Qualtrics hires 3 top execs from Salesforce, Adobe, and Twilio to strengthen its leadership team ahead of IPO, including two top-ranking women

<p><img src="https://static1.businessinsider.com/image/6000a7cca81ea100188db4c4-2400/cavallopt.jpg" border="0" alt="Gina Sheibley" data-mce-source="Gina Sheibley"></p><p></p><bi-shortcode id="summary-shortcode" data-type="summary-shortcode" class="mceNonEditable" contenteditable="false">Summary List Placement</bi-shortcode><p>Qualtrics has hired three senior executives to beef up its leadership bench from Adobe, Salesforce and Twilio, it <a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/news/qualtrics-expands-its-leadership-team-with-the-addition-of-veteran-technology-executives/">said on Thursday</a>. The company is preparing to spin out of parent company SAP in an IPO that could value the company at over $14 billion.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/qualtrics-ryan-smith-sap-states-coronavirus-testing-2020-5">Qualtrics</a> bills itself as the creator of a market segment called "experience management," or "XM," providing software that allows companies to survey customers and employees to get feedback they can use to improve their products and services. In its IPO filing late last year, Qualtrics said that it sees XM as a $60 billion market.</p><p>To help it chase that opportunity, Qualtrics announced on Thursday that it has signed on Adobe's Julia Anas as its chief people officer, Twilio's Edward Chen as its head of corporate development and strategy, and Salesforce's Gina Sheibley as its chief communications officer. Earlier this week, <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/corporate-vice-president-brad-anderson-is-leaving-microsoft-for-qualtrics/">Brad Anderson, a 17-year veteran of Microsoft, announced that he will join Qualtrics as president of products and services</a>.</p><p>Anas and Sheibley will be moving from the San Francisco Bay Area to be closer to Qualtrics' headquarters in Provo, Utah, in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/startup-founder-tech-moved-austin-silicon-valley-2020-12">another instance of tech talent leaving Silicon Valley amid the pandemic</a>. Anderson, too, will move from Microsoft's home turf of Washington state down to Utah.</p><p>Anas was previously Adobe's vice president of employee experience and was a core member of its global COVID-19 crisis management team. She has also led teams at Symantec, Intuit, and other tech companies.</p><p>Chen spent over five years at Twilio and worked as its head of corporate development. He grew Twilio from a pre-IPO company to the $61 billion company it is today, has led over 10 acquisitions, including the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twilio-to-buy-sendgrid-in-2-billion-deal-2018-10">$2 billion acquisition</a> of SendGrid and the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twilio-acquires-segment-salesforce-analysts-2020-10">$3.2 billion acquisition</a> of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twilio-chief-product-officer-segment-acquisition-2020-10">Segment</a>. He also worked at VMware for over five years.&nbsp;</p><p>Sheibley spent eight and a half years at Salesforce and was most recently its senior vice president of corporate communications. She led communications for over 100 acquisitions, including Salesforce's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-tableau-acquisition-microsoft-sap-2019-6">$15.7 billion acquisition</a> of Tableau and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-mulesoft-acquisition-ma-price-2018-4">$6.5 billion acquisition</a> of MuleSoft. Sheibley also worked at Symantec for seven years before that.&nbsp;</p><p>Sheibley and Anas will be two of the most senior-ranking women at Qualtrics.</p><p>Qualtrics has grown to 3,300 employees and has over 12,000 customers like Adidas, Goldman Sachs, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/qualtrics-sap-nba-app-coronavirus-2020-10">NBA</a>, and Microsoft. Qualtrics' upcoming IPO prices its shares between <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sap-owned-qualtrics-files-for-us-ipo-2020-12">$20 to $24</a>, valuing it between $12 billion to $14.4 billion, according to its S-1. Qualtrics plans to list on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "XM."</p><p>The forthcoming IPO represents Qualtrics' second shot at going public: In October 2018, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/qualtrics-sets-ipo-price-range-2018-11">company was days away from going public</a> when <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sap-acquires-qualtrics-2018-11">SAP swooped in</a> and announced it would acquire Qualtrics <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-biggest-winners-from-sap-buying-qualtrics-for-8-billion-2018-11">for $8 billion</a>.&nbsp;</p><p>In Julyjust a year and a half after the acquisition closedSAP announced that it intended to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sap-qualtrics-ipo-public-offering-2020-7">take Qualtrics public</a>, in reflection of the opportunity it sees for the company to chase the XM market opportunity as an independent entity.&nbsp;</p><p>Qualtrics, founded in 2002 by CEO Ryan Smith, his brother, and his father, took no venture capital for a decade, until it <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/qualtrics-ryan-smith-acquisition-offer-2012-7">raised $70 million</a> in Series A funding from Sequoia and Accel. In all, it raised $400 million before its acquisition of SAP.</p><p><strong><em>Read more: </em></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/qualtrics-sap-nba-app-coronavirus-2020-10"><em>How the NBA used tools from Qualtricswhich is gearing up to spin out of SAPto make sure that teams in its pandemic bubble felt 'heard and taken care of'</em></a></p><p><em><strong>Got a tip'</strong>&nbsp;Contact this reporter via email at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:rmchan@businessinsider.com">rmchan@insider.com</a>, Signal at 646.376.6106,&nbsp;Telegram at @rosaliechan, or&nbsp;Twitter DM at&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/rosaliechan17">@rosaliechan17</a>. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request.</em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-cloud-recruiting-sap-executives-2020-12" >Google Cloud quietly recruited 5 long-time SAP executives this year as part of its enterprise push against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft</a></strong></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/qualtrics-ipo-poaches-execs-salesforce-adobe-twilio-2021-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pikes-peak-hill-climb-colorado-most-dangerous-racetrack-2020-2">Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America</a></p>
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