HubSpot shares rose about 7% on Thursday after the software company announced that co-founder Brian Halligan is returning as chief executive, replacing Yamini Rangan with immediate effect.

The stock closed 7.24% higher at $217.57, according to market data, after climbing as much as 9% in premarket trading. The rally stood out on a day when the wider technology sector was under pressure, underlining that investors saw the shake-up as a company-specific turning point.

A refounding built around AI

Halligan co-founded HubSpot in 2005 and ran the company for 16 years, including its stock market listing, before handing the role to Rangan in 2021. He described his return as a refounding, saying he intends to rebuild the company's product suite, sales strategy and culture from the ground up as artificial intelligence reshapes the customer-relationship software market.

Rangan stepped down as chief executive and left the board on Thursday, but will remain with the company until 1 December to support the transition. Under her five-year tenure, HubSpot's customer base grew from 135,000 to more than 311,000, while annual revenue nearly tripled from $1.3 billion in 2021 to a projected $3.7 billion in 2026.

New finance chief from Adobe

HubSpot also announced a change at the top of its finance team. Chief financial officer Kate Bueker will retire on 11 February 2027, and Karen Burgess, a senior finance executive at Adobe, will join as executive vice president of finance on 30 November before succeeding her.

The company reaffirmed the financial guidance it issued on 4 November, projecting fourth-quarter revenue of $945 million to $947 million and full-year revenue of about $3.685 billion to $3.687 billion. The appointments follow a difficult stretch for HubSpot, whose shares had lost almost half their value this year before Thursday's rebound, amid slowing growth and investor concern about disruption from AI-native rivals.