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The Gist
- A yearlong reset. Qualtrics' leadership turnover stretches back to February, when Jason Maynard took over as CEO, through an April shakeup that cleared five executives, to today's five new hires.
- Sales is the clear priority. Three of today's five new leaders sit inside Sales, while Strategy and IT positions cut in April haven't been reported to be refilled.
- A rival's bench gets raided. New CSO Adam Block spent eight years at Medallia, last in 2022, marking one of the more direct hires Qualtrics has made from its closest competitor in the voice of customer market.
Qualtrics today named five new leaders to its sales, marketing and product organizations, capping a year of leadership turnover under new CEO Jason Maynard that has reshaped much of the company's executive bench.
5 New Leaders, 4 of Them in Sales
Adam Block was named chief sales officer, taking over Qualtrics' Sales, Sales Development, Solutions Engineering, Revenue Operations, Partnerships & Alliances and Sales Enablement teams. Block joins from Motive, where he served as chief revenue officer, and spent eight years before that at Medallia in enterprise sales and industry expansion roles.
That's a "we gotcha back," at least one, in terms of a Qualtrics-Medallia executive poaching battle. Medallia poached more than one Qualtrics executive earlier in the year. Qualtrics made sure to mention Medallia's in the headline on Block's announcement. Block was last with Medallia in 2022, according to his LinkedIn.
"Qualtrics created the Experience Management category by helping organizations better understand the experiences they deliver," Block said in a statement. "What's exciting now is that AI changes what's possible. We're moving beyond understanding experiences to improving outcomes, often in real time. That shift matters because AI is raising the bar for every organization. Expectations from customers, employees and other stakeholders are increasing faster than most organizations can adapt."
Two more sales leaders were named alongside Block. Khoi Hoang will lead Qualtrics' Global Sales Engineering organization, overseeing Solution Strategy and Solution Engineering. Hoang joins from Salesforce, where he was Worldwide Field Chief Technology Officer, and co-founded Siperian, the master data management platform later acquired by Informatica.
"The quality of AI outcomes is determined by the quality, context, and trustworthiness of the data behind them," Hoang said.
Aaron Ellis was named to lead Qualtrics' Corporate Sales organization. Ellis spent nearly a decade at Workday in sales leadership roles, and was part of NetSuite's global sales organization during its hypergrowth years.
"The companies that win aren't necessarily the ones with the most data," Ellis said. "They're the ones that understand their customers and employees better than anyone else and use those insights to take action while it still matters."
Related Article: Medallia Vs. Qualtrics: The VoC Market Is Being Repriced
Marketing and Product Round Out the Slate
Ken Coleman was named SVP of marketing, replacing CMO Lynn Girotto, who departed the company as part of the broader leadership turnover this year, according to an April report from GeekWire. Coleman spent 12 years at Ramsey Solutions as an on-air personality, author and host before joining Qualtrics — an unconventional path for an enterprise SaaS marketing chief.
"Today, experience is the business," Coleman said. "Great experiences drive growth, increase efficiency, strengthen trust, and build relationships where everyone is treated the way they deserve and want to be."
Ken Hoang was promoted to SVP of Product, just three months after joining Qualtrics in April as VP of Product Management. He previously worked at IBM and Oracle NetSuite, and co-founded Siperian alongside Khoi Hoang.
"Closing this gap is where businesses win, and it requires deep human understanding and contextual inference that large language models alone can't provide," Hoang said.
A Qualtrics Leadership Rebuild That Started With April's Departures
Today's announcement follows a leadership shakeup in April, when five Qualtrics executives departed the company, according to the report from GeekWire. Those departures included Edward Chen, chief strategy and corporate development officer; Jeff Gelfuso, SVP and chief product & experience Officer; Brad Anderson, president of products, user experience and engineering; Juan Rodriguez Estevez, chief information officer; and CMO Lynn Girotto.
The shakeup came roughly two months after Maynard, a former Oracle and NetSuite executive, was named CEO in February, and about three months before Qualtrics closed its $6.75 billion acquisition of Press Ganey Forsta.
Where Qualtrics Is Reinvesting — and Where It Isn't
Editor's note: Comparing April's departures to today's arrivals by department shows a clear pattern in where Maynard is rebuilding — and where he's letting seats go unfilled.
| Department | April Departures | July Arrivals | Net Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 0 | 3 (Block, Khoi Hoang, Ellis) | New function built from scratch |
| Marketing | 1 (Girotto) | 1 (Coleman) | Direct swap |
| Product | 2 (Gelfuso, Anderson) | 1 (Ken Hoang) | Net loss of one seat |
| Strategy/Corporate Development | 1 (Chen) | 0 | TBD |
| IT | 1 (Juan Miguel R.) | 0 | TBD |
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Sales went from zero seats lost in April to three seats gained in July — the only function that grew rather than merely refilled. Strategy and IT, meanwhile, saw departures with no replacements named. Product actually shrank, going from two senior leaders to one.
A Familiar Rival in the Mix: Qualtrics Nabs Medallia Exec
Block's hire is notable given Qualtrics and Medallia's history of trading talent. In January 2025, Medallia named Mark Bishof CEO and brought four other former Qualtrics and Clarabridge executives with him — a far larger executive transplant than today's single hire from Medallia's bench.
But the pattern is the same: the two biggest names in voice of customer software continue to shake up leadership talent as the category faces pressure to prove measurable outcomes rather than just deliver feedback and insights.
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