Vlad Shmunis

Vlad Shmunis

Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Vlad Shmunis is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of RingCentral. With decades of expertise in reliable and secure cloud communications, RingCentral has earned the trust of millions of customers and thousands of partners worldwide. Today, RingCentral is a leading global provider of AI-first, cloud-based business communications that seamlessly combines phone system, messaging, video, webinars and hybrid events, and contact center. RingCentral empowers businesses with conversation intelligence and unlocks rich customer and employee interactions to gain insights and improved business outcomes.

Shmunis has led RingCentral to be recognized as an industry leader, making it in 2023 and for the 9th consecutive year as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide. In addition, Gartner has recently ranked RingCentral #1 in three out of six use cases in the 2023 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Unified Communications as a Service report. These rankings include #1 for UC with Integrated Contact Center Use Case, #1 for Midsize Enterprise Use Case, and #1 for Telephony Centric / Heavy Organizations Use Case.

Shmunis has received numerous leadership accolades, including being named as one of the Best CEOs of a large company, Best CEO for Diversity, and Best CEO for Women by Comparably Awards. Shmunis has been named Best CEO in Institutional Investor’s 2021 and 2020 All-America Executive Team. He is also a recipient laureate of World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Award 2008, and Ellis Island Honors Society Award 2021. Shmunis also received the Unified Communications Leader of the Year award from UC Today and was described by the publication as 'the godfather of UCaaS.'

Prior to launching RingCentral, Shmunis served as the founder and CEO of Ring Zero Systems, where he pioneered desktop business communications software. Ring Zero shipped more than 25 million copies of its software via its partnerships with leading PC manufacturers, including IBM, HP, Sony, Toshiba, and many others. Ring Zero was acquired by Motorola.

Shmunis supports a number of charitable initiatives, including Cancer Research at Stanford University, San Mateo County General Hospital, and Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research and Shmunis Family Anthropology Institute at Tel Aviv University.

Shmunis holds a Bachelor's, Magna Cum Laude, and Master's degree in Computer Science from San Francisco State University and is a named inventor on a variety of US patents.