GoDaddy, the world’s largest technology provider dedicated to small businesses, has appointed Betsy Rafael to its board of directors. The former Chief Accounting Officer at Apple and Finance VP at Cisco Systems has 30 years of finance and operations experience at numerous companies, including Ernst & Young, Sun, SGI, Escalate and Aspect Communications.
With deep experience in advising organizations as they scale, Rafael will be a valuable asset as GoDaddy, a privately held company that serves more than 12 million paying customers worldwide, continues to expand its presence both domestically and internationally.
Rafael is the first woman board member at GoDaddy. She is currently on two other corporate boards, Echelon and Autodesk, where she serves on their audit committees. She is also a member of the compensation committee at Echelon. In addition, she is a member of the Board of Trustees at Santa Clara University, her alma mater. According to a catalyst.org survey, only about 17 percent of Fortune 500 company board seats in the U.S. are filled by women and in Silicon Valley that number is lower than 10 percent.
“The GoDaddy mission to help small businesses, entrepreneurs and go getters is inspiring,” said Rafael, who attends her first GoDaddy board meeting today in Scottsdale. “GoDaddy is one of those special companies with a purpose-built global platform that only a handful of technology organizations can claim. It has the power of an established company with the energy of a start-up, and I was drawn to become part of what GoDaddy is doing, and to help the team build on the tremendous momentum that’s underway.”
Blake Irving has led the charge to evolve GoDaddy since taking over as CEO in January 2013. GoDaddy’s website and user-experience was upgraded, new products, like Get Found and Website Builder, were launched and the marketing approach shifted dramatically to focus on helping very small and nascent businesses succeed in their ventures.
“Betsy brings with her insight and experience which is unmatched in our industry and I couldn’t be more pleased to have her onboard,” said Irving. “She is a seasoned leader and a phenomenal financial executive who understands scaling financial operations across the globe.”
GoDaddy has been aggressively expanding internationally and in the past year, GoDaddy hired executive leaders in Latin America and Europe, and expanded its India facility to better serve local customers in that part of the world. Here in the U.S., GoDaddy opened new offices in Sunnyvale, Calif. and near Seattle, Wash. and broke ground on the 150,000 sq. ft. GoDaddy Global Technology Center in Tempe, Ariz., set to open next fall.
Rafael has a number of high-ranking women colleagues at GoDaddy, including Chief Technical Officer Elissa Murphy, Chief Marketing Officer Barb Rechterman, Chief Communications Officer Karen Tillman and General Counsel Nima Kelly.
GoDaddy’s CEO has been a vocal advocate for women in technology throughout his career. Irving has long been involved with the Society of Women Engineers and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. He championed the creation of the GoDaddy Women in Technology organization, which supports professional development and networking. Last year, GoDaddy sponsored Womensphere and this spring GoDaddy is planning to join the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.
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