Our leaders

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 is not working to innovate and build industry-leading products, Pat enjoys drawing, photography and astronomy.

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 centre 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 travelling, reading history books and following the University of Dayton Flyers basketball team.

Craig Flower is Chief Information Officer at Zendesk and is responsible for ensuring that Zendesk’s technology stack and digital capabilities are deployed in a way that enable customer and employee success.

Craig is a seasoned tech executive with deep experience across a broad range of businesses. Prior to Zendesk, Craig was Chief Technology Officer for TriNet, where he focused on establishing the company as a cohesive, scalable HR service provider tailored to the needs of six industry verticals by replatforming the product, digitising key processes and accelerating the transition to cloud. Earlier in his career, Craig served as Chief Information Officer for Hewlett-Packard. As a hands-on executive during his 20+ year HP tenure, Craig drove business model innovation in conjunction with process and IT transformation, resulting in significant revenue growth and margin expansion.

Craig has a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences from Stanford University.

Craig lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. He enjoys many outdoor activities, travelling with family and friends, reading, live music, and Bay Area sports.

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 organisation as well as 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.

Cait is the Chief of Staff to the CEO at Zendesk, with more than 12 years experience driving organisational business operations and strategic initiatives across various departments within Zendesk. In this role, Cait will work with key leaders across the organisation to ensure execution against the company's strategy, including our highest business priorities. Most recently, she held the critical role of SVP of Customer Service, leading a team of globally distributed CX professionals focused on delivering a World Class Customer Experience to our 100,000+ customers. Prior to this, Cait was the General Manager of Zendesk Chat, spending two years in Singapore building out the GTM strategy and roadmap for this emerging product. Cait’s background includes Sales, Account Management, Renewals and Customer Success at Marketo and ServiceSource.

Cait holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Italian from UC Davis. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and three children. She enjoys travelling, reading and spending time with family and friends.

Caroline Jessen is the Chief People and Diversity Officer at Zendesk, and is responsible for defining, developing and executing the global HR strategy that aligns with the company's mission, values, and goals. As a member of the Zendesk Executive team, she partners with senior leaders across functions and regions as she strives to foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and inclusion. Her team applies their expertise to provide the best employee experience, enabling our people to deliver exceptional solutions to our clients and position Zendesk as a leader in the CX market.

Caroline joined Zendesk in September 2021 as VP, People Partners. Prior to that, she spent over 20 years leading people teams in Europe and globally, at Cisco and IBM, where she demonstrated her strategic mindset combined with a true pragmatic approach to problem-solving. Caroline has a Master's degree in International Human Resources from San Francisco State University and Skema Business School in France.

Caroline is based in San Francisco where she and her husband, and their two teenage daughters have settled after living in France and the UK. In her spare time, she loves exploring art, culture, travel and gastronomy, especially when surrounded by her friends and family.

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.

Shana Simmons is the Chief Legal Officer at Zendesk. She oversees corporate governance and advises on the legal implications of the company’s strategic initiatives.

Shana joined Zendesk in March 2024. Prior to this, Shana served as the Chief Legal Officer at Everlaw, where she spearheaded the legal department overseeing all aspects of legal, regulatory, privacy, governance, risk and compliance matters. Before joining Everlaw, Shana held the position of Head of Go-To-Market Legal at Google Cloud, where her team played a pivotal role in driving the company's expansion into global and regulated markets. Shana achieves results by investing and mentoring her teams, while also being a committed champion of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

Shana began her legal career at Cleary Gottlieb Stein & Hamilton LLP in New York and London, as a capital markets associate. Shana earned her J.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and holds a B.A. degree with honours from Wesleyan University.

Committed to serving her community, Shana provides service on the boards of Lawyers for One America and the Oakland Zoo. She resides in Oakland, California, with her husband and two children.

Julie Swinney is the Chief Financial Officer of Zendesk. She oversees global finance, which includes finance and 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 the Senior Vice President of Finance and 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 centre 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, travelling, reading and spending quality time with family.

Kelly Waldher is Chief Marketing Officer for Zendesk and responsible for leading the company’s global marketing, communications and social impact team, building the Zendesk brand, and delivering world-class demand.

Prior to Zendesk, Kelly was Vice President for Google Workspace and responsible for global marketing, including brand, product, demand gen, growth and analyst relations. Before Google, Kelly was General Manager at Qualtrics, where he led product management; product marketing; service delivery and the profit and loss of their BrandXM, and DesignXM business lines. His career also spanned 14 years at Microsoft, where he was General Manager of Microsoft 365 and Teams, and responsible for global product marketing. Waldher started his career at Dow Chemical, where he spent seven years across a range of functions including sales, marketing, supply chain management, and production engineering.

Kelly holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Washington State University.

Kelly lives in the Seattle area with his wife and three children. He enjoys outdoor sports, travelling to new locations, reading and spending time with family, and friends.