# Sunil Thomas

> Sunil Thomas is the co-founder and CEO of CleverTap, the customer engagement company he began in 2013 with Anand Jain and Suresh Kondamudi after years of leading engineering organizations in the United States and India. A computer science engineer who still describes himself as a technologist at heart, Thomas helped turn an initial idea called WizRocket into a global SaaS business by spending its first two years deep in product development, listening closely to early customers, and treating retention as an engineering problem rather than a marketing afterthought.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at CleverTap
- **Organizations:** CleverTap, Network18, InfoSpace, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Tata Consultancy Services, Zephyr Software
- **Education:** Master's degree, University of Washington, Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science, University of Mumbai, St. Xavier's College
- **Known for:** Co-founded CleverTap in 2013 and helped develop it from three founders coding the first product into a global customer-engagement company., Led CleverTap through early funding, international expansion and its evolution from WizRocket into a commercial SaaS platform., Was named one of Ad Age's inaugural 25 Marketing Technology Trailblazers in 2017.

## Career timeline

- **1990s** — Worked earlier in his career at Tata Consultancy Services, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard; his first entrepreneurial role was as CTO of Zephyr Software, later acquired by InfoSpace.
- **1999-2009** — Rose through engineering leadership at InfoSpace, from senior development manager to vice president of engineering and, in 2008, chief technology officer.
- **2009** — Moved from Seattle to India and joined Network18, where he later worked with future co-founders Anand Jain and Suresh Kondamudi.
- **2013** — Co-founded WizRocket, later renamed CleverTap; BookMyShow became an early customer.
- **2014** — Moved to Silicon Valley to gather product input from a mature software market and help make the platform globally relevant.
- **2015** — CleverTap launched at TechCrunch Disrupt after a period of private product development.
- **2016** — CleverTap began selling the product commercially after roughly two years focused on its data and engagement platform.
- **2017** — Ad Age named Thomas among its inaugural 25 Marketing Technology Trailblazers.
- **2021** — Moved from CEO to executive chairman, focusing on innovation and strategic direction.
- **2022** — As executive chairman, helped steer the Leanplum acquisition and a $105 million Series D financing led by CDPQ.
- **2024** — Resumed the CEO role after Sidharth Malik stepped down.
- **2026** — Outlined CleverTap's shift toward AI-driven continuous decisioning and one-to-one personalization.

## Achievements

- Co-founded CleverTap in 2013 and helped develop it from three founders coding the first product into a global customer-engagement company.
- Led CleverTap through early funding, international expansion and its evolution from WizRocket into a commercial SaaS platform.
- Was named one of Ad Age's inaugural 25 Marketing Technology Trailblazers in 2017.
- Helped guide CleverTap's 2022 acquisition of Leanplum and its $105 million Series D led by CDPQ.
- Built an engineering career at InfoSpace that culminated in the public company's CTO role.
- Returned to lead CleverTap as CEO in 2024.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Thomas described customer engagement as moving from campaign execution toward continuous, AI-driven decisioning and promoted CleverTap's Live 1:1 Personalization direction.
- **2026-02** — He marked CleverTap's recognition as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines as validation of its early investment in data foundations and agentic AI.
- **2026-01** — Published his outlook for intelligent marketing in 2026, detailing CleverAI's decisioning engine, specialized AI agents and a design-partner program.
- **2025-04** — CleverTap acquired promotions-automation startup rehook.ai to add coupons, loyalty, gamification and referral capabilities to its platform.
- **2024-07** — Resumed the CleverTap CEO role after serving as executive chairman.

## Links

- Website: https://clevertap.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunil-tom
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/suniltom
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/clevertap

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/sunil-thomas
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-27