Brian Halligan is back running HubSpot. The Cambridge-based marketing software firm's board installed its co-founder as chief executive effective Wednesday, pushing out Yamini Rangan just months after the company suffered its largest single-day stock drop in its 12-year history on the New York Stock Exchange.
HubSpot confirmed the move in a statement, saying its board had appointed Halligan to the top job the same day Rangan departed both the CEO post and the company's board. According to HubSpot, Rangan will stay on through December 1 to help with the handoff. The announcement, also covered by Boston Business Journal, also noted that the firm cut 660 jobs last month.
Halligan isn't new to the role. He is a HubSpot co-founder and left the CEO role in 2021. Rangan was CEO before Halligan returned, and under her watch HubSpot's customer base grew from 135,000 to more than 311,000, with revenue climbing from $1.3 billion that year to an expected $3.7 billion in 2026, the company said.
A Stock That Never Recovered
The leadership shakeup comes three months after HubSpot shares cratered. On August 6, shares were down 20.2% by 11 a.m. ET, according to The Motley Fool. That single session marked the company's largest one-day stock drop in its 12-year run on the NYSE, per a Boston Business Journal report at the time.
Shares jumped 8% to about $218 in Thursday morning trading, as reported by The Boston Globe. HubSpot's market cap hovered around $10 billion Thursday morning, compared with roughly $30 billion when Halligan first stepped down as CEO back in 2021, the Globe's reporting shows.
Notably, HubSpot's fundamentals haven't collapsed alongside the share price. Revenue grew nearly 20% to $2.7 billion over the first nine months of the year, the same Globe report notes.
Reaffirmed Guidance and a CFO Changeover
Despite the turmoil, HubSpot reaffirmed the fourth-quarter and full-year 2026 financial guidance it issued on November 4, the company said. There's also a finance leadership change on the horizon: CFO Kate Bueker is set to retire effective February 11, 2027, with Karen Burgess succeeding her that same day, per HubSpot's announcement.
Halligan wasted no time signaling a reset. In a post on X, he wrote that he and Shah are “completely re-founding the company,” calling it “day 1” and declaring HubSpot now “the Customer Harness Company.” He added that he would post more in the coming days about his reasons for returning, though the full post was not available beyond that excerpt.
The company's own announcement frames the moment as a changing of the guard rather than a retreat, pointing to the customer and revenue growth racked up during Rangan's tenure even as it hands the wheel back to its co-founder. Whether Halligan's second act can close the gap between HubSpot's business performance and its battered stock price remains to be seen.
