Udemy CEO Hugo Sarrazin leaves for Avalara after AI reskilling push
Hugo Sarrazin has joined Avalara as Chief Executive Officer after serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of Udemy
Hugo Sarrazin has left Udemy to become Chief Executive Officer of Avalara, creating a leadership question at the online learning and workforce skills company after a short tenure focused on AI-enabled reskilling.
Avalara announced on 28 May 2026 that Sarrazin had been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Scott McFarlane, Avalara’s co-founder and original Chief Executive Officer, will move into an advisory role.
Sarrazin also announced the move on LinkedIn, writing that he had "officially" joined Avalara as Chief Executive Officer. He most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Udemy, the global EdTech learning platform used by individual learners and enterprise customers for professional development, workforce training, and reskilling.
Udemy had not published a public announcement on Sarrazin’s departure or named a replacement at the time of writing.
The move follows Coursera and Udemy completing their merger earlier in May, bringing together two major online learning businesses. At the time of that merger, Coursera and Udemy said the platforms would continue to operate separately while work began on a more unified product experience.
Udemy leadership change follows short CEO tenure
Sarrazin joined Udemy as President and Chief Executive Officer in March 2025. He led Udemy’s transformation from an online learning marketplace into an AI-enabled reskilling platform serving business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets.
Avalara’s announcement says Sarrazin scaled Udemy through product-led and inorganic growth, advanced AI-driven innovation, and led Udemy through its sale to Coursera.
His move means Udemy is losing the executive whose recent work was tied to AI strategy, enterprise growth, pricing, packaging, and a shift toward subscription-led consumer learning.
Avalara says Sarrazin will lead global operations and strategy, with a focus on scaling the business, strengthening execution, and advancing innovation for customers and partners. Sarrazin will also join Avalara’s Board of Directors.
Sarrazin says: "I'm excited to join the leader for tax and compliance that leverages proprietary data and deep domain expertise to deliver intelligent, dynamic solutions for customers worldwide. Avalara is helping define how AI agents can automate and simplify compliance at global scale and already has a leading AI-powered platform and market presence that few companies can replicate. The opportunity now is to accelerate innovation even further, turning that advantage into more seamless outcomes for customers and partners globally."
Avalara is an agentic AI platform for global tax and compliance. The business says its platform processes more than 54 billion transactions annually and supports millions of businesses worldwide.
Sarrazin moves from learning technology to compliance AI
Before joining Udemy, Sarrazin was President and Chief Product and Technology Officer at UKG, where he led cloud transformation work, expanded AI-driven solutions, and worked on strategic acquisitions.
Sarrazin also spent 26 years at McKinsey & Company, where he advised organizations on digital transformation and mergers and acquisitions, and co-founded McKinsey Digital Labs.
McFarlane says: "Avalara is stronger today than at any point in our history. We've built a category leader with real scale and a platform that's becoming more critical as tax and compliance grow more complex. The next chapter is about moving faster and delivering more for our customers and partners. Hugo brings the operational and technology leadership needed to accelerate what comes next."
As of publication, Udemy had not announced Sarrazin’s successor.
