Workday Co-Founder Sells Shares Worth Billions in March

David A. Duffield, co-founder of U.S. cloud ERP provider Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), used a personal trust to convert Class B common shares into Class A shares on March 5, 10 and 18. Under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, he then sold approximately 320,000 Class A shares on the open market in stages. Each sale was executed at prices between $131 and $149 per share, generating total proceeds of about $45 million (roughly KRW 600 billion). Despite these sales, Duffield’s trust still holds Class A shares in Workday valued at several billion dollars (trillions of won).

On March 17, Workday officially launched “Sana from Workday,” an AI-driven work platform that enhances HR, finance and workflow automation, offering it to customers worldwide. Yet, amid restructuring costs and a conservative subscription-revenue outlook, the stock has fallen to about half its 52-week high, fueling ongoing market scrutiny of the company’s AI strategy.

Founded by David Duffield and Aneel Bhusri, Workday is a cloud-based provider of HR and finance software headquartered in Pleasanton, California. The company serves global enterprises and public institutions with HR management, accounting and ERP services. Since its inception, Duffield has remained one of its largest shareholders and, even after this latest sale, continues as a significant long-term investor in Workday.