Zendesk bolsters Asia Pacific leadership with 2 senior hires

Zendesk has strengthened its leadership within Asia Pacific by bringing on board Wendy Johnstone (pictured left) and Gari Johnson (pictured right) to accelerate growth in the region. 

As Zendesk's first regional chief operating officer, Johnstone aims to spearhead go-to-market strategies and operations for APAC and reports to global chief operating officer Tom Keiser. Based in Singapore, she brings over 25 years of experience in numerous senior marketing and operations roles at Salesforce, EMC, IBM and most recently, Microsoft.            

Meanwhile as SVP, Johnson will drive the company’s growth strategy and expand its customer base in the region. Previously at Salesforce, Johnson’s experience spans more than 30 years in sales, operations and marketing roles at Oracle, Intralinks and IBM, to name a few. Johnson is based in Sydney and reports into Norman Gennaro, president, Worldwide Sales.

Together, Johnstone and Johnson aim to help the APAC business navigate these challenging times to support Zendesk’s long-term goal of becoming a multibillion-dollar revenue company. Earlier this year, Johnson’s predecessor, Sandie Overtveld, stepped into a newly created role within the business as the vice president, strategic enterprise accounts for APAC and EMEA and is now based in Europe.

Earlier this year, Zendesk announced a strategic alliance with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with aims to provide enterprise grade CRM solutions and integrations for large enterprises and tackling the increasingly complex technological requirements.

Ricardo Moreno, vice president of Worldwide Partners, Zendesk said: "With the combination of TCS’ long-standing history of providing IT services, consulting and business solutions to many of the world’s largest businesses in their transformation journey and our service-first CRM offerings, we look forward to helping companies foster a transparent, responsive and empowered customer experience."