Chris Farinacci is a seasoned technology executive with over 30 years of leadership experience in software and enterprise technology. His career spans various roles, including executive leadership, marketing, strategy, and scaling high-growth startups. He has played a pivotal role in guiding companies from their early stages through IPOs and driving businesses to multi-billion-dollar valuations. Currently, he serves as an Executive-in-Residence at SignalFire, a board member of the San Francisco Zoo, an advisor to Generation Investment Management, and actively advises and invests in technology startups and growth companies.
Previously, Chris was the Chief Operating Officer at Asana, where he was instrumental in scaling the company’s revenue from ~$10 million ARR to ~$500 million and leading the business through its public offering. At Asana, Chris led the marketing, sales, business development, customer success, customer support, business technology, business strategy and operations, and web development teams, and was responsible for growing and scaling the global business, crafting and telling the company story, business strategy, and ensuring Asana customers were successful.
Before that, he was the Chief Marketing Officer for Google Cloud, where he oversaw global marketing efforts that contributed to Google’s enterprise and education business reaching multi-billion-dollar status. At Google, Chris was responsible for global marketing across the Google Workplace, Google Cloud Platform, Google for Education, and Google Maps and Search enterprise products.
His extensive experience also includes leadership roles at Oracle, Agile Software (sold to Oracle), i2, Aspect Development (sold to i2), Hara Software and SDRC (sold to Siemens). In addition to his corporate leadership, Chris has been a trusted advisor to Y Combinator and an Independent Board Director at Area 1 Security (sold to Cloudflare), leveraging his expertise in go-to-market strategies, marketing and enterprise growth. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from THE Ohio State University.