1116: The CFO Who Thinks in Full Color | Dan Zhang, CFO, ClickUp

When Dan Zhang joined ClickUp in 2021, she stepped into a company intent on unifying how the world works. Two years later, she entered the CFO office—just as ClickUp’s strategic bet on AI was beginning to reshape its platform and its future.

ClickUp is not just a place where work is tracked, Zhang tells us—it’s “where work happens.” The company combines project management, chat, docs, whiteboards, calendars, and more in a single AI-enabled platform. And with the launch of ClickUp Brain Max, the company aims to give every employee “a second brain”—one that automates manual processes, captures meeting notes, assigns follow-ups, and even suggests next steps.

As CFO, Zhang helps drive ClickUp’s mission with a sharp focus on scale and efficiency. “We’re over 1,000 employees around the world,” she tells us, adding that the momentum from AI has become a true growth engine. The company now supports more than 4 million teams globally, from three-person startups to Fortune 500 giants. And its AI business? It’s quadrupled year over year.

Zhang sees ClickUp’s all-in-one foundation as key to its AI differentiation. “This allows us to deliver AI that shows up with the right context, at the right moment, in the right place,” she explains.

Despite the company’s rapid growth, Zhang isn’t resting. “Even after four years here,” she tells us, “it still feels like this is day one.” That mindset—a blend of urgency and vision—continues to shape how she leads.