Manav Khurana
About Manav Khurana
GitLab appointed Manav Khurana as Chief Product and Marketing Officer in September 2025, with responsibility for product, design, and marketing, focused on advancing AI product vision and product-led growth . Khurana brings 25 years of product and marketing leadership, previously serving as Chief Product Officer at New Relic and leadership roles at Twilio, Aruba (HPE), and Motorola; he holds a B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering (University of Rochester) and an MBA (Santa Clara University) . Company performance context during FY2025 included 31% revenue growth to $759.2M and non-GAAP operating margin improvement to 10%; Q2 FY2026 revenue grew 29% to $236.0M with non-GAAP operating margin of 17% .
Past Roles
| Organization | Role | Years | Strategic Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Relic | Chief Product Officer | — | Recognized leadership in observability; drove faster innovation and productivity for customers |
| Twilio | Product/Marketing leadership | — | Established new technology categories; scaled developer mindshare initiatives |
| Aruba (HPE) | Product/Marketing leadership | — | Built tools enabling engineers to create high-quality software |
| Motorola | Product/Marketing leadership | — | Contributed to category creation and enterprise product tooling |
External Roles
- None disclosed in GitLab filings; public company board roles not reported for Khurana .
Fixed Compensation
- Compensation specifics (base salary, target bonus) for Khurana were not disclosed in the latest filings we reviewed .
- Company executive program design: base salary plus annual cash incentive, with FY2025 bonus metrics tied to Net ARR (70% weight) and non-GAAP operating income (NGOI, 30% weight); company-wide payout for eligible NEOs was 98.61% of target .
Performance Compensation
FY2025 Annual Bonus Framework (Company-Level Design)
| Metric | Weighting | Threshold | Target | Maximum | Actual (FY2025) | Payout (Weighted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net ARR | 70% | Not disclosed | Not disclosed | Not disclosed | 90.5% of target | 98.61% of target (combined) |
| NGOI | 30% | 2% NGOI → 50% payout | 7% NGOI → 100% payout | >15% NGOI → 200% payout | +4.1pt vs target | 98.61% of target (combined) |
PSU Attainment (FY2023 grant, company executives)
| Executive Group | Target PSUs Granted | Performance Metric | Actual Achievement | Earned % of Target | Vesting Mechanics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company executives (illustrative: Robins, Schulman) | 78,121; 37,069 | Revenue as of Q4 FY2025 | 84.6% of revenue target | 61.5% of target | Earned PSUs vest 25% per quarter over 4 quarters starting Mar 2025 |
Equity Ownership & Alignment
- Beneficial ownership, vested/unvested share breakdown, and option positions for Khurana were not disclosed in the 2025 proxy and no executive-specific ownership for him appeared in the Security Ownership table (appointment occurred after proxy record date) .
- Alignment policies:
- Anti-hedging: Insiders prohibited from hedging or similar monetization transactions in GitLab stock .
- Anti-pledging: Insiders prohibited from pledging or using GitLab stock as collateral without approval of the Chief Legal Officer .
- Compensation recovery (clawback): Recovery policy adopted in Nov 2023; no recovery required on the prior adjustments analyzed by the CLDC .
Employment Terms
- Executive officer severance and change-in-control framework (company-wide): For executive officers (including NEOs), double-trigger change-in-control severance provides cash severance, pro-rated and severance-period bonus, medical benefits continuation, and 100% equity acceleration upon qualifying termination within the CIC window (3 months before to 12 months after a corporate transaction); outside CIC, reduced severance (cash and benefits) without equity acceleration .
- Example severance multiples by role (from FY2025 estimates for NEOs): CEO had higher severance periods than other NEOs, while other executives received 6–12 months cash severance depending on CIC status; these illustrate company practice rather than Khurana’s specific terms (which were not disclosed) .
Performance & Track Record
| Period | Metric | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Revenue ($MM) | $759.2 | +31% YoY |
| FY2025 | Non-GAAP operating margin (%) | 10% | Improved from -0.2% prior year |
| FY2025 | DBNRR (%) | 123% | Company-level |
| Q2 FY2026 | Revenue ($MM) | $236.0 | +29% YoY |
| Q2 FY2026 | Non-GAAP operating margin (%) | 17% | Company-level |
| Q2 FY2026 | Customers >$100k ARR | 1,344 | +25% YoY |
| Q2 FY2026 | DBNRR (%) | 121% | Company-level |
- Strategic priorities articulated by Khurana: AI orchestration across the SDLC, addressing toolchain fragmentation, governance, and compliance for agentic AI; positioning GitLab as uniquely able to solve quality, security, and code challenges at enterprise scale .
Compensation Committee Analysis
- Peer group used for FY2025 pay decisions included 20 cloud/software names (e.g., Datadog, Cloudflare, MongoDB, UiPath, Zscaler), targeting competitiveness around the 50th percentile and emphasizing long-term equity pay mix; Compensia served as independent consultant .
- Say-on-pay approval was ~95.1% in 2024, informing continuity of FY2025 design .
Investment Implications
- Compensation structure signals: Company-wide pay-for-performance design emphasizes Net ARR and NGOI with capped payouts and meaningful equity, aligning incentives to growth and profitability; expect CPMO incentives to be tied to revenue growth and product adoption metrics even if specifics for Khurana are not yet disclosed .
- Retention and insider-selling pressure: No compensation or ownership disclosures for Khurana yet; monitor upcoming proxy (FY2026 DEF 14A) and Form 3/4 filings for initial grants, vesting schedules, and any 10b5‑1 sales plans that could indicate selling cadence .
- Change-in-control economics: GitLab’s double-trigger CIC terms (cash severance, benefit continuation, 100% equity acceleration under qualifying termination) reduce retention risk through transaction periods and may create event-driven alignment; anticipate similar coverage for CPMO given “executive officer” scope of the policy .
- Execution risk vs. value creation: Khurana’s mandate to unify product, design, and marketing for AI product-led growth is leveraged to company momentum (+29% revenue YoY in Q2 FY2026 and improved margins); success should be observable in ARR mix, high-ARR customer growth, and continued DBNRR >120% .