position with the acquisition of Patch, a technology designed to provide seamless, contextual and secure communications between companies and consumers.

About CleverTap:

CleverTap is a modern, integrated, retention cloud that empowers digital consumer brands to increase customer retention and lifetime value. For brands that understand and value user retention, CleverTap drives context and individualization with the help of a unified and deep data layer, AI/ML powered insights and automation. Customers around the world representing over 10,000 apps, including Vodafone Idea, SonyLIV, Daimler, Gojek, Carousell, and Premier League, trust CleverTap to achieve their retention and engagement goals, growing their long term revenue. Backed by leading venture capital firms including Sequoia India, Tiger Global Management, and Accel, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in Mumbai, Singapore, and Dubai. For more information, visit clevertap.com or follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Author Information

As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.

Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.

Latest Insights:
Is AI Ready for Real Work, or Are Enterprises Still Stuck in Experimentation?
July 4, 2026

Is AI Ready for Real Work, or Are Enterprises Still Stuck in Experimentation?

Most enterprises claim advanced AI maturity, but lack governance and deployment strategies. Leading organizations are moving from experimentation to measurable AI impact....
Compliance as Code Is No Longer Optional: Why Manual Reviews Can’t Keep Up
July 4, 2026

Compliance as Code Is No Longer Optional: Why Manual Reviews Can’t Keep Up

Qodo's 'Compliance as Code' framework automates enterprise AI compliance through PR checks, solving the data privacy and security gaps that plague manual reviews at scale....
Databricks AI’s GPU Reliability Push Exposes Hidden Risks for Large-Scale Training
July 3, 2026

Databricks AI’s GPU Reliability Push Exposes Hidden Risks for Large-Scale Training

Databricks AI reveals critical GPU reliability challenges in distributed training environments. Silent slowdowns and numerical corruption pose greater risks than visible failures, threatening model quality and compute efficiency at enterprise scale....
AI Code Review Hits a Wall: Why Speed Without Trust Risks Engineering Chaos
July 3, 2026

AI Code Review Hits a Wall: Why Speed Without Trust Risks Engineering Chaos

A survey shows 94% of engineering leaders use agentic AI coding tools, but 55% struggle with reliability and hallucinations—revealing a critical gap between development speed and production quality....
Latest Research:
The Enterprise Imperative for Digital Sovereignty Architecture, Control, and Competitive Advantage
June 17, 2026
Research
Research

The Enterprise Imperative for Digital Sovereignty: Architecture, Control, and Competitive Advantage

In our latest Market Brief, The Enterprise Imperative for Digital Sovereignty: Architecture, Control, and Competitive Advantage, completed in partnership with IBM, Futurum Research explores why AI is changing the sovereignty...
Data Gravity in the Age of AI Engineering the Mission-Critical Engine for Autonomous Workloads
June 11, 2026

Data Gravity in the Age of AI: Engineering the Mission-Critical Engine for Autonomous Workloads

In our latest report, Data Gravity in the Age of AI: Engineering the Mission-Critical Engine for Autonomous Workloads, completed in partnership with Oracle, Futurum Research explores why fragmented data architectures...
The Autonomous IT Imperative
June 2, 2026
Research
Research

The Autonomous IT Imperative

In our latest Market Report, The Autonomous IT Imperative, completed in partnership with Tanium, Futurum Research examines why traditional IT operations and security models are reaching their limits—and how Autonomous...

Book a Demo

Welcome

The vision behind everything in Futurum’s Custom Research practice is this: research should show you what is happening, what comes next, and what to do about it. It should be personal to each audience, easy for people to grasp, and structured so LLMs can reason over it accurately. And it should be fast and turnkey; you want answers now, not another project to carry for quarters.

Whether you are defining business, channel, or go-to-market strategy; evaluating vendors or justifying ROI; or commissioning research to fill an emerging market need, we have your back, with a program that answers your questions with the objectivity and credibility to drive real decisions.

To do it, we bring unmatched data to bear: Futurum research, surveys, and market projections; validated market feeds; ETR’s 15 years of insight from 10,000 technology decision-makers; G2’s buyer and user data; and what our analysts hear every day. Add leading primary collection, from AI-moderated voice interviews to surveys and analyst-led interviews, all turnkey, and every project comes out credible, nuanced, and actionable.

And we don’t just drop the results in your lap. For internal work, we provide analyst-led sessions, interactive dashboards, and a range of formats. For market-facing work, Futurum delivers turnkey activation and amplification that actually gets seen, by people and by LLMs, through our media and share of voice. This is research that moves decisions and markets.

We will meet you wherever you are, from a fast-turn brief to a multi-year program, and shape the work to your goals, timeline, and budget. The right program for your moment.

If any of this is useful, I would love to talk.

Benjamin Brown, VP Custom Research, Futurum Research

Benjamin Brown

VP, Custom Research · The Futurum Group

Newsletter Sign-up Form

Get important insights straight to your inbox, receive first looks at eBooks, exclusive event invitations, custom content, and more. We promise not to spam you or sell your name to anyone. You can always unsubscribe at any time.

All fields are required






Thank you, we received your request, a member of our team will be in contact with you.