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.

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, 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.

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.

Annmarie is the Acting Chief People Officer at Zendesk. She is a Partner and Chief Talent Officer at Hellman & Friedman. Her primary responsibility is to help Zendesk drive value by improving the organisational and leadership effectiveness. Annmarie has over twenty years of experience working with global organisations on executive leadership, talent management and organisational 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 Counselling; 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 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 her 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 was 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 was 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.

Pat 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.