Who was the CEO of Zoom Video Communications at its IPO in 2019?

Eric Yuan was the CEO of Zoom Video Communications at its 2019 initial public offering. He founded the company in 2011 after previously working as an executive and founding engineer at WebEx, the videoconferencing company later acquired by Cisco.

Zoom completed its IPO on April 18, 2019, listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ZM. The offering priced shares at $36, and the stock rose sharply on its first trading day. Yuan was not merely a public face for the offering: Zoom’s filings identified him as its founder, president, and chief executive officer.

A common mix-up is confusing Zoom Video Communications with Zoom Technologies, an unrelated company whose stock briefly attracted attention because of the similar name and ticker history. The other choices—Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Satya Nadella—led Apple, Google, and Microsoft, respectively, rather than Zoom. Yuan remained Zoom’s chief executive as the company expanded dramatically during the 2020 pandemic, when videoconferencing became a mainstream business and education tool.