Doug Dennerline

CEO and Chairman Betterworks

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Doug Dennerline is CEO and Chairman of Betterworks, the Menlo Park, California company whose software replaces annual performance reviews with continuous goal-setting, feedback and check-ins. He came to it as Executive Chairman and took over as CEO in March 2018, after a career spent largely in enterprise software sales and general management: more than a decade at Cisco, a stint running enterprise sales at Salesforce, the presidency of SuccessFactors, and five years as CEO of Alfresco Software. He also chaired the board of Benefitfocus until Voya Financial acquired it in 2023, and is a co-author of Make Work Better.

Career Highlights

• CEO of Betterworks since March 2018, having joined first as Executive Chairman; the company now lists him as CEO and Chairman.
• CEO and a director of Alfresco Software from January 2013 to March 2018.
• Named President of SuccessFactors in November 2010, with responsibility for all revenue-generating activities, customer success, renewals and marketing.
• Executive Vice President of Enterprise Sales, Americas and EMEA, at Salesforce.com from August 2009 to May 2010.
• At Cisco from 1998 to 2009, latterly as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Collaboration Software Group.
• Director of Benefitfocus from August 2014 and later its Chairman, until the company’s acquisition by Voya Financial in January 2023.

Professional Journey

Dennerline studied business administration at Arizona State University and began in sales and operations roles at Hewlett-Packard, Global Village Communications and 3Com. He joined Cisco in 1998 and stayed for more than a decade, finishing as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Collaboration Software Group.

In August 2009 he moved to Salesforce.com as Executive Vice President of Enterprise Sales for the Americas and EMEA. In November 2010 SuccessFactors, then a public cloud HR software company led by Lars Dalgaard, appointed him President, reporting to the CEO and responsible for revenue, customer success, renewals and marketing; he also sat on its board. That role placed him in HR technology, the market he has worked in for most of the time since.

From January 2013 to March 2018 he was CEO of Alfresco Software, the content management company. In parallel, from August 2014, he served on the board of Benefitfocus, a Nasdaq-listed benefits administration technology company, becoming Chairman; he held that seat until Voya Financial completed its acquisition of Benefitfocus in January 2023.

He joined Betterworks as Executive Chairman and became CEO in March 2018. Explaining the move in an article on the company’s site, he pointed to the market opportunity: performance management processes, he wrote, were built for an outdated hierarchical management structure that no longer reflects how people work. Betterworks, founded in 2013, is headquartered in Menlo Park with a second office in New York, and counts John Doerr among its directors. Dennerline has become a public voice on the future of work and the use of AI in management, and co-authored the book Make Work Better: How Great Bosses Lead, Give Feedback, and Empower Employees.

Education

Arizona State University

B.S., Business Administration