Inspired by Michelle Valdez
When Michelle Zatlyn co-founded Cloudflare in 2009, she wasn’t setting out to become a “woman in cybersecurity.” In fact, she wasn’t even a computer scientist by training. She was a chemistry graduate from McGill University, a problem-solver with a sharp eye for inefficiencies, and someone who believed technology could make the internet safer and faster for everyone. Today, as President, COO, and co-founder of Cloudflare, Zatlyn leads one of the most influential cybersecurity and internet infrastructure companies in the world—powering millions of websites, businesses, and applications globally.
Her story is not just about building a multibillion-dollar company; it’s about resilience, vision, and proving that leadership in cybersecurity doesn’t always follow a predictable path.
The Unlikely Beginning
Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Canada, Michelle’s early years didn’t hint at a future in Silicon Valley. She pursued chemistry at McGill and worked briefly in healthcare before shifting gears. What she carried throughout was a curiosity to understand problems deeply and then reimagine solutions.
Her career path began at companies like Google and Toshiba, where she worked on operational and customer-centric roles. It wasn’t traditional “cybersecurity experience,” but it gave her something equally valuable: a sense of how technology could be more user-friendly and accessible.
The pivotal moment came when she attended Harvard Business School. There, she met Matthew Prince and Lee Holloway—two people who shared her curiosity about fixing what was broken in the internet. The trio saw a massive gap: the internet was plagued by slow performance and vulnerable to attacks, yet the solutions were either expensive or complex. They wanted to change that.
Founding Cloudflare
The idea for Cloudflare was deceptively simple: create a platform that not only protects websites from cyber threats like DDoS attacks but also makes them faster and more reliable.
At the time, the internet was becoming the backbone of business operations, yet small companies were particularly vulnerable. Large corporations could afford sophisticated security tools, but smaller players were left exposed. Cloudflare’s mission was radical in its inclusivity: level the playing field by making enterprise-grade protection and performance available to everyone.
The road wasn’t easy. Investors weren’t lining up to back a woman co-founder with no technical background in cybersecurity. But Michelle’s sharp understanding of customer pain points and her ability to communicate Cloudflare’s vision turned skepticism into belief.
Cloudflare launched in 2010 at TechCrunch Disrupt—and within hours, over 5,000 websites had signed up. It was the beginning of a trajectory few could have predicted.
Scaling in a Complex Industry
Scaling a cybersecurity company requires more than just good technology. It requires trust.
Michelle played a pivotal role in shaping Cloudflare’s customer-centric culture. While Matthew Prince often focused on the technical and policy dimensions, Michelle steered the operational backbone—sales, support, strategy, and scaling teams. She ensured that Cloudflare wasn’t just a powerful product but also a reliable partner for businesses.
As Cloudflare grew, so did its stakes. The company was no longer just defending small websites; it was protecting global enterprises, governments, and even critical infrastructure. By 2020, when Cloudflare went public on the New York Stock Exchange, it was valued at over $4 billion. Today, it’s worth several times that, serving millions of customers worldwide.
Breaking Barriers in Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity has long been a male-dominated field, often defined by technical expertise and engineering prowess. Michelle’s success redefined what leadership in this space could look like.
She brought a fresh perspective: cybersecurity isn’t just a technical challenge; it’s a business problem, a customer-experience challenge, and a trust issue. Her ability to integrate those dimensions has been central to Cloudflare’s rise.
As one of the very few female founders of a multibillion-dollar public tech company, she has broken glass ceilings that few even dared to touch. For aspiring women leaders in tech, she represents what’s possible when vision and persistence outpace stereotypes.
Challenges Along the Way
The journey wasn’t without its hurdles. Cybersecurity is an industry where crises are inevitable—attacks evolve daily, and companies must constantly adapt. Cloudflare has faced criticism, particularly around its policies of providing services to controversial websites. Balancing the mission of an open and safe internet with ethical questions has tested the leadership time and again.
Michelle’s approach has been to anchor decisions in Cloudflare’s core values: protect the internet, ensure equal access, and stay transparent. While not every decision has pleased every stakeholder, Cloudflare’s commitment to accountability has earned it credibility in an industry where trust is currency.
Leadership Lessons from Michelle Zatlyn
What makes Michelle’s leadership stand out is not just her operational expertise but her people-first philosophy. Some defining lessons from her journey include:
- Diverse backgrounds bring unique strengths – Michelle’s chemistry and business background gave her problem-solving skills and empathy that complemented her co-founders’ technical strengths.
- Customer-centric thinking wins trust – By always advocating for the end-user, she helped Cloudflare scale faster and build loyalty.
- Resilience is a founder’s greatest asset – Whether it was investor skepticism or industry challenges, Michelle’s persistence carried the company forward.
- Leadership is about balance – Scaling a business requires balancing speed with stability, vision with execution, and ethics with growth.
The Road Ahead
Cloudflare continues to expand its footprint—moving beyond security into networking, zero trust solutions, and AI-driven performance tools. Michelle, as President and COO, remains at the forefront of steering that growth.
Her journey shows that cybersecurity isn’t just about code and firewalls. It’s about trust, inclusivity, and enabling a safer internet for everyone.
For women in cybersecurity, Michelle Zatlyn’s story is a proof that you don’t need to fit a mold to break barriers. You just need the courage to start, the resilience to persist, and the vision to see what others overlook.
