Bio

Kira Makagon serves as Chief Innovation Officer where she leads global product, user experience, engineering, cloud operations, security and IT. She has been a critical driver in defining RingCentral’s product strategy and global reach that has put RingCentral at the forefront of the communications and collaboration market, leading to rapid year-over-year growth from pre-IPO to over $2 billion in annual recurring revenue. From 2012 on, Makagon led a number of market-first product innovations at global scale, such as RingCentral's mobile-first cloud PBX with integrated video meetings capabilities. She launched RingCentral's open platform, allowing for customizable workflows through open APIs. In 2015, Makagon led the acquisition of Glip, a team messaging solution, making RingCentral the first cloud communications provider to have a truly unified solution across messaging, video and phone. Under her leadership, RingCentral brought omnichannel capabilities into its collaborative contact center solution with the acquisitions of ConnectFirst and Dimelo, enhancing the customer experience for businesses worldwide. In 2020, Makagon spearheaded the launch of RingCentral Video®, the company's proprietary video meetings solution. In 2021, she focused on launching RingCentral Ventures™, RingCentral's corporate ventures arm, which partners with exceptional founding teams and leading venture capitalists to reimagine the future of work through communications and collaboration. With RingCentral Ventures well on its way, Makagon expanded her responsibilities and resumed her leadership of the innovation organization. Makagon has received numerous awards, including a 2021 Aragon Research Women in Technology Award; a 2020 Silver Stevie for Most Innovative Woman of the Year – Technology; a 2019 Gold Women World Award for Excellence in Industry Woman of the Year: Cloud Computing/SaaS/Internet and more. Makagon is a regular lecturer at UC Berkeley and participant in industry panels & podcasts. Makagon has pioneered multiple transformational technologies and has advised entrepreneurs and early-stage companies. Prior to RingCentral, she founded and served as CEO & president of Red Aril, a real-time audience and media optimization platform, acquired by Hearst Corporation. She also co-founded and held executive & board positions at Octane Software, acquired by E.piphany, and Scopus Technology, acquired by Siebel. Makagon is an independent board director and serves as a member of the Board of Directors at Calix and American Technion Society.