A New Chapter for Apollo

If you’ve been at Apollo, this won’t surprise you - Matt has effectively been the de facto CEO for the past year. Now the title matches the reality.

Matt and I go way back: we first met in 2016, and this has been a long time coming. From advising Apollo starting in 2020 to leading the company day-to-day as COO over the past two years, we’ve been thoughtfully preparing for this transition for some time.

We just closed our fiscal year, and thanks to Matt’s leadership over the last year, we had our best month, best Q4, and best year ever. We’ve accelerated our growth rate even at a greater revenue scale. We transformed our culture, built a new leadership team, and shipped new products that are changing how companies go to market. Matt was the catalyst that made it all happen.

Let me be direct: Apollo is a meritocracy, and as we enter the scale phase of the company, Matt is objectively the best person to help us scale from $200M ARR to $500M ARR and beyond. This isn’t a future bet - Matt has already been operating in this capacity. Over the past year, he transformed the company: our operations, our culture, our GTM motion, and our product. The results speak for themselves.

When I look at what’s needed to take Apollo to the next level, Matt has the complete package:

• Business & Operations: He’s built the systems and rigor that let us scale

• GTM: He deeply understands our customers and how to reach them

• Product: I have the utmost trust in his ability to know what to build, how it should feel, and to make it happen

As for me: I’ll continue as Board Chair and remain actively involved as an advisor, playing an assist role wherever I can add value. Apollo is in the strongest position it’s ever been, and the timing feels right. 

I have never been more excited about Apollo. Apollo is entering its scale & execution phase. The product is built. The AI vision is real. The team is exceptional.

When I founded Apollo 11 years ago, our vision was to democratize world-class GTM to everyone, and today we are closer than ever to that, with millions of users and nearly 100,000 paying customers building their GTM on Apollo using our all-in-one product.

What’s needed now is relentless focus on scaling what works - and Matt is the leader for that.

I’ll let Matt share the vision for where we’re going. What I’ll say is this: I’ve never been more excited about Apollo’s future.

To our customers, our 800 team members, and everyone who believed in what we’re building - thank you.

Onward,

Tim Zheng
Founder & Board Chair, Apollo