Cloudflare, the leading Internet performance and security company, today named Thomas Seifert as chief financial officer (CFO). Seifert, who will be joining the company as its first CFO, will oversee Cloudflare’s global finance department, reporting to Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare.

“Over the last two years, we’ve interviewed many terrific CFO candidates, but when we met Thomas, we immediately knew he was the right person for Cloudflare,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. “Thomas’ reputation with public investors, knowledge of U.S. and European markets, and deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities of a fast-growing company like Cloudflare will be of tremendous help as we enter our next phase.”

Most recently, Seifert served as executive vice president and CFO at Symantec where he led the finance organization since March 2014. While at Symantec, Seifert laid the groundwork for the company’s financial and strategic transformation and oversaw Symantec’s acquisition of BlueCoat.

Seifert brings significant leadership, financial and operational expertise to Cloudflare. As Cloudflare’s first CFO Seifert will be tasked with building out the finance and investor relations teams and preparing the company to scale for our next phase of growth.

“With Cloudflare’s visionary team and strong business model, it’s clear that there is tremendous opportunity in the markets in which we operate,” said Thomas Seifert, CFO of Cloudflare. “I am eager to get to work with the Cloudflare team and prepare the company to scale moving forward.”

Prior to Symantec, Seifert served as executive vice president and chief financial officer at Brightstar. He was responsible for managing the company’s financial operations, corporate accounting, treasury, and information technology. Before Brightstar, he was chief financial officer and chief accounting officer at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) from 2009 until 2012. He managed the company’s financial operations and was AMD’s interim chief executive officer for eight months in 2012. Seifert also held a number of executive roles earlier in his career in the technology and wireless industries at Qimonda AG, Infineon Technologies AG, and Wirelines Communications Business Group.

Seifert earned his bachelor’s degree and an M.B.A. from Friedrich Alexander University in Germany. He also holds a master’s degree in economics from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

About Cloudflare

Cloudflare, Inc. (www.cloudflare.com / @cloudflare) is on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers more than 10 trillion requests per month, which is nearly 10 percent of all Internet requests for more than 2.5 billion people worldwide. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Web properties powered by Cloudflare have all web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with each new site added. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer, named the Most Innovative Network & Internet Technology Company for two years running by the Wall Street Journal, and ranked among the world’s 50 most innovative companies by Fast Company. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Cloudflare has offices in Austin, TX, Champaign, IL, Boston, MA, Washington, DC, London, and Singapore.

Thomas Seifert’s Bio:

Thomas J. Seifert comes to Cloudflare from Symantec, a leading cybersecurity company, where he served as advisor from December 2016 until March 2017. Seifert served as the chief financial officer and executive vice president of Symantec from March 2014 to December 2016. At Symantec, he managed financial operations, corporate accounting, treasury, tax, investor relations and business development.

Prior to Symantec, he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Brightstar Corp., a wireless distribution and services company, from December 2012 to March 2014. From October 2009 until August 2012, Seifert was senior vice president and chief financial officer at Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., a semiconductor company. From October 2008 to August 2009, he served as chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Qimonda AG, a German memory chip manufacture. In this role, he was involved in the formation and IPO of the company. He also held executive positions at Infineon AG, White Oak Semiconductor, and Siemens AG. He has been an independent director of IPG Photonics Corporation since June 3, 2014.

Seifert holds a bachelor’s degree and an M.B.A. from Friedrich Alexander University in Germany. He also holds a master’s degree in economics from Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich.