MongoDB, Inc.
Leadership History
2 leaders · 2014 to present
Chirantan "CJ" Desai is the CEO of MongoDB, in the role since 2025. The first chief executive was Dev Ittycheria, from 2014.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chirantan "CJ" Desai | President and Chief Executive Officer | 2025 | Present | 1 |
| Dev Ittycheria | Former President and Chief Executive Officer | 2014 | 2025 | 11 |
MongoDB, Inc. is a New York-based database software company best known for MongoDB, a document database that stores data as flexible JSON-like (BSON) documents instead of rows and columns. Its managed service, MongoDB Atlas, runs on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure and accounts for most revenue. The company had 5,636 employees at January 31, 2026 and more than 70,600 customers at July 31, 2026. The company is headquartered in New York City, New York. The database revolution pioneer was founded in 2007 in New York City by Dwight Merriman, Eliot Horowitz, and Kevin Ryan under the name 10gen, fundamentally transforming data architectures by replacing rigid relational tables with flexible JSON-like documents.
MongoDB runs a developer-led, open-core model. The free Community Server (source-available under the SSPL since 2018) drives adoption. Revenue comes from MongoDB Atlas, a fully managed service on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure billed on consumption of compute, storage, and data transfer; from MongoDB Enterprise Advanced, a self-managed subscription with security, management tooling, and support; and from services. Subscription revenue was about 97% of total revenue in fiscal 2026. In Q2 fiscal 2027, Atlas generated $565.9M (up 29%) and Enterprise Advanced and other subscription revenue $181.2M (up 36%).
President and Chief Executive Officer
2025 – Present
1 year (current)
Took over in November 2025 after leading product and engineering at Cloudflare. Has emphasized AI retrieval features, Voyage AI models, agent tooling, and a 'run anywhere' strategy across Atlas and Enterprise Advanced.
In his first full quarters, revenue growth accelerated to 30% in Q2 fiscal 2027 and MongoDB reported three consecutive quarters of positive GAAP EPS.
Former President and Chief Executive Officer
2014 – 2025
11 years
Joined as CEO in 2014 after founding BladeLogic, launched MongoDB Atlas in 2016, took the company public in 2017, and moved the database to the SSPL license in 2018.
Grew MongoDB from an open-source project into a company with $2.0B of fiscal 2025 revenue, with Atlas becoming the main revenue engine.
These officers report to the chief executive and are not part of the CEO timeline above.
MongoDB faces hyperscaler competition, customer cloud-spend optimization, pressure from PostgreSQL and relational incumbents, specialized vector database challengers, open-source licensing scrutiny, stock-based compensation, and the execution demands of scaling under a new CEO.
Dev Ittycheria was CEO of MongoDB from September 2014 until November 2025. He oversaw the 2016 launch of Atlas, the 2017 IPO, and growth to $2.0B of fiscal 2025 revenue before CJ Desai succeeded him.
Max Schireson served as CEO of 10gen / MongoDB from 2012 to 2014, guiding the company through early venture funding from Sequoia and Intel Capital, renaming the company from 10gen to MongoDB Inc. in 2013, before stepping down to spend more time with his family.
CJ Desai became MongoDB's president and CEO in November 2025. He joined from Cloudflare, where he was president of product and engineering, and earlier spent years as a senior product executive at ServiceNow.
Sahir Azam serves as Chief Product Officer at MongoDB, overseeing product management, design, and engineering roadmap execution for MongoDB Atlas, Vector Search, Search, and Developer Experience.
Drawing from his success building BladeLogic, Ittycheria instituted the MEDDPICC enterprise sales methodology across MongoDB's global sales organization, training sales teams to quantify operational business value and close multi-million-dollar migration deals with Fortune 500 CIOs.
Faced with cloud providers commercializing MongoDB without contributing code, Ittycheria boldly transitioned the license to the SSPL in 2018, enduring industry debate while successfully protecting MongoDB's intellectual property and establishing Atlas as the premier managed cloud service.
Dev Ittycheria served as CEO of MongoDB from 2014 to 2025. A veteran enterprise software leader who previously co-founded BladeLogic, Ittycheria transformed MongoDB from a popular open-source tool with uncertain monetization into an enterprise database titan, orchestrating the 2016 launch of Atlas, the 2017 NASDAQ IPO, and scaling revenues fifty-fold.
In 2025, MongoDB appointed CJ Desai as President and CEO. Desai previously served as President and Chief Operating Officer at enterprise software giant ServiceNow and held senior engineering leadership roles at EMC, Symantec, and Google. Desai was brought in to scale MongoDB's enterprise sales organization and position Atlas as the foundational database for enterprise AI agents.
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