Freshworks CIO Ashwin Ballal hasn’t taken the typical digital leadership journey. Having completed a PhD in material science and engineering, he started in business-focused operations, working in marketing, engineering, product and operations. His shift into IT came much later, almost to the extent that he could be seen as an accidental CIO.
“My career wasn’t planned that way, let’s put it like that,” he says, referring to his move into digital leadership in 2009. “But then, I’ve always been a curious person. Your career progression takes different turns. And if you’re really serious about your career, you’ve got to try new things.”
Having worked in marketing for US companies, Ballal joined semiconductor manufacturer KLA in 2000, where he led engineering and data analytics teams before moving to Chennai to run the company’s India operations. When he returned to the US with KLA in 2009, the chief executive offered him the opportunity to assume his first CIO role.
“I looked at him and said, ‘What wrong did I do to deserve that?’– because if you come from the business, you often have a poor opinion of IT,” says Ballal. “But I took the CIO job, the highest job you can get in technology, and after six months, I went back to the CEO and said, ‘This is the best job I’ve ever had’.”
Ballal says the key to success was his cross-business experience. “More often than not, the CIO gets the short end of the stick because they don’t relate to their peers in the business,” he says.
“My cross-organisation knowledge meant I could go in and say, ‘I know your area of the business as well as you’. And at that point, I was able to push their business transformation using technology.”
Leading transformation
After seven years as CIO with KLA, Ballal became the first-ever CIO at software development specialist Medallia in 2016. Then, in April 2024, he moved into his current role as CIO at technology giant Freshworks.
“I’ve been an outward-facing person because I used to sell, and then just running operations was boring for me,” he says. “When I was approached about the role, I said to myself, ‘Here’s an opportunity to use the entire gamut of my experiences. I ran product, engineering, sales and marketing, and now there’s a chance to become customer zero at Freshworks’.”
In addition to helping ensure the company’s products are well received internally before being sold to customers, Ballal drives the company’s technology roadmap, working closely with sales and marketing teams.
“[With AI], we’re moving into abundance. Previously, an organisation was constrained by its resources. You could only focus on a few ideas. Now, if we don’t constrain the resources, we can consider copious ideas. That’s what I imagine the world to be like in the future”
Ashwin Ballal, Freshworks
“I couldn’t ask for a better role, where I can use my experience to be looked at very differently across the business than any other CIO,” he says.
Computer Weekly chats with Ballal behind the scenes at the Freshworks Refresh 2026 event in New York City, where he joined his executive peers on stage to present the company’s new products to customers. Looking back on his career and his first two years with Freshworks, he says one of his biggest achievements is leading change.
“I’ve always been ahead at the inflection points, whether it’s the transformation from datacentre to cloud, cloud to mobile, or mobile to SaaS [software as a service],” he says. “I’ve been at the forefront of every inflection point, and now I’m at another one – AI. And the beauty of this point is that I know AI. At KLA, we used AI 25 years ago.”
Ballal says the one crucial thing that’s changed between then and now is that the compute and the infrastructure CIOs have today are much more powerful. That combination of technologies means businesses can now use generative and agentic artificial intelligence (AI) to run innovative initiatives.
“We are at the cusp of AI-enabled change,” he says.
Deploying resources
Ballal says his priorities for the next two years are twofold – helping Freshworks to develop great technologies and allowing its people to make the most of AI.
“I’m still going to be customer zero driving the transformation required for our customers,” he says. “I’m also going to be an advocate of transforming the way we do business using AI inside the enterprise. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that every employee, just because I give them access to Claude Cowork, for example, will magically transform their role.”
However, while Ballal recognises that adoption of AI must be accompanied by a significant cultural change programme so the right people gain access to the right tools at the right time, he also sees the potential for AI to help drive lasting operational change. In his own function, he envisions all IT professionals becoming what he calls forward-deployed engineers.
We are at the cusp of AI-enabled change
Ashwin Ballal, Freshworks
“They would have the technical chops to be able to work with every functional area to transform the business,” he says. “What I envision is a radically different organisation moving forward. The silos in which people have traditionally been deployed, such as infrastructure, apps, or the data layer, will dissolve. Everyone’s going to be even. All of us are going to work with our business partners to transform the enterprise.”
To some extent, this AI-enabled workplace transition is already underway at Freshworks. Before the event in New York, the company announced it would lay off roughly 500 employees, or about 11% of its staff. Freshworks CEO Dennis Woodside stated in the company’s earnings call that over 50% of its code is now written by AI, reducing the need for traditional manual coding and allowing Freshworks to streamline operations.
Ballal says the key message is that jobs transform. From the industrial age to the AI era, new roles and responsibilities emerge as technology evolves.
“We’re moving into what we call abundance,” he says. “Previously, an organisation was constrained by its resources. You could only focus on a few ideas. Now, if we don’t constrain the resources, we can consider copious ideas. That’s what I imagine the world to be like in the future.”
Boosting productivity
So, what will this focus on fresh ideas mean for Freshworks? Ballal says there will be a focus on innovation, and he paints a picture of what his IT professionals will deliver for the business and externally for customers two years from now.
“We would have 10 times more products than we have today,” he says. “When you have the resources, you can try new ideas, and therefore, I think the output is going to be 10 times [more] – and 10 times is potentially a low number. Also, that reality is not just true for Freshworks. I think that innovation is open to everyone out there.”
Read more interviews with tech supplier IT leaders
Clare Hickie, EMEA CTO, Workday: The IT chief went from implementing Workday software at one of the firm’s largest customers to leading technology at the supplier – she discusses what she learned.
Nick Pearson, CIO, Ricoh Europe: Working for a company undergoing a major pivot in its business model means variety and opportunity for the supplier’s tech chief.
Art Hu, global CIO, Lenovo: The IT chief at the PC, servers and storage supplier is using his experience of rolling out tech internally to boost the growing services ambitions of the Chinese tech giant.
Ballal says the key point to understand is that, while AI cannot replace human creativity, the technology can support new ways of thinking and working. Rather than being restricted in their outlook, all professionals have the opportunity to embrace multiple ideas.
“We’ve previously been constrained,” he says. “Even if you gave someone an idea, they didn’t have the resources to implement it. Now, AI means they have the tools, and they don’t need an army of people to implement the idea. Each one of us can go and build businesses ourselves. That’s a phenomenal change that I see coming in the future.”
At the event in New York, Ballal and his colleagues explained how Freshworks believes its generative and agentic tools will differentiate it from competitors. The aim is to create an agile, open platform for connecting assets and incidents, with the company’s Freddy AI technology at the heart of an agentic approach to customer support. While the potential of AI is significant, Ballal says it’s important to temper expectations.
“Agents can help you do the more routine stuff. But they can’t necessarily transform your end-to-end work process. I don’t think that’s the right expectation. Can someone become 50% more productive by using AI? The answer is yes. They can then use 50% of their time to focus and say to others, ‘I’ve got some new ideas’,” he says.
“Why do we constrain our thinking to believe that ideas should only come from a select few? That happens today because many of us are constrained by our day-to-day operational roles. We often have no time to think. AI will give you copious time to think. You’ll be able to exercise the human muscle and say, ‘I want to use my intellect to get new ideas and new business’.”
Embracing change
Ballal reflects on his digital leadership career and says two key lessons stand out. “You’ve got to be curious, and you’ve got to be vulnerable,” he says. “And if you can put those two things together, you’ll be successful. If I look back at my career, I think those are the two things that I’ve done quite well.”
You’ve got to be curious, and you’ve got to be vulnerable. If you can put those two things together, you’ll be successful
Ashwin Ballal, Freshworks
He believes his broad geographical experience has also helped to shape his leadership style. Having grown up in India, Ballal moved to the US in his early twenties, spent time in Tokyo, and returned to India to run operations at KLA.
“Those are the kinds of risks you have to take to become a successful professional. I came to the US from India when I was 21, knowing nobody. I grew up in India, went to school in Maryland, and my first job was in sales and marketing out of Madison, Wisconsin, the coldest place I could be,” he says.
“If you look at IT, success is about being willing to be curious and accepting the learning process that comes with that curiosity. Change continues. AI is supercharging all of us right now. If you’re really curious, you’ll try new things. And of course, as you try, you’ll fail. But if you don’t try, you’ll already know the answer.”
Read more on Customer relationship management (CRM)
