Michelle Zatlyn

Co-Founder, President and Co-Chair of the Board Cloudflare

Last Reviewed: October 1, 2026

Executive Summary

Michelle Zatlyn co-founded Cloudflare in 2009 and is its President and, since 2025, Co-Chair of its board alongside chief executive Matthew Prince. She is the co-founder who turned the original idea outward. Prince and Lee Holloway had built Project Honey Pot to track spammers, and Zatlyn, meeting Prince at Harvard Business School, saw the opportunity to go beyond tracking threats to stopping them. Inside the company she has moved from designing the product’s user experience to running its operations as Chief Operating Officer for nearly a decade, and since 2020 as President. She also sits on the board of Atlassian.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded Cloudflare in 2009 and has been a director since November 2009.
• President since December 2020 and Co-Chair of the board since February 2025.
• Chief Operating Officer from 2016 to February 2025.
• Head of User Experience from 2009 to 2016.
• Independent director of Atlassian, on its audit committee.
• Named to Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list.

Professional Journey

Zatlyn earned a B.Sc. in chemistry and business, with distinction, at McGill University. Before Cloudflare she worked at Google and Toshiba and launched two startups.

She then went to Harvard Business School, where in 2009 she met Matthew Prince. Prince and Lee Holloway had built Project Honey Pot, a system for tracking how spammers harvested email addresses. Zatlyn saw the opportunity to move from tracking threats to stopping them. The three refined the idea into a “firewall in the cloud”, which gave the company its name, and the plan won the Harvard Business School Business Plan competition in April 2009. She received the Dubilier Prize for Entrepreneurship at HBS.

Cloudflare raised its Series A in November 2009, ran a private beta in June 2010 and launched publicly at TechCrunch Disrupt on 27 September 2010, with Zatlyn and Prince presenting together. She joined the board in November 2009 and led user experience until 2016.

In 2016 she became Chief Operating Officer, a role she held through the company’s 2019 public listing and until February 2025. In December 2020 she was also named President. In February 2025 she became Co-Chair of the board, sharing the role Prince had held alone since 2009. Cloudflare reported revenue of $2.17 billion for 2025.

Outside Cloudflare she is a director and audit committee member of Atlassian, re-elected by its shareholders in December 2025. She also serves on the board of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Foundation. Fortune has named her to its 40 Under 40 list, and Marie Claire featured her in its New Guard list.

Education

McGill University

B.Sc., with distinction, Chemistry and Business

Harvard Business School

M.B.A., Dubilier Prize for Entrepreneurship