The following very high turnover at Hazelcast overall, and in particular, in its leadership ranks seems symptomatic of its poor leadership which leaves it rudderless: over the past ~3 years alone, the founders left, it's had 3 CMOs, 2 CROs, 2 CTOs (and currently has no CTO and has not had a real CTO with prior CTO experience for ~2.5 years, has had 2 CPOs, 2 CFOs and >90% of its sales organization has turned over in the last year alone. The current CRO's (Karen Smith) apparent lack of experience selling in the enterprise software/middleware/data space or to the top industries in which Hazelcast has traction (Banking & FS, Retail / e-commerce) has arguably resulted in a near 100% turnover since she joined (~1 year ago), the CTO who was very respected by most left ~3 years ago due to leadership challenges with the current CEO (Kelly Herrell), who, in turn, is/was not trusted and/or respected by many if not most at the company and has created a culture not conducive to rational employee hiring and retention. The only people in the C suite who have not turned over in the past 3 years are the CEO and CLO (who also has an "interesting" previous employment history with very little experience in the enterprise software space, e.g., having left the software business for a long time to sell chocolate candies for 9 years at a small chocolate company after his termination at a previous software firm). The leaders with experience in the relevant markets are mostly gone. The investors are lower tier PE firms and are apparently not providing the leadership to Hazelcast that it needs to be successful.
