Dave Cotten

About Dave Cotten

Senior field sales and operations leader with a great reputation for building, teaching, motivating, and leading field sales and operations teams to create significant value for market-changing technology companies by building, teaching, motivating, and leading \"glass-breaker\" prospects to action

Experience

1. Vice President of Global Sales

   Backblaze

   Sep 2024 — Present · Austin, TX, US

   Backblaze (NASDAQ: BLZE) provides secure, cost-effective, and high-performance cloud object storage that helps customers, including those in the AI and machine learning (ML) space, manage and utilize large datasets. Our key value includes simplicity, affordability, and interoperability. With over five exabytes of data storage under management, the company currently works with more than customers in over 175 countries.For AI and ML customers, Backblaze\'s B2 Cloud Storage is particularly effective at fueling data-intensive workflows. The platform is built to support the entire AI data pipeline, from ingestion and processing to model training and inference.Cost-Effective Data Lakes: AI projects require massive datasets, and Backblaze\'s low-cost storage helps teams build and maintain large-scale data lakes without spiraling costs. This allows for more experimentation and iteration.High-Performance Access: B2 Cloud Storage is \"always-hot,\" meaning there are no delays or fees for retrieving data, a critical requirement for time-sensitive AI model training. We also offers B2 Overdrive for customers needing even faster throughput for large-scale workloads.Open Cloud Flexibility: Backblaze\'s S3-compatible API ensures it integrates seamlessly with a wide range of AI tools, platforms, and GPU compute providers. This \"open cloud\" approach prevents vendor lock-in and allows AI teams to use best-of-breed services, moving data between different environments without incurring surprise transfer fees.Partnerships: Backblaze has partnered with leading GPU providers like CoreWeave and Vultr to create joint solutions, enabling customers to efficiently feed data from Backblaze storage to high-performance computing resources.Security and Reliability: With features like server-side encryption, object lock for immutability, and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, Backblaze ensures data is both secure and highly durable (11 nines of durability).

Education

• The University of Dallas

  MBA, Engineering Management

  1993 — 1995

• Texas A&M University

  Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering

  1987 — 1991

Skills

• Managed Services
• Integration
• Product Marketing
• Salesforce.com
• Sales Enablement
• Storage
• Consulting
• Virtualization
• Direct Sales
• Professional Services
• Strategic Partnerships
• Crm
• Start-Ups
• Channel
• Software Industry
• Customer Relationship Management (Crm)
• Business Strategy
• Sales
• Software as a Service (Saas)
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Solution Selling
• Partner Management
• Data Center
• IT Strategy
• Strategy
• Saas
• Security
• Enterprise Software
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Cloud Computing
• Sales Process
• Demand Generation
• Pre-Sales
• Account Management
• Vmware
• Product Management
• Solution Architecture
• Management
• Lead Generation
• Business Alliances