Freshworks' $510 million EX business sees a new channel chief

Kuntal Vahalia, who joins from Anaplan, will focus on deepening engagement with global system integrators to drive partner-led growth in enterprise accounts.

Freshworks has appointed Kuntal Vahalia as senior vice president, Global Channels and Alliances to lead its partner strategy and execution as the company expands its enterprise footprint.

The appointment reflects a shift driven by scale rather than a new strategic move, as Freshworks’ employee experience segment has grown into its largest business and now requires a stronger partner infrastructure to support further expansion.

The company's EX segment, which covers IT service management, IT asset management, IT operations management, and enterprise service management, closed 2025 at $510 million in annual recurring revenue, growing 26 percent year-on-year as reported, according to Freshworks' Q4 2025 earnings.

That compares with $395 million ARR for its legacy customer experience business, which grew at just 9 percent over the same period. EX is now the majority of Freshworks' $907 million total ARR, a reversal that has received little attention.

Vahalia will report to chief revenue officer Ian Tickle and will be responsible for global channel programmes, partner enablement, and scaling alliances, with a particular focus on global system integrators as the primary route into larger enterprise accounts.

He will work closely with the company’s go-to-market, sales, and operations teams to align partner programs with broader revenue goals and improve execution across regions.

Partner channel was already producing before this hire

The appointment is not a ground-up build. Freshworks' partner channel was already influencing over one-third of ARR as of Q2 2025, according to the company's earnings call.

Vahalia's mandate is to scale what is working, not create it, with a specific focus on GSIs who can support complex enterprise deployments and longer-term customer engagement.

Before joining Freshworks, he was senior vice president of Global Channels and Alliances at Anaplan, where he led changes to the partner model and expanded partner-led revenue.

His prior experience maps directly to this objective. At Anaplan, Vahalia led the transformation of the partner model with a heavy emphasis on GSI relationships and services-led growth.

At Freshworks, he is being asked to run a similar motion: deepen GSI relationships, move upmarket, and enable partners to build scalable practices around the platform.

He has previously held leadership roles at Salesforce, MuleSoft, and ThoughtSpot.

Competes with ServiceNow in enterprise EX deals

Freshworks’ growth in the employee experience segment is taking place alongside competition from ServiceNow in enterprise accounts.

On its Q4 2025 earnings call, CEO Dennis Woodside cited a global semiconductor company that moved from ServiceNow to Freshservice, with projected 30 percent cost savings and faster resolution times.

Freshworks’ EX segment grew 26 percent over the same period, faster than ServiceNow, albeit off a much smaller revenue base.

Freshworks is targeting $1 billion in total ARR by 2026 and $1.3 billion by 2028, with its EX and AI segments expected to drive growth. Its Freddy AI crossed $25 million in ARR at the end of 2025, with a target of $100 million by 2028.

From growth reset to scale discipline

The broader business trajectory provides important context. Freshworks listed on Nasdaq in September 2021 at a valuation of over $12 billion, with shares opening at $43.50. By late 2022, the stock had fallen sharply, down roughly 75 percent, as investor concerns around slowing growth and profitability mounted.

Since then, the company has narrowed its focus and rebalanced execution. In 2025, Freshworks delivered its first fully profitable year, reporting a non‑GAAP operating margin of around 19 percent and adjusted free cash flow of $223 million.

Against that backdrop, the scaling of the EX business to $510 million in ARR, coupled with the appointment of a dedicated global channel chief, marks a shift from experimentation to institutionalisation.

Freshworks is now putting partner infrastructure in place, not to chase growth, but to defend and extend the lane it believes it has found.