Have you ever wondered how the titans of the tech world wield their influence on LinkedIn? We peeked behind the curtain to discover the practices and patterns of successful SaaS CEOs on the platform where the buzz is all business.
I write a lot about LinkedIn — why it matters, what CEOs can use it for, and how to use it well. And, my team and I are always on the lookout for CEOS who stand out on the platform, especially CEOs of SaaS companies.
LinkedIn offers an ideal communications channel for SaaS CEOs — really, any CEO — to speak directly to the people they want to talk to and who need to hear from them. Prospects, investors, top talent, employees, even the media — they’re on LinkedIn and they are looking and listening. And we see CEOs using LinkedIn to build credibility and visibility, create and sustain relationships, rally and celebrate their teams and partnerships, and more.
We wondered, “What are the biggest players in SaaS posting about on LinkedIn?” So, we deployed our top research guy to find out. We built the list based on revenue rankings from CloudZero, and we defined the top tier as SaaS companies with $1 billion or more in annual revenue. Here’s what we found these 18 SaaS CEOs doing.
Absent or Advocates?
A few — very few — of these CEOs aren’t on LinkedIn — or they have a profile but aren’t active. You won’t find the CEOs of Google, Netflix, Adobe, or several SaaS giants posting and commenting. On the other hand, thousands of their employees participate enthusiastically, their company pages update frequently, and some run ads on the platform.
But most of the CEOs of the top SaaS companies actively engage on LinkedIn, and several are LinkedIn Top Voices, an “invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them.” In other words, Top Voices are important voices on the platform, and they include:
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- Satya Nadella, Microsoft
- Sasan Goodarzi, Intuit
- Eric S. Yuan, Zoom
- Bill McDermott, ServiceNow
- Andrew Anagnost, Autodesk
- Yamini Rangan, Hubspot
Top of the Top
When it comes to followers on LinkedIn, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, stands alone with almost 11 million followers (as of this writing). His success makes sense — Microsoft owns LinkedIn — but he’s also active on the platform (more on that below).
Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber) comes in second with 347K followers, and Bill McDermott (ServiceNow) ranks next with 279K followers.
The other active CEOs include Yamini Rangan of HubSpot, with 92K; Eric Yuan of Zoom, with 81K; Sasan Goodarzi of Intuit, with 50K; and George Kurtz of Crowdstrike, with 40K.
Talks About
Top SaaS CEOs make the most of LinkedIn’s options — posts with images, videos, and terrific infographics. They write original content and share others’ posts, too (a lot). Most have a history of writing long-form articles (blogs), but those have tapered off a bit in 2024.
We analyzed the types of posts these CEOs made over three months, and broke them down into the following categories:
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- Company News
- Culture
- Industry Insights
- Partners
- Events
- Speaking Engagements & Podcasts
- Causes
- Personal
The top three categories of these SaaS CEOs’ posts were:
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- Company News: Almost 50% of all posts announce news, milestones, or partnerships. The posts create both a news wire and a timeline of success and developments that build excitement and tell stories of ongoing success.
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- Culture: About 15% of these CEOs’ posts focus on employees and company culture. From kudos to individual employees and teams to testimonies of their efforts (and successes) to build a diverse, equitable environment, these posts reflect the company’s — and the CEO’s — priorities and commitments to their people.
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- Industry Insights: These CEOs are thought leaders, and their posts offer a glimpse into what matters to them and where they believe their industries are headed. Indeed, 13% of their posts offer insights, solutions, and calls to action.
The percentage of posts related to partners, events, speaking engagements and causes were all in the 6-8% range, although this did vary from one CEO to another. As you might imagine, CEOs of companies that are partner-oriented, like Microsoft, had a higher percentage of posts related to partners.
Few of the CEOs posted about anything personal. We have found the occasional personal post to be very effective at showing the human behind the CEO role, but during the time period we analyzed, only three of these CEOs made a personal post.
Most Active SaaS CEOs
No surprise here: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella ranks #1 as the most active on LinkedIn. His prolific engagement serves as a model to other Microsoft employees. He posts often about Microsoft developments, milestones, employees, partners, and culture. Recently, many of his posts — around all those topics — include references to Microsoft’s AI efforts.
Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi is also very active on LinkedIn. Always professional, his posts celebrate Intuit’s people, culture, milestones, and partners. He often shares industry insights and calls all companies to a higher standard of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Next Tier
The CEOs of two additional SaaS companies — Zscaler and Samsara — also got the attention of our team. Though their revenues haven’t yet reached the billion-dollar milestone, their leaders are very good on LinkedIn:
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- Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudry has more than 56K followers, and he posts often about company news, highlights his speaking engagements and events, and shares his industry insights.
- With more than 10K followers, Sanjit Biswas, who leads Samsara, celebrates the company’s news, employees, and customers. He recently announced the launch of a nonprofit, Biswas Family Foundation, focused on using AI to improve global health outcomes.
Inspired to Engage?
LinkedIn remains the platform for all things business, and through active engagement, as demonstrated by these top SaaS CEOs, it offers unparalleled opportunities for visibility, credibility, and connection with key stakeholders.
If you’re inspired by these top CEOs and looking to enhance your LinkedIn activity and harness its potential for business growth, I encourage you to reach out on LinkedIn or book a quick call. Let’s discuss how we can make your LinkedIn presence a key asset for your business success.