Michelle Zatlyn

Michelle Zatlyn (born July 1979) is a Canadian businesswoman. She is the co-founder, president, chief operating officer and a board member of American content delivery network provider and cybersecurity firm Cloudflare.

Personal life and education
Michelle Zatlyn was born in July 1979 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada where she grew up. She attended Carlton Comprehensive High School where she was once the captain of the basketball team. She graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry in 2001 and then got a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School. Zatlyn is married and has two children. She lives in San Francisco.

Career
After a summer internship at Google and a stint as a product manager at Toshiba, Zatlyn joined the founding team of Toronto-based startup I Love Rewards (later Achievers), a global employee rewards program. She co-founded Cloudflare with Harvard Business School classmates Matthew Prince and Lee Holloway in 2009. She sits on Cloudflare's board and serves as the company's president and COO.

Speaking about her co-founding of Cloudflare, Zatlyn states:"When we came up with Cloudflare, I knew nothing about internet security, but I care a lot about liking what I'm doing. I knew if I could help create internet security, that's something I could work hard for and be proud [of]; 10 years later, we have 165 data centres, 12 million domains and more than 800 employees."Zatlyn was appointed to the board of directors for Australian software company, Atlassian, in September 2021. She is also a member of the cybersecurity team of Aspen Institute.

Recognition
Zatlyn was named as one of Fortune magazine's "40 Under 40" (2017) and Forbes "50 Self-Made Women" (2021); she was also nominated as C100's "Icon of Canadian Entrepreneurship" (2019). As of 2021, she is a member of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. Forbes estimated her net worth at US$1.2billion. Zatlyn was also listed among the world's richest self-made women by Forbes in 2024.