Our leaders

Mr. Svane is the CEO, chairman and founder of Zendesk, a global company that builds software for the best customer experiences. He has driven the vision, culture, and growth of the company since it was founded in 2007. Under his leadership, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 and currently helps more than 169,000 organizations around the world better help, engage with, and understand their customers. Originally from Copenhagen, Denmark, he is a published author of the book Startupland, a father of four, and a lover of handcrafted cocktails.

Ms. Gomez has served as our Chief Financial Officer since May 2016. From July 2010 to April 2016, Ms. Gomez served in senior finance roles at salesforce.com, inc., a software company, including Senior Vice President Go To Market Distribution from July 2015 to April 2016, Vice President Sales and Support and Marketing Finance from June 2011 to June 2015, and Senior Director Marketing and General and Administrative Finance from July 2010 to June 2011. Prior to that she held finance roles at Visa Inc., a financial services company, and The Charles Schwab Corporation, a brokerage and banking company. Ms. Gomez holds a B.S. in business administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.

Ms. Johnson has served as our Chief People and Diversity Officer since June 2018. From July 2015 to June 2018, Ms. Johnson served as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Plantronics, Inc., an audio communications company. From September 2011 to June 2015 she held the role of Chief Human Resources Officer at UTi Worldwide Inc., a supply chain management company. Prior to that, Ms. Johnson held senior leadership roles at Honeywell International Inc., an international technology and manufacturing company, including Vice President, Human Resources Functional Transformation and Vice President, Human Resources, Communication and Six Sigma. Ms. Johnson holds a B.A. in Social Sciences, with an emphasis in Human Resource Management, from the University of California, Berkeley, and a M.A. in Organizational Development and Management from John F. Kennedy University.

Mr. McDermott has served as our President of Products since October 2016. Mr. McDermott served as our Senior Vice President, Product Development from July 2010 until October 2016. Mr. McDermott holds a B.Sc. in computer science from De Montfort University.

Mr. Gennaro has served as our President of Sales since January 2018. From April 2012 to December 2017, Mr. Gennaro served as a Territories Market Segment Leader for North America for Amazon Web Services, a software company. Prior to that, he held senior roles at the Oracle Corporation, a software company, including Vice President from March 2006 to March 2012, and Senior Technical Director from January 2000 to March 2006. Mr. Gennaro holds a Management in Information Systems degree from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from the Notre Dame de Namur University.

Mr. Geschke has served as our Chief of Staff since November 2019 and as our Chief Legal Officer since May 2017. Mr. Geschke served as our Senior Vice President, Administration from October 2015 to November 2019 and as our General Counsel and Secretary from July 2012 to May 2017. From April 2010 to June 2012, Mr. Geschke served as General Counsel of Norwest Ventures Partners, a venture capital firm. Mr. Geschke holds an A.B. from Princeton University with a concentration in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a J.D. from Stanford University.

Colleen Berube has served as our Chief Information Officer of Zendesk since January 2019. Ms. Berube oversees all business systems and technology globally. She is shaping Zendesk's benchmark for modern IT at scale and a customer-centric workforce. Ms. Berube is passionate about the role of customer and employee experience in the digital age. With over 20 years of experience across multiple industries and an ever-changing technology landscape, Ms. Berube is a digital and business model transformation leader. Her innovative strategies help companies put their customers at the center and create work environments focused on collaboration and open communication.

Mr. Nygaard has served as our Chief Creative Officer since November 2011. From January 2002 to September 2011, Mr. Nygaard was the Founder and Creative Director at Cuban Council, a digital design company.

Mr. Titterton has served as our Chief Marketing Officer since October 2018. Mr. Titterton served as our Senior Vice President, Marketing from May 2017 until October 2018. From January 2017 to May 2017, Mr. Titterton served as the Head of Global Campaign and Engagement Marketing for Adobe, a software company, where he also was the Head of Engagement Marketing and SMB Business, Creative Cloud from August 2013 to January 2017. Prior to that, he served as the Chief Marketing Officer for 99designs, a graphic design marketplace, from August 2011 to August 2013. Mr. Titterton holds a B.A. in English and a concentration in Economics from Cornell University.

Soren Abildgaard has served as our Senior Vice President of Engineering since November 2017. Mr. Abildgaard leads the company’s engineering teams that are responsible for building both SaaS products and developer platform. He is passionate about empowering his teams to build products that work together to improve customer relationships. Additionally, Mr. Abildgaard oversees Zendesk’s platform which provides developers with the flexible tools needed to extend the customer experience.

Prior to Zendesk, he was Senior Vice President of Engineering for TubeMogul, where he managed the Advertising Cloud platform. TubeMogul was acquired by Adobe. Previously, he held senior engineering positions at Microsoft and Autodesk.

Shawna Wolverton has served as our Senior Vice President, Products since December 2018. Ms. Wolverton manages Zendesk’s global product teams to deliver thoughtfully designed, market-changing products. She follows a customer-first mindset and is energized by seeing what experiences are possible with Zendesk technology.

Ms. Wolverton currently holds three patents, and her career has revolved around making hard concepts easy and intuitive for users. Previously, Ms. Wolverton spent 15 years at Salesforce, as SVP of product management where she was a pivotal part of multiple product strategy teams including Platform.

When she’s not at the office, you can find her listening to live music or soaring to great heights on the trapeze.

Marc Cabi is VP of Strategy and heads Investor Relations for Zendesk. Marc has over 25 years of leadership experience in investment banking, finance and strategy. During the last 6 years, Marc has worked as part of the leadership team to grow Zendesk’s SaaS business.

Prior to Zendesk, Marc held senior leadership positions in investment banking and equity research at Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Salomon Brothers and Cowen and Company. As an Institutional Investor ranked analyst, Marc built a track record with investors and companies in industry thought leadership. In between his time on Wall Street and Zendesk, Marc advised high growth companies as a strategic consultant. Throughout his career, Marc has enjoyed working with and managing growth and scaling businesses as an advisor and manager.

Outside of the office, Marc enjoys connection with family and spends time outdoors hiking, running and paddling.

Maarten Van Horenbeeck has served as our Chief Information Security Officer since March 2018. He also is a Board Member and former Chairman of the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), a non-profit association of 400 security teams in over 80 countries. Mr. Van Horenbeeck has over 15 years of experience managing security organizations, which includes building the cybersecurity threat intelligence team at Amazon and work on the Security teams at Google and Microsoft. Mr. Van Horenbeeck holds a master’s degree in information security from Edith Cowan University and a master’s degree in international relations from the Freie Universitat Berlin. When not working, he enjoys backpacking, sailing, and collecting first-edition travel literature.