Chris Donato
Chris is President of Global Sales and Field Engineering and has over 25 years of enterprise selling experience in the North American and global markets, and a proven track record driving business results and developing GTM organisations. In his role, Chris leads field sales, presales, customer success and consulting with a primary goal of positioning the Zendesk market-leading service cloud solutions across all market segments, from SMB to the Fortune 500 segment.
Most recently, Chris served as the President of Global Sales and a member of the Executive Committee at Celonis. During his time there, Chris was responsible for the development of Celonis’ global GTM organisation across a number of regions and industries.
Prior to Celonis, Chris spent 26 years at Oracle in a number of application and technology leadership positions. Before leaving Oracle, Chris was the EVP of Oracle’s multibillion-dollar North American Applications and Consulting Business and was responsible for positioning Oracle’s market-leading back office and front office cloud solutions across all market segments.
Chris and his wife live in Madison, New Jersey and have three children. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Susquehanna University and a finance industry certification from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Chris also served as a Trustee at Lafayette College.
Tom Eggemeier
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 Bachelor of Arts (BA) from the University of Dayton and a Juris Doctor (JD, Doctor of Law) 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
Craig Flower is Chief Information Officer at Zendesk and is responsible for ensuring that the Zendesk 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 Bachelor of Science (BSc) 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.
Adrian McDermott
Since 2010, Adrian has led Zendesk product management and engineering teams, constantly creating new paths for product innovation and development. As the company’s Chief Technology Officer, he’s 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 Neal
Annmarie is the Acting Chief People Officer at Zendesk. She’s 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 20 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; and California School of Professional Psychology Alameda/Berkeley, Doctorate in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Management Psychology.
Shana Simmons
Shana Simmons is the Chief Legal Officer at Zendesk. She leads the global Legal Department in facilitating growth and mitigating risk and helps shape the company’s strategy to maximise value for Zendesk’s customers and stakeholders.
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 in and mentoring her teams, developing them to reach their full potential.
Shana began her legal career at Cleary Gottlieb Stein & Hamilton LLP in New York and London, as a Capital Markets Associate. She earned her JD degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and holds a BA degree with honours from Wesleyan University.
Additionally, Shana is a corporate board member for digital business card and contact management app HiHello. Committed to giving back to her community, Shana serves on the boards of her alma mater, Wesleyan University, and the Oakland Zoo. She lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and two children.
Julie Swinney
Julie Swinney is the Chief Administrative Officer and executive sponsor of Zendesk’s Employee Service business, having previously served four years as the company’s Chief Financial Officer. As CAO, she oversees People & Places and Information Technology—functions central to Zendesk’s talent, culture, employee experience, and the secure, scalable technology required to operate an AI company. As executive sponsor of Zendesk's growing employee Service business, Swinney shapes strategy through execution, advancing Zendesk’s employee service vision for more connected, intelligent employee support across the enterprise.
During her tenure as Zendesk's CFO, Swinney built a strong track record in strategy, financial and operational excellence and business transformation. Before joining Zendesk, she spent 28 years at Intel, including serving as CFO of the data center cloud and enterprise business.
Swinney holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Indiana University and a J.D. from the Indiana University School of Law.
Shashi Upadhyay
Shashi Upadhyay is the Zendesk President of Product, Engineering and AI, responsible for developing innovative products that leverage advanced AI. With a proven track record of creating transformative solutions, he combines a deep understanding of AI’s potential for business transformation with a strong commitment to customer-centric design.
Before Zendesk, Shashi held a key role at Google, where he led the advertiser product portfolio and spearheaded innovation as the head of Google Ads, Google Analytics, DV3, SA3 and Performance Max, one of Google’s fastest-growing products. Prior to Google, he founded Lattice Engines, which was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) in 2019. He played an instrumental role in D&B’s public offering in 2020 and has since become an active investor in startups across diverse sectors, including energy storage, neuroscience and enterprise infrastructure.
Shashi earned his undergraduate degree in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and went on to obtain a PhD in Physics from Cornell University.
He resides in San Francisco with his wife, two teenagers and their Bernedoodle. In his free time, he enjoys reading science fiction, hiking, biking and exploring new destinations.
Colin Murphy
Colin is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in a wide range of disciplines including strategy and corporate development, business operations, product management and engineering, and go-to-market leadership.
Colin began his career with two stints at global consulting firms, Deloitte and Oliver Wyman, before moving on to strategy and operations and customer success leadership roles. Before Zendesk, Colin served as CCO of BMC Software where he oversaw revenue retention, install base expansion and competitive replacement initiatives to drive ARR growth.
At Zendesk he leads the global Professional Services, Customer Success, and Renewals teams responsible for leveraging data to drive product adoption, value realisation, and customer growth and retention.
Colin holds two graduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (MBA, Public Affairs) and received his BSc from Pennsylvania State University.
Originally from Chicago, Colin lives in the New York Metro Area with his wife and two daughters. He’s an avid student of history and enjoys travelling with family and supporting Penn State sports.
Mikkel Svane
Mikkel Svane is one of the three founders of Zendesk. He served as Zendesk CEO for 15 years in which he drove the vision, culture and growth of the company. Under his leadership, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 and currently helps more than 169,000 organisations around the world better help, engage with and understand their customers. Originally from Copenhagen, Denmark, he’s a published author of the book Startupland, a father of five and a lover of handcrafted cocktails.
Morten Primdahl
Morten Primdahl is one of the three founders of Zendesk. He’s taken the journey with Zendesk: from three people sitting around a kitchen table in Copenhagen, moving to the US and establishing new headquarters in San Francisco, winning the business and the hearts of more than 160,000 paying customers, celebrating an IPO in New York City and witnessing the organisation grow in offices all over the world.
Alexander Aghassipour
Alexander Aghassipour is one of the three founders of Zendesk. Prior to founding Zendesk, he consulted with international corporations about design, global strategy and recruiting. He also co-founded Araneum A/S, the largest Danish-owned digital media agency. Alexander holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Danmarks Ingeniør Akademi and a master’s degree in information technology from the Technical University of Denmark.
Tifenn Dano Kwan
Tifenn Dano Kwan is the Chief Marketing Officer at Zendesk. In this role, she directs the global marketing organization and go-to-market strategy, focusing on positioning the Zendesk Resolution Platform as the trusted resolution layer for the AI-powered enterprise. Her work centers on accelerating the corporate pipeline and driving widespread adoption for a true Autonomous Service Workforce.
Prior to joining Zendesk, Tifenn established a deep track record of scaling marketing operations at Amplitude, Collibra, Dropbox, and SAP. Her executive career spans major international business hubs, including leadership roles based in Singapore, Sydney, Paris, and San Francisco. She is recognized for building disciplined, revenue-accountable systems that successfully translate complex technical capabilities into clear market velocity.
Tifenn earned a Master's in Management from Audencia Business School and a Master of Laws from Institut Catholique d’Études Supérieures in France. She also completed the Chief Marketing Officer Program at Northwestern University's Kellogg Executive Education. Currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she travels frequently between the United States, Singapore, and France, and enjoys international horseback riding with her spouse.
Rachita Sundar
Rachita is the Chief Financial Officer at Zendesk, where she oversees the company’s global finance organization and partners across the business to support disciplined growth, innovation, and long-term value creation.
Rachita began her career as a software engineer before moving into finance and business leadership, driven by a fascination with how companies operate and scale. Over more than 20 years, she has led and transformed some of the world’s most demanding technology businesses, including Microsoft Azure, HubSpot, and Qualtrics. Across these roles, she has guided organizations through periods of significant change, built high-performing teams, and partnered cross-functionally to deliver meaningful business impact.
At Zendesk, Rachita is focused on helping shape the next chapter of a category leader as customer service is fundamentally redefined by AI. She is excited to build on the strong foundation established by Julie Swinney and to work alongside Zendesk’s customers, employees, and leadership team to scale the company’s impact.
Rachita believes lasting leadership requires more than a strong strategy. It requires a clear focus under pressure, a deep connection to core values, and genuine relationships with people. She is honored to join Zendesk and help advance its mission and vision for the future.