Our leaders

Tom is the CEO of Zendesk, and a member of the board.

Most recently, Tom was a partner at the private equity firm Permira, where he was the head of the Menlo Park office and focused on investing and value creation in the Technology sector. In addition to the Zendesk board, Tom serves on the boards of Axiom, G2, Seismic, and Mimecast. Prior to joining Permira, Tom was the President of Genesys, a Permira fund portfolio company and global leader in omnichannel customer experience and contact center software. During his more than ten-year tenure with Genesys, he focused on developing and implementing strategic and operational initiatives aimed at driving value creation across the business. Tom’s previous global experience includes working in Paris, France for almost five years along with over 20 years operational experience in the technology sector leading teams from sales to research and development.

Tom holds a B.A. from the University of Dayton and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Tom and his family live in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. He enjoys traveling, reading history books, and following the University of Dayton Flyers basketball team.

Ms. Ariker is our General Counsel & Corporate Secretary. Ms. Ariker also serves as our Chief Privacy Officer, overseeing the development and implementation of policies designed to protect employee and customer data.

She has more than 20 years experience working internationally with high-growth companies and is a pro bono legal advocate. Prior to Zendesk, Ms. Ariker was Deputy General Counsel at Twilio Inc. Ms. Ariker also served as General Counsel at Salesforce.org and held other senior leadership roles at Salesforce.com, Inc. and Autodesk, Inc. She started out her career in private practice. Ms. Ariker received her B.A. from University of Massachusetts and her J.D. from the University of Virginia. She is an aspiring writer, currently working on her memoir.

Ben Barclay is Zendesk's SVP of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Transformation. In this capacity, he is responsible for aligning the management team and company around its strategy and subsequently guiding the execution of that strategy through business operations, acquisitions and investments, and strategic partnerships.

Ben joined Zendesk in 2015. Ben previously worked at Kleiner Perkins and Deloitte. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Carleton College, and lives in San Francisco with his wife and 3-year-old son.

Ben is an avid public radio listener and supporter, volunteer at Jewish Vocational Services, and an enthusiast of California's national parks, foods, and wines.

Patrick Copeland is Chief Engineering Officer at Zendesk. He leads the company’s engineering team and is responsible for building and scaling reliable products and developer platforms to meet the needs of customers of all sizes.

A highly experienced technology leader, Pat has spent over 25 years building teams, scaling businesses, and delivering products for some of the world’s most well-known companies. Most recently, Pat oversaw the Brand Advertising business at Amazon. Additionally, he held multi-disciplinary senior roles at Google and Microsoft.

Pat lives in the Seattle area with his wife and three children. When he’s not working to innovate and build industry-leading products, Pat enjoys drawing, photography, and astronomy.

Norman Gennaro is president of sales at Zendesk, and has more than 25 years of business and technology experience leading and growing global teams of high-performance sales professionals. In his role, Norman is focused on accelerating Zendesk’s move into the enterprise market, scaling and expanding the global sales organization, and delivering on the company’s quarterly goals and long-term strategy.

Most recently, Norman built Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) mid-market segment for North America into a multi-billion-dollar business. Prior to AWS, Norm spent 16 years in enterprise sales with Oracle Corporation. He holds a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA in finance and computer-information systems from the University of Notre Dame de Namur.

John Geschke is chief of staff at Zendesk and is responsible for aligning the company’s office of the CEO leadership group with the execution of the company’s strategy. Prior to serving as chief of staff, John was Zendesk’s chief legal officer. He has more than 25 years of legal experience in the technology industry.

Before joining Zendesk, John was general counsel of Norwest Venture Partners, a venture-capital firm, and practiced law as a partner at Cooley LLP. John holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University with a concentration in the School of Public and International Affairs, and a juris doctor from Stanford University.

Outside of Zendesk, John is working hard on his empty nesting lifestyle with his wife of over 23 years and appreciating his two kids and two very large dogs.

Since 2010, Adrian has led Zendesk’s product management and engineering teams, constantly creating new paths for product innovation and development. As the company’s chief technology officer, he is currently responsible for defining its long-term strategic product direction that will shape the future of customer service. He also helps guide the company’s global customers on how to enhance their customer experience to create better relationships.

Previously, Adrian served as chief technical officer at Attributor, where he managed web-crawling and content-identification systems for text, video, and images. He was the first engineer hired by Plumtree Software, and remained with the company through its IPO and subsequent acquisition by BEA.

Adrian is a Yorkshireman living in San Francisco.

Scott Morris is the Acting Chief Marketing Officer at Zendesk. He joined the company in 2018 and assumed the role of Acting CMO in October 2022.

Scott has 30 years of B2B and B2C marketing experience leading key strategic marketing initiatives worldwide. In his current role, Scott leads the company’s global marketing and communications team, and is responsible for building the Zendesk brand and partnering with Sales to deliver world-class demand.

Prior to Zendesk, Scott spent 12 years at Adobe, where he ran product marketing for Adobe Creative Cloud and campaign marketing for Adobe Document Cloud. Before Adobe, Scott held various marketing leadership roles at Macromedia and Fortune Brands. Scott holds a B.A. from Lafayette College.

Scott splits his time between San Francisco and Sonoma County, CA. Outside of work, Scott enjoys traveling and great culinary experiences with friends.

Annmarie is the Acting Chief People Officer at Zendesk. She is a Partner & Chief Talent Officer at Hellman & Friedman. Her primary responsibility is to help Zendesk drive value by improving the organizational and leadership effectiveness. Annmarie has over twenty years of experience working with global organizations on executive leadership, talent management, and organizational development. Prior to H&F, she ran her own consulting firm and held the Chief Talent Officer roles at both Cisco Systems and First Data Corporation. Additionally, she was a senior consultant with RHR International. Her education includes Boston College; Santa Clara University, Master’s Degree in Counseling; Harvard University, Graduate Certificate of Special Studies; California School of Professional Psychology Alameda/Berkeley, Doctorate in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Management Psychology.

Julie Swinney is the Chief Financial Officer of Zendesk. She oversees global finance, which includes finance & strategy, accounting, revenue operations, tax and treasury, internal audit, and procurement. Julie focuses on driving strategy through execution with disciplined financial management and is an ardent champion of diversity and inclusion.

Julie joined Zendesk in October 2021 as Senior Vice President of Finance & Strategy. Prior to joining Zendesk, Julie had a 25 year career at Intel Corporation, including serving as the chief financial officer of the cloud and enterprise data center business, leading corporate planning, strategy and reporting, and overseeing a portfolio of startup software businesses. Julie holds a bachelor's in finance from Indiana University and a J.D. from the Indiana University School of Law.

Julie enjoys hiking, traveling, reading, and spending quality time with family.