Eoghan McCabe has been approached by a number of Intercom board members about returning to his role as chief executive from 2011 to 2020.
Intercom
McCabe, who was CEO from 2011 to 2020 and led Intercom to $100 million in revenue, has been accused of making unwanted advances to several female employees. He told Forbes about his investigation into the events.
Intercom founder Eoghan McCabe is returning as CEO of the billion-dollar messaging software company before leaving a year ago amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
McCabe will begin his second term as CEO, according to a company email sent to employees Thursday. In the year Former COO Karen Peacock, who replaced McCabe in 2020, will leave the company after six months as an advisor to the board of directors.
“I can’t stay that far from the company,” McCabe said Forbes. “I care as much as I ever did, and in the last two years I’ve gotten a lot more clarity about what it’s all about [Intercom] It can and should be. Recently, some board members asked me if I would consider coming back as CEO, and I felt called to finish what I started.
Intercom was founded in Dublin, Ireland by McCabe and his compatriots Des Traynor, David Barrett and Ciaran Lee. The company began by building messaging tools for businesses to connect with their customers. It became one of Silicon Valley’s fastest growing startups in 2016. Under McCabe’s leadership, the company achieved $100 million in annual revenue and a $1.3 billion valuation from VC firms including Bessemer Venture Partners, Index Ventures and Kleiner Perkins.
“We want to do what Figma did in Photoshop.”
McCabe’s meteoric rise in 2019 came under fire after reports that he made unwanted advances on young female workers. The allegations, which include incidents of inappropriate touching and grooming of at least one junior employee, are said to have led to women leaving the company, sometimes referred to internally as a “wexit.”
McCabe, who told Forbes he was unanimously approved by the internal and external investigation into the allegations, described the events as a relative youth. “I’m glad to fix it. The reality of the situation hit someone in the early days of the company. I was naive and thought we were all on the same level,” he said. Forbes, referring to the power dynamics between the executive and the small seller. He explained that his decision to step down as CEO next year was a personal choice as the Intercom Board unanimously voted to keep him in charge. “My goal was not to be CEO forever,” he said. “I dreamed of going into the role of chairman and trying some new things.”
Under Peacock, Intercom reached $200 million in annual revenue and became the no. 35 on ForbesCloud 100 has become popular among small and medium businesses largely on the back of the product. In recent months, the company’s executives and board of directors began to discuss Intercom’s next course of action. Macbe said Forbes Talks also agreed on narrowing the scope of the product — currently software that boosts sales and customer retention — to focus more specifically on customer support. And in doing so, Intercom, which once billed itself as the “next generation of sales force,” is now considering a spin-off for a different company. “We’re going to be very aggressive and pick a line, fight with Zendesk,” McCabe said. “We want to do what Figma did in Photoshop.”
McCabe sees Zendesk as the current market leader in supporting mid-market companies, while Salesforce and ServiceNow dominate the enterprise customer base. Intercom, which has more than 1,000 employees, believes it can surpass Zendesk by focusing its mission on customer support. But this requires realigning research and development efforts and getting the marketing team to sell a new narrative. After deciding on Intercom’s new vision, several board members expressed interest in returning to McCabe as CEO. As for why a CEO transition was necessary to execute the vision, he said, “You’d have to ask Karen. Reached for comment, Peacock wrote in an email: “I’m excited about where Intercom is headed and what the next chapter holds. I will forever be Intercom’s biggest fan and advocate.
McBee says he’s excited to celebrate Peacock on her exit, but the company’s focus is now on its “super aggressive” look. “The board realized that I had done this before in Intercom – define a category and create a lot of waves in that area,” he said. “Obviously, they believe I can do it again.”
