New Americas Sales VP on Why He Signed On
Patrick Finn has joined Cloudflare as Vice President of Sales for the US, Canada, and Latin America. Finn comes to the company after leading sales organizations at IBM and Cisco, where he managed international teams in the thousands and drove billions in revenue serving some of the world's largest enterprise customers. His career has tracked the evolution of technology from robotics and automation to cloud computing, cybersecurity, and AI.
Finn says Cloudflare sits at the intersection of three fields that will define the next wave of innovation: cloud computing, AI, and cybersecurity. Before accepting the role, he consulted contacts across finance, private industry, and government, and found unanimous sentiment that the company is positioned for significant growth.
The Cisco Parallel
Finn draws a direct comparison to his time at Cisco. He joined that company two years after it crossed $1 billion in annual revenue and helped scale it past $49 billion before departing. Cloudflare passed the $1 billion mark last year, and he sees the same trajectory ahead.
“Cloudflare passed the $1 billion milestone just last year, and I see the same potential for growth here as I saw at Cisco.”
His focus will be on accelerating the company's global sales organization in a way that drives recurring revenue while keeping a high bar for talent. Based on his experience running complex, cross-functional sales teams at large enterprises, Finn emphasizes the traits that distinguish high-performing sales groups: a unifying goal, clear communication, consistency, collaboration, and accountability. He also stresses that strong teams embrace diversity and draw on each member's expertise to stay focused on the objective.
Customers and Competition
The Americas already account for more than half of Cloudflare's revenue and are home to the company's largest strategic customers across private and public sectors, including 30% of the Fortune 1000. Customers like Zendesk, Shopify, Colgate-Palmolive, and Mars rely on Cloudflare to keep their operations fast, secure, and reliable.
Finn identifies three fundamentals for delivering customer value regardless of the technology involved: understanding the customer's challenges at a deep level, selecting the right combination of products and services from what's available, and knowing the competitive landscape. He notes that Cloudflare's expanding product line already supports millions of individuals and organizations taking advantage of cloud computing and generative AI while defending against cyber threats.
The Mission Side
Beyond the commercial opportunity, Finn says Cloudflare's mission to help build a better Internet was a deciding factor in his move. As a father, he wants the Internet to be a safe, dependable resource for his family and future generations—down to his daughter buying concert tickets online without worrying about her personal data and privacy.
Cloudflare's connectivity cloud currently protects nearly 20% of all websites and stops 209 billion cyber attacks every day. The company also offers free services to individuals and small businesses, including its Project Galileo initiative, which supports vulnerable voices online.
Scaling Up
Finn sees the combination of a clear mission, stated values, a strong team, and advanced technology as rare in the industry but present at Cloudflare. He plans to help the company scale its business and continue pursuing its broader goal of improving the Internet for everyone.
He invites enterprise customers and prospective sales talent to reach out through Cloudflare's respective contact and careers pages.
