Brad Smith, the CEO of $54 billion Intuit, is stepping down after an impressive 11 year run at the company

Amy Sussman/Invision for Intuit, Inc./AP Images

Intuit CEO Brad Smith will leave his role at the end of 2018.

• Intuit CEO Brad Smith will leave his role after 11 years at the company.
• Smith, who will stay on through the end of 2018, is replaced by Sasan Goodarzi, the Intuit exec behind strong growth in the company's QuickBooks business.
• Intuit will also change chief technology officers at the end of the year. Tayloe Stansbury is replaced by Marianna Tessel, the chief product development officer from Goodarzi's team.

Intuit's executive suite will get a major shake up at the end of the year.

Intuit CEO Brad Smith will step down from his role in December after 11 years in the job, the company announced Thursday.

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"I never wanted to be that athlete who loses half a step or can't complete the pass," Smith, who is 54, told Fortune ahead of the announcement. "I wanted to step down when I was still in my learning zone and still had gas in the tank."

Intuit

Sasan Goodarzi will take over as CEO at the start of 2019.

On January 1, 2019, Smith will pass the torch to Sasan Goodarzi, senior vice president and general manager of the small business and self-employed group -a rapidly growing segment which includes QuickBooks.

Goodarzi first joined the company in 2004, and has since led the financial institutions division as well as the TurboTax division.

"Sasan is better prepared to be CEO than I was 11 years ago," Smith, who will stay at the company as executive chairman of the board, told Fortune.

Smith, a West Virginia native who rose through the ranks at Intuit to become CEO, leaves with an impressive record. Under Smith's decade-plus tenure at the top, Intuit's annual revenue has doubled to nearly $6 billion and the company's stock has increased roughly 600%.

Wall Street didn't take well to the news. Intuit - which includes TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint and Turbo - fell 4% on Thursday following the announcement, which corresponded with strong Q4 2018 earnings.

Intuit's Chief Technology Officer Tayloe Stansbury will also step down on January 1. He is replaced by Marianna Tessel, a former VMware and Docker engineer who joined Intuit in 2017 as chief product development officer for Goodarzi's division.

During Intuit's recently completed fiscal fourth quarter, revenue Revenue increased 17% for the quarter adjusted earnings per share were up 60%.

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