CDK Global has appointed Sudhakar Ramakrishna as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective October 5, 2026. He will also join the company’s Board of Directors, succeeding Brian MacDonald, who will retire and remain a senior strategic advisor to Brookfield and CDK during the transition. Ramakrishna will lead CDK as it continues to scale innovation, develop customer-focused technology and strengthen its position across automotive retail software.
Ramakrishna most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer of SolarWinds, where he led the infrastructure management software company from 2021. Before SolarWinds, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Pulse Secure and previously held senior leadership roles at Citrix, Polycom, Motorola, 3Com and U.S. Robotics. His career spans decades of building and scaling software businesses across cloud, mobility, networking, security and collaboration markets.
Why this matters: Ramakrishna takes the helm as CDK builds on more than $500 million of investment aimed at evolving its platform from a system of record into a broader system of intelligence and engagement. His experience scaling enterprise software and security businesses could help CDK accelerate the use of AI, analytics and automotive-specific data across dealership workflows while maintaining the operational reliability its customers depend on.
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