Blake Irving is the CEO and Board Director of GoDaddy, the world's largest platform for small business and solopreneurs—helping millions of independent ventures to grow and thrive online by giving them the digital tools and insights to turn their ambitions into something real. Under Mr. Irving’s direction, GoDaddy has developed a global-scale cloud platform that leverages predictive analytics and machine learning to power their customer’s digital presence, communications, marketing, commerce, back-office administration and peer/community support. The platform now serves 17 million paying customers in 125 markets worldwide.

Prior to GoDaddy, Mr. Irving was EVP and Chief Product Officer at Yahoo!, where he grew active users from 550 million to nearly one billion users—positioning Yahoo! to repass Google and Facebook as the world’s most popular online destination in 2013. His work to deliver Yahoo! into the mobile age remains one of their greatest assets today.

Before Yahoo!, Mr. Irving spent 15 years in senior roles at Microsoft, most recently as head of the Windows Live platform where he was responsible for research, development, and operations of Microsoft’s global cloud services. While at Microsoft, Mr. Irving created and grew MSN Messenger into the world’s most successful instant messaging platform, with more than 70% global share, re-architected and grew Hotmail to 270 million users worldwide, and deployed their first billion-dollar advertising system, adExpert.

A technology pioneer for more than 35 years, Mr. Irving began his career at Xerox in 1981 during the heyday of PARC labs. He has since been at the forefront of innovation, playing a hand in many products and services that are now staples of the Internet, including computer typography, communications via the personal computer, online subscription services, digital advertising, and massive-scale services platforms known collectively today as “the cloud.”

Mr. Irving is a graduate of San Diego State University and received an MBA degree from Pepperdine University, where he later served as a professor of business in the same graduate school. He is an avid cyclist, surfer and golfer—and currently resides in Scottsdale, Arizona with his family. Keep up-to-date with Blake at www.BlakesBlog.com