ABOUT cindy zu
Building partnerships as technology markets change
Cindy Zu is a partnerships and ecosystem leader with experience building growth engines across enterprise SaaS, cloud marketplaces, and AI. She is currently VP of Partnerships at AirOps, where she works across the emerging AI ecosystem.
Her career has followed three major technology shifts. At Highspot, she built the partner revenue function across Salesforce and the revenue technology ecosystem. At Tackle, she led cloud go-to-market and hyperscaler partnerships. At AirOps, she works with the AI ecosystem as the category takes shape.
Cindy is a keynote speaker, board director, startup investor, and advocate for more inclusive technology and finance ecosystems. Her career spans APAC, EMEA, and the United States, with experience in institutional finance, AI fintech, private markets, cloud, and enterprise software.
Cindy was named one of Puget Sound Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 and is a committed community leader. She has served on the boards of multiple nonprofits and private companies, including as Founder and Board Chair of the Seattle Finance Collective and as an Advisory Board Member for the Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Program at the University of Washington. She currently serves on the boards of the Carolina Women in Tech and the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra.
An active voice in the finance and tech ecosystem, Cindy frequently speaks at conferences and events on cloud GTM, ecosystem strategy, and inclusive leadership.
She currently resides in North Carolina with her family and enjoys career coaching, tennis, boxing, and travel.
The partnerships playbook is changing.
AI-native companies need more than a familiar channel playbook. Model providers can affect product capability, commercial strategy, and unit economics at the same time. Partnership leaders need to move quickly, run thoughtful experiments, and make good bets before the category has settled.
Cindy speaks and writes about what this shift means for partnership leaders, revenue teams, and the companies making their first ecosystem hires.