VB & WiBD: CXO Series

Kira Makagon

CIO, RingCentral

Kira Makagon leads RingCentral’s Corporate Ventures, RingCentral Ventures. A veteran of RingCentral, Makagon has previously led global product, user experience, engineering, and operations. She is a critical driver in defining RingCentral’s product strategy that has put RingCentral at the forefront of the communications and collaboration market. Throughout her career, Makagon has pioneered multiple transformational technologies and companies and served as an advisor to entrepreneurs and early-stage companies.

Before joining RingCentral, Makagon founded and served as CEO and president of Red Aril, a real-time audience and media optimization platform acquired by Hearst Corporation. Prior to that, she co-founded and held executive and board positions at flagship online marketing and CRM companies, including Octane Software, acquired by E.piphany, and Scopus Technology, acquired by Seibel.

Makagon holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors at Calix.

As well as being a prominent and frequent speaker at many industry events, Makagon has received numerous awards, including 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, a 2018 San Francisco Business Times Forever Influential Honor Roll award, a 2016 Silver Stevie for Female Executive of the Year, a 2016 Most Influential Women in Business from the San Francisco Business Times, a 2015 Women of Influence from the Silicon Valley Business Journal, and a 2015 Golden Bridge Business and Innovation award.

CXO Series