MongoDB Names Cloudflare Executive CJ Desai as President and CEO

Database company MongoDB announced Monday (Nov. 3) that Dev Ittycheria will retire as president and CEO after leading the company for 11 years.

Ittycheria will be succeeded in those roles by Chirantan “CJ” Desai, who most recently served as president of product and engineering at Cloudflare, MongoDB said in a Monday press release. The leadership transition will be effective Nov. 10.

Cloudflare said in a Thursday (Oct. 30) press release that Desai will step down from his role at that company effective Nov. 7 to become CEO “at another notable, publicly-traded company.”

Ittycheria will remain on MongoDB’s board and serve as an adviser to Desai, according to the MongoDB press release. The leadership transition came when Ittycheria decided to retire from a full-time operating role.

When seeking a successor to Ittycheria, MongoDB looked for someone with experience in cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, enterprise software and product innovation, and who is “equipped to guide the company on its continued journey towards durable, profitable growth,” the release said.

Desai has over 25 years of experience in those fields, per the release. At Cloudflare, he drove product strategy and execution while the company delivered strong revenue growth and stock performance.

Before that, Desai served as president and chief operating officer at ServiceNow and helped scale that company’s annualized revenue from $1.5 billion to over $10 billion, according to the release. He also held executive roles at EMC and Symantec after beginning his career at Oracle.

“His deep understanding and early deployment of AI in the enterprise will be invaluable as MongoDB continues to deliver for its customers,” Tom Killalea, chairman of the MongoDB board of directors, said in the release.

Desai said in the release that MongoDB is “uniquely positioned to power the next wave of AI-driven applications.”

“My directive is clear: by staying relentlessly close to customers, delivering category-defining products and executing at scale, we can seize the enormous opportunities ahead,” Desai said.

MongoDB said in the release that it expects to exceed the high end of the guidance it provided for third quarter fiscal year 2026 revenue, non-GAAP income from operations and non-GAAP earnings per share. The company plans to release its finalized financial results for that quarter on Dec. 1.

During the company’s most recent earnings report, which was delivered Aug. 26, MongoDB said its revenue increased 24% year over year during the quarter ended July 31, in part because it gained new customers who are using its database to build AI applications.