Data is the digital world’s most precious resource

Gleb Budman

Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the Board

Gleb Budman is a co-founder and has served as our chief executive officer since 2007, guiding the business from its inception in a Palo Alto apartment to a company serving customers in more than 175 countries with over an exabyte of data under management. Gleb has served as a member of our board of directors since 2009 and as chairperson since January 2021. Prior to Backblaze, Gleb was the senior director of product management at SonicWall and the vice president of products at MailFrontier, which was acquired by SonicWall. Before that, he served in a senior position at Kendara, which was acquired by Excite@Home, and previously founded and successfully exited two other startup companies. Gleb earned a M.B.A. and B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Brian Beach

Chief Technology Officer

Brian Beach joined Backblaze in 2013 and has served as chief technology officer since 2022. As CTO, he brings decades of engineering experience as well as a passion for building next-generation distributed storage solutions. Prior to his time at Backblaze, Brian worked as the vice president and principal engineer for TiVo, as well as holding senior engineering positions at Silicon Graphics and Hewlett-Packard. Brian’s experience at Backblaze ranges from being our first customer in 2008 to building our storage cloud’s vault architecture—the foundation for our durability, scalability, and performance. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in information science, and his Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Marc Suidan

Chief Financial Officer

Marc Suidan joined Backblaze in 2024 as our chief financial officer. He brings more than 20 years of operational, strategic, and financial experience with both growth start-ups and global Fortune 500 companies in the technology, media, and consumer industries. Previously, he was the CFO of The Beachbody Company (NYSE: BODi), and Senior Partner at PwC, where his clients included large and notable technology companies and private equity funds. Marc sits on the Board of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation and the Silicon Valley International School. Marc earned his Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Management in Accounting and Finance from McGill University.

Tom MacMitchell

General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer

Tom MacMitchell has served as our general counsel and chief compliance officer since early 2020. Prior to joining Backblaze, Tom led legal matters at Quantenna Communications. At Quantenna, Tom also helped lead the company's initial public offering, and its subsequent sale to a Fortune 500 company. Prior to Quantenna, Tom was at Intematix Corporation and Brocade Communications. Tom began his legal career at a prominent law firm in Silicon Valley. He brings 20+ years of experience in law, including heading the legal function for both private and public companies, to his role at Backblaze. Tom earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a J.D. in law from the University of California, Davis.

Tina Cessna

Senior Vice President, Engineering

Tina Cessna has served as our senior vice president of engineering since 2018. In her role, she has guided our engineering efforts to open Backblaze’s services to ever broadening audiences, including the launch of the Backblaze S3 Compatible API. Prior to joining Backblaze, Tina led engineering and QA at Salesforce, Cisco, Linksys, and Oracle. She brings 25 years of software development experience to the role, building complex enterprise and consumer applications, as well as a blend of technology experience in PaaS, SaaS, embedded systems, and network routing. Tina earned a B.S.E.E in electronic and computer engineering from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Chris Opat

Senior Vice President, Cloud Operations

Chris Opat joined Backblaze as our senior vice president of cloud operations in 2023. Before joining Backblaze, he served as senior vice president of platform engineering and operations at StackPath, a specialized provider in edge technology and content delivery. He brings a passion for building teams of experienced technologists who push the envelope to create a best-in-class experience for Backblaze customers. Chris has over 25 years of experience in building teams and technology at startup and scale-up companies. He also held leadership roles at CyrusOne, CompuCom, Cloudreach, and Bear Stearns/JPMorgan. Chris earned his B.S. in Television & Digital Media Production at Ithaca College.

David Ngo

Chief Product Officer

David Ngo joined Backblaze as our chief product officer (CPO) in 2024. Before joining Backblaze, he served as the global chief technology officer (CTO) for Metallic, a division of Commvault, which provides data protection and cyber resilience as a service. David brings to Backblaze a passion for developing scalable methodologies, best-in-class user experiences, and go-to-market strategies based on the latest industry best practices. With more than 25 years of experience in building technologies, product development, and positioning, David is a recognized industry leader in helping companies identify areas of opportunity for innovation and architecting how new technologies are integrated. David earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Rutgers University.

Jason Wakeam

Chief Revenue Officer

Jason Wakeam joined Backblaze as our chief revenue officer (CRO) in 2024. Jason brings nearly three decades of experience building high impact sales teams and driving competitive market share growth for organizations of all sizes. Before joining Backblaze, he held sales and business development leadership roles at a range of industry-leading companies including SnapLogic, Cloudera, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard. Led by a passion for emerging technologies and growth strategies, Jason is a leader recognized for helping SaaS companies identify areas of revenue growth achievable through new strategies across all areas of an organization. Jason earned his HBA in Business Administration from Ivey Business School at Western University and his B.A. in Economics at King’s University.

Patrick Thomas

Vice President, Marketing

Patrick Thomas is the vice president of marketing and has led content, communications, and strategy since joining Backblaze in 2019. He has specialized in marketing strategy and content development across a number of industries, including publishing, gaming, and consumer and enterprise cloud solutions. As a marketing leader he specializes in building and scaling new growth motions at companies that are disrupting industries. He has developed and edited New York Times bestsellers and Wall Street Journal books of the year, written for the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Patrick earned his bachelor's degree in English from St. Olaf College.

Anu Patil

Vice President, Revenue Strategy & Operations

Anu Patil joined Backblaze as a senior business intelligence analyst in 2019, and was promoted to Vice President, Revenue Strategy & Operations in 2023. Before joining Backblaze, she led analytics teams at companies including NextDoor, Concur, CREDO Mobile and others. As an incisive and innovative revenue leader, Anu brings more than 15 years of experience in growth and retention analytics, predictive modeling and forecasting, and revenue optimization. Anu earned her bachelor's degree in economics from Tufts University.

Mark Potter

Chief Information Security Officer

Mark Potter has served as our chief information security officer since early 2021. He brings experience from over 30 years working in cybersecurity, IT, governance, risk management, regulatory compliance, and data protection and privacy program design and implementation. He previously served as the chief information security officer at multiple federal healthcare contractor organizations, and also served as the Director of IT Security at a publicly traded international satellite radio company. Our CISO is an IAPP Fellow of Information Privacy and holds over 35 security, privacy, and risk management certifications.

Robert Fitt

Chief Human Resources Officer

Robert Fitt joined Backblaze as the chief human resources officer (CHRO) in 2022. Before joining Backblaze, he led HR functions for Turntide Technologies, 360 Behavioral Health, Mobilitie, Broadcom Corporation, and others. A versatile and seasoned CHRO, Robert brings more than 20 years of global leadership in strategic HR, talent management, technology, organizational design, compensation and benefits, and DEI. Robert earned his bachelor’s degree in human resources management from Staffordshire University, and his Master’s degree in employment law from the University of East Anglia.

Barbara Nelson

Chair of the Nominating & Governance Committee

Barbara Nelson has served as a member of our Board of Directors since October 2020. Ms. Nelson also serves as a board member of Oneview Healthcare, Plc, a publicly traded healthcare technology company, since October 2023, including Chair of the Board of Oneview Healthcare, Plc, since October 2024, and Omniscient Technology (o8t), a private company pioneering AI applied to brain connectivity, since October 2022. Ms. Nelson was the Vice President of Cloud Services, Software and Strategy for the consumer group of Western Digital Corporation, a hard disk drive manufacturer and data storage company, from May 2017 to April 2020. Prior to Western Digital Corporation, Ms. Nelson served as the General Manager and Executive Vice President of IronKey Mobile Security at Imation Corporation from 2013 to 2016. From July 2008 to March 2010, Ms. Nelson was the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Element Labs, a private company and from October 2003 to December 2007, she was the Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the board of directors of NeoScale Systems, a private company. Ms. Nelson earned her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. We believe that Ms. Nelson is qualified to serve as a member of our Board because of her extensive experience advising technology companies as both a director and executive, as well as decades of SaaS, storage and security experience.

Jocelyn Carter-Miller

Chair of the Compensation Committee

Jocelyn Carter-Miller has served as a member of our Board of Directors since October 2020. Since August 2004, Ms. Carter-Miller has been President of TechEdVentures, Inc., an educational company; since 2015 owner of SoulTranSync, LLC, an audio wave synchronization technology and meditation company; and since 2016 President of Jocelyn Carter-Miller, LLC, a management consulting firm. From February 2002 to March 2004, Ms. Carter-Miller was the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Office Depot, Inc., an office supply retailer, and from 1999 until 2002, she was the Corporate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Motorola, Inc., a telecommunications company. Ms. Carter-Miller has served on the board of directors of public companies for over 20 years, including the Principal Financial Group, Inc., a financial investment management and insurance company, since September 2001, Interpublic Group, an advertising company, since July 2007, and Arlo Technologies, Inc., a provider of home, business and personal security solutions company, since August 2018. From 2009 until August 2018, Ms. Carter-Miller also served as a member of the board of directors of Netgear, Inc., a computer networking company. Ms. Carter-Miller earned her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and B.S. in Accounting from the University of Illinois.

Evelyn D’An

Chair of the Audit Committee

Evelyn D’An has served as a member of our Board of Directors since August 2021. Ms. D'An is President of D’An Financial Services, a strategic consulting firm she established in 2004. Ms. D’An is also a former partner of Ernst & Young, an accounting and professional services firm, where she spent 18 years serving clients in retail, consumer products, technology, financial services, media and other sectors. Ms. D’An also currently serves on the board of directors of Zoomcar, Inc., a car sharing platform company, where she has served since April 2023 and GHD Group Pty Ltd., a technical professional services firm, where she has served since March 2020, and she is the chair of the audit committee of both companies. Ms. D’An has served on numerous other corporate boards since 2006, including as a director of Summer Infant, Inc., manufacturer of infant and juvenile products, from November 2016 to June 2022. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the State University of Albany.

Earl E. Fry

Board Member

Earl E. Fry has served as a member of our Board of Directors since August 2021. Mr. Fry currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Hawaiian Airlines, an airline company, and has served as the chair of the audit and finance committee since May 2016. From December 1999 to August 2015, Mr. Fry served in various capacities at Informatica Corporation, an enterprise data integration software company, including Chief Financial Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Customer Officer and Executive Vice President, Operations Strategy. Mr. Fry has also served on the board of directors of Central Pacific Financial Corp., a commercial bank, since April 2005 and is a member of the audit committee and risk committee. Mr. Fry served on the board of directors of Xactly Corporation, a cloud-based enterprise software and services company, from September 2005 to August 2017. Mr. Fry received a B.B.A. in Accounting from the University of Hawai’i and has an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Gleb Budman

Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the Board

Gleb Budman is a co-founder and has served as our chief executive officer since 2007, guiding the business from its inception in a Palo Alto apartment to a company serving customers in more than 175 countries with over an exabyte of data under management. Gleb has served as a member of our board of directors since 2009 and as chairperson since January 2021. Prior to Backblaze, Gleb was the senior director of product management at SonicWall and the vice president of products at MailFrontier, which was acquired by SonicWall. Before that, he served in a senior position at Kendara, which was acquired by Excite@Home, and previously founded and successfully exited two other startup companies. Gleb earned a M.B.A. and B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Brian Wilson

Co-Founder

Brian Wilson is one of our co-founders and served as our chief technology officer until 2022. Brian’s inspiration that safeguarding data shouldn’t be hard lit the spark for Backblaze, and his code provides the original foundations of the Backblaze Computer Backup client. Brian served as a member of our Board of Directors from 2007 until 2022. Prior to his time at Backblaze, Brian was a co-founder and the chief technology officer of MailFrontier, which was subsequently sold to SonicWall. Brian also served in senior positions at Kendara, Silicon Graphics, and Apple. He earned his M.S. in computer science from Stanford University and a B.S. in engineering physics and B.S. in computer science from Oregon State University.

Billy Ng

Co-Founder

Billy Ng is a co-founder and served as our full stack architect until 2023. He designed and built the original software layer that runs the network infrastructure for the Backblaze data centers and served as a mentor for the Engineering team. Prior to joining Backblaze, Billy was a lead engineer at SonicWall, MailFrontier, and Excite@Home. Billy earned a B.S. in computer information systems from Hawaii Pacific University.

Casey Jones

Co-Founder

Casey Jones is one of our co-founders and served as our vice president of design until 2023. Casey’s design sensibility and user interface experience have informed the customer experience from our launch onward. Prior to Backblaze, Casey was the design lead for SonicWall’s products, where he developed designs that are deployed in over one million businesses worldwide. He led user interface and web design and development at MailFrontier and at Kendara through its acquisition by Excite@Home. Starting in design in the early days of the web, Casey developed event sites for companies, including Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, and PeopleSoft. Casey earned a B.S. in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Damon Uyeda

Co-Founder

Damon Uyeda is a co-founder and served as Mac architect from 2008 to 2023. Prior to joining Backblaze, Damon held senior technical positions at three startups as well as Excite@Home and Oracle. Damon's technical vision, passion, and dedication to detail of development for Mac operating systems allowed Backblaze to be instantly accepted by the highly critical Mac community as a product worthy of their loyalty.

Tim Nufire

Co-Founder

Tim Nufire is a co-founder and served as chief cloud officer until December 2022. He was a member of our Board of Directors from April 2009 to June 2023. Tim developed, built, and laid the first building blocks of the Backblaze Storage Cloud. Prior to his time at Backblaze, Tim was the vice president of engineering at Aplia, which was acquired by the Thompson Corporation. He was also a director at MailFrontier and SearchFox, and held senior engineering positions at Apple, Adobe, and others. Tim earned his B.S. in mathematics with the highest distinction from the University of Kansas.

Nilay Patel

Co-Founder & Vice President, Sales

Nilay served as our vice president of sales until 2024. Nilay was part of the founding team at Backblaze and launched Backblaze Business Backup and the partner programs. In early 2011, Nilay left to co-found Selligy, which was acquired by Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV) in mid-2015. Soon thereafter, Nilay returned to bring his unique background in development and sales back to Backblaze. In addition to Selligy, Nilay was the first employee in Europe for both Electric Cloud and MailFrontier. He opened up the territories by selling products to Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens Medical, Bertelsmann, and other large enterprises. Nilay earned a B.S. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.