Brad Burns | Influence 100
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Brad Burns

Chief Communications Officer
Snowflake
US

 

Easing into the job wasn’t an option for Brad Burns when he joined Snowflake as chief communications officer in January this year. Since moving to the cloud computing company from Salesforce, Burns has been dealing with breaches that have affected the likes of Ticketmaster and Lending Tree as well as hundreds of customers; charges of lax authentication and a lack of urgency; and the February departure of then-chief executive Frank Slootman, which sent stocks tumbling.

Charged with leading Snowflake’s communications strategy and advising company executives, Burns is carrying a hefty load of helping allay concerns among Snowflake stakeholders. But with a long career in tech comms, he is no stranger to the multi-faceted demands of the job, including crisis control as well as boosting growth. Before his five-plus years as Salesforce’s chief communications officer, Burns worked for AT&T, most recently as senior VP of corporate communications.