When the leader who built a company from a small private startup into a global category leader steps aside, it is rarely a moment of crisis — in the best-run companies, it is a moment of deliberate strategic intent. PagerDuty (NYSE: PD), the global leader in AI-first operations management, has announced exactly such a transition: John DiLullo has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective May 11, 2026, succeeding Jennifer Tejada, who transitions to Executive Chair of the Board after nearly a decade of transformational leadership that took PagerDuty from under $50 million in revenue to nearly $500 million.
Jennifer Tejada's Legacy — A Decade That Redefined Digital Operations
When Jennifer Tejada became CEO of PagerDuty in 2016, the company was a focused, venture-backed alerting tool generating less than $50 million in revenue. Over the nine years that followed, she oversaw one of the most comprehensive platform transformations in enterprise software — scaling revenue more than tenfold, leading the company's IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019, expanding internationally across APAC, EMEA, Japan, and the US public sector, and systematically evolving PagerDuty from a single-product notification system into a full-scale AI-first operations platform.
More significantly, Tejada shaped how enterprise boards and C-suites think about operational resilience — elevating digital operations maturity from an IT concern to a boardroom priority. In transitioning to Executive Chair, she brings that strategic perspective to the governance layer, continuing to influence the company's long-term direction while enabling new operational leadership to drive the next growth phase.
"With retention stabilizing, new customer and expansion business accelerating, continued operating margin expansion and momentum in our AI-first Operations Cloud platform, I am confident this is the right time for this transition, and that John is the right leader to guide PagerDuty through its next phase of growth."— Jennifer Tejada, Executive Chair, PagerDuty
John DiLullo — The Track Record Behind the Appointment
John DiLullo is a seasoned public-company leader with a pattern of stepping into enterprise software and cybersecurity businesses at critical inflection points and driving them toward profitable, sustainable outcomes. His CEO career encompasses three successful leadership outcomes:
- →Deepwatch — Led a comprehensive operational transformation, improving unit economics and scaling service delivery through AI-driven automation
- →LiveVox (NASDAQ) — Drove growth and profitability at the publicly listed company through to its acquisition by NICE Ltd
- →Lastline — Led the AI-based threat detection company from venture stage through to acquisition by VMware
Earlier in his career, DiLullo held senior leadership roles at Cisco Systems, Aruba Networks, Forcepoint, and Avaya. He holds two US patents, was a National Science Foundation Fellow at Stanford University, and earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University — a technical foundation that positions him credibly at the intersection of AI-driven operations management and enterprise strategy.
"We are entering a period where AI-enabled software development and increasingly complex digital environments will significantly expand the need for intelligent, real-time operations management. I believe PagerDuty sits at the centre of this transformation and is exceptionally well positioned to capitalise on the opportunities ahead."— John DiLullo, Chief Executive Officer, PagerDuty
The PagerDuty Operations Cloud — AI-First Infrastructure for Always-On Enterprises
The platform DiLullo inherits is a significantly more powerful product than the company Tejada joined in 2016. The PagerDuty Operations Cloud is an AI-first platform that automates and orchestrates the entire incident management lifecycle — from detection to resolution — ingesting signals from over 700 integrations to coordinate responses across people, machines, and software.
It is trusted by nearly half of the Fortune 500, half of the Forbes AI 50, and approximately two-thirds of the Fortune 100 as essential infrastructure for delivering always-on digital experiences. As AI-enabled software development accelerates the pace at which code ships to production, the need for intelligent, real-time operations management that matches that velocity has become a board-level infrastructure priority — positioning PagerDuty at the centre of an expanding market.
"Following a rigorous and thoughtful succession process, the Board is delighted to welcome John as our CEO. He stood out as a high-energy, experienced leader with a unique combination of technical expertise and go-to-market leadership and is exceptionally well-positioned to lead PagerDuty forward."— Zach Nelson, Presiding Director, Board of PagerDuty