Client Executive, SLED
CloudflareRole Description & Requirements
About Us
At Cloudflare, we are on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers millions of websites and other Internet properties for customers ranging from individual bloggers to SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare all have web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures list and ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company.
At Cloudflare, we’re not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; we’re looking for the builders who see the cracks in the Internet that everyone else has simply learned to live with. We value candidates who have the instinct to spot a "normalized" problem and the AI-native curiosity to create a solution using the latest tools. Our culture is built on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster today to make it better tomorrow, while ensuring that every improvement, no matter how small, is shared across the team to lift everyone up. If you’re the type of person who values curiosity over bureaucracy, and that AI is a partner in solving tough problems to keep the Internet moving forward, you’ll fit right in.
Location: Austin
About the Role
We are seeking an exceptionally accomplished and visionary Client Executive to join our SLED (State, Local, and Education) Sales team, managing our most strategic accounts across Southern California. This is a role for a true public sector sales master—a leader who will drive Cloudflare’s most complex platform adoptions across SoCal’s premier university systems, major research institutions, and largest municipal and county governments. The ideal candidate possesses unparalleled strategic influence, a profound understanding of localized public sector enterprise architecture, and the ability to proactively shape how Cloudflare advances modern, resilient cloud operating models for critical regional infrastructure and higher education.
As a Client Executive, you will consistently demonstrate the highest level of sales mastery, ensuring highly accurate forecasting, strategic pipeline management, and consistently exceeding attainment targets. You will be a recognized authority on public sector IT modernization, capable of contextualizing Cloudflare’s entire security, performance, and Zero Trust product suite within the broader risk-management, data privacy, and civic continuity strategies of Southern California's largest public entities. This role demands the ability to influence and engage at the highest executive levels—including County/City CIOs and CISOs, Agency Directors, University Vice Chancellors, and Chief Financial Officers—while leading highly specialized cross-functional teams to secure enterprise-wide adoptions and forge transformative digital innovation partnerships.
What You'll Do
Strategic Regional Revenue & Contract Leadership
- Architect and execute strategies to consistently exceed ambitious multi-million dollar sales targets and annual quotas across the Southern California territory.
- Pioneer contract strategies utilizing localized and education-specific purchasing vehicles (e.g., CENIC, OMNIA Partners, NASPO ValuePoint, and county-specific master service agreements) to streamline procurement and maximize Cloudflare's regional footprint.
Local Government & Institutional Architecture Alignment
- Apply mastery in understanding and influencing Enterprise Architecture across all four pillars (mission/business, data, applications, technology) within highly complex, decentralized public environments.
- Map Cloudflare’s capabilities directly to localized public sector challenges—ensuring robust protection for citizen and student PII, compliance with CJIS, FERPA, and GLBA, and seamless defense against ransomware or DDoS disruptions targeting critical regional infrastructure and public utilities.
Southern California Executive & Civic Stakeholder Engagement
- Lead and orchestrate multiple, simultaneous, highly complex engagements across Southern California’s premier public landscape, including major local governments (e.g., County of Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego County) and higher education ecosystems (e.g., UCLA, UCSD, UCI, USC, Caltech, and the CSU campuses).
- Expertly bridge the gap between centralized IT governance, decentralized municipal departments (e.g., public safety, transportation), and individual academic colleges to build consensus and drive enterprise platform sales.
Precision Forecasting & Public Fiscal Cycle Mastery
- Operate with unmatched accuracy in forecasting, proactively shaping and managing a strategic pipeline aligned with municipal fiscal years, university funding cycles, and regional budget approval timelines.
- Provide insights that set the stage for Cloudflare's future localized SLED direction, influencing company-wide product and engineering priorities for the regional government and education sectors.
Digital Transformation & Critical Infrastructure Protection
- Exhibit mastery in understanding the intricate nuances of digital transformation in the public square (e.g., securing digital citizen services, defending smart-city initiatives, protecting institutional intellectual property, and modernizing hybrid learning environments).
- Identify regional market shifts, regulatory compliance mandates, and public sector-specific needs to construct pioneering digital innovation partnerships between Cloudflare and Southern California’s leading institutions.
Examples of Desirable Skills, Knowledge, and Experience
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- 12+ years of unparalleled experience selling complex, transformative technology solutions (Security, Networking, Cloud) into the SLED market, with an irrefutable track record of consistently exceeding multi-million dollar quotas within major local government and university ecosystems.
- Deep Southern California territory expertise, with a strong, active network of existing relationships across SoCal county/city IT leadership, major municipal agencies, UC/CSU administrators, and prominent private universities (USC, Caltech).
- Strong familiarity with public procurement protocols, including direct experience leveraging regional cooperative contracts (OMNIA, Sourcewell), CENIC network resources, municipal RFP processes, and collaborative purchasing consortia.
- Mastery-level knowledge of Cloudflare's entire product suite (Zero Trust, SASE, Application Security, WAAP) and how it maps to SLED compliance frameworks, specifically CJIS, FERPA, GLBA, and the Higher Education Cloud Vendor Assessment Tool (HECVAT).
- Proven success in engaging and influencing at the highest executive levels of regional government and academia, including County/City CIOs and CISOs, General Managers, University Vice Chancellors of IT, and Chief Financial Officers.
- Demonstrated capability to navigate the decentralized nature of large public entities, successfully executing enterprise agreements that satisfy both central IT leadership and independent departmental or academic stakeholders.
- Exceptional strategic communication and presentation skills, capable of translating complex technical architectures into compelling, mission-driven outcomes for non-technical city councils, county boards of supervisors, and university trustees.
- Bachelor's degree required; an advanced degree (MBA, MPA, or an advanced technical degree) is highly preferred.
- Willingness and ability to travel extensively within the Southern California region (primarily the Greater Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego areas) as required for deep strategic alignments and executive engagements.
Compensation
Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location.
- For California (excluding Bay Area) based hires: Estimated annual salary of $415,000- $571,000
- For Bay Area-based hires: Estimated annual salary of $434,000 - $597,000
This role is eligible to earn incentive compensation under Cloudflare’s Sales Compensation Plan. The estimated annual salary range includes the on-target incentive compensation that may be attained in this role under the Sales Compensation Plan.
Equity
This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare’s equity plan.
Benefits
Cloudflare offers a complete package of benefits and programs to support you and your family. Our benefits programs can help you pay health care expenses, support caregiving, build capital for the future and make life a little easier and fun! The below is a description of our benefits for employees in the United States, and benefits may vary for employees based outside the U.S.
Health & Welfare Benefits
- Medical/Rx Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Vision Insurance
- Flexible Spending Accounts
- Commuter Spending Accounts
- Fertility & Family Forming Benefits
- On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program
- Global Travel Medical Insurance
Financial Benefits
- Short and Long Term Disability Insurance
- Life & Accident Insurance
- 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan
- Employee Stock Participation Plan
Time Off
- Flexible paid time off covering vacation and sick leave
- Leave programs, including parental, pregnancy health, medical, and bereavement leave
What Makes Cloudflare Special?
We’re not just a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company. We’re a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company with a soul. Fundamental to our mission to help build a better Internet is protecting the free and open Internet.
Project Galileo: Since 2014, we've equipped more than 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries with powerful tools to defend themselves against attacks that would otherwise censor their work, technology already used by Cloudflare’s enterprise customers--at no cost.
Athenian Project: In 2017, we created the Athenian Project to ensure that state and local governments have the highest level of protection and reliability for free, so that their constituents have access to election information and voter registration. Since the project, we've provided services to more than 425 local government election websites in 33 states.
1.1.1.1: We released 1.1.1.1 to help fix the foundation of the Internet by building a faster, more secure and privacy-centric public DNS resolver. This is available publicly for everyone to use - it is the first consumer-focused service Cloudflare has ever released. Here’s the deal - we don’t store client IP addresses never, ever. We will continue to abide by our privacy commitment and ensure that no user data is sold to advertisers or used to target consumers.
Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? We’d love to hear from you!
Please note that applicants who progress to the offer stage of the interview process may be asked to attend an in-person interview within one of the Cloudflare Offices or Cloudflare Hubs. More details about this will be available at that stage of the interview process.
This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. Please note that any offer of employment may be conditioned on your authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export laws without sponsorship for an export license.
Cloudflare is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and place great value in both diversity and inclusiveness. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to their, or any other person's, perceived or actual race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, or any other basis protected by law. We are an AA/Veterans/Disabled Employer.
Cloudflare provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job. Examples of reasonable accommodations include, but are not limited to, changing the application process, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment. If you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job, please contact us via e-mail at hr@cloudflare.com or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.
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