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September 19, 2019

Big Data Career Notes: September 2019 Edition

In this monthly feature, we’ll keep you up-to-date on the latest career developments for individuals in the big data community. Whether it’s a promotion, new company hire, or even an accolade, we’ve got the details. Check in each month for an updated list and you may even come across someone you know, or better yet, yourself!


Archana Agrawal

MongoDB has announced that it has appointed Archana Argawal to the company’s board of directors. Agrawal is currently head of enterprise and cloud marketing for Atlassian. Prior to her current role, she served as Atlassian’s head of data science and growth marketing and led corporate-wide analytics at TheLadders.

“MongoDB’s superior database enables developers around the world to build better applications faster. It’s exciting to see the culture of innovation, transformative technology, and a world-class team come together,” said Agrawal. “I am honored to join the board and excited to help build on MongoDB’s momentum and contribute to its continued success.”

David Bader

David Bader, director of the new Institute for Data Science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), has received an award from Facebook to support analytics research. Bader joined NJIT from Georgia Tech, where he was chair of the School of Computational Science and Engineering. His research aims to develop faster learning patterns to make it easier to extract actionable information from large datasets.

“Every sector from finance to health, transportation, retail to security, and fashion and entertainment, is rich in data,” Bader said. “These are often large, noisy data sets, with missing elements. We want to create tools for better understanding of these data sets.”

Ashley Casovan

AI Global has announced that Ashley Casovan is its new executive director. Casovan joins AI Global from the Canadian government, where she served as director of Data and Digital, leading the development of the first national government AI policy. She was recently named by Apolitical as one of 100 Future Leaders: The World’s Most Influential Young People in Government.

“I am excited to join AI Global at such an important time in history,” Ashley said. “We are all becoming increasingly aware of the potential benefits and harms of AI, but we don’t always know how to best harness the full power of these systems. I look forward to supporting AI Global’s members and those building and using AI. We are aiming to make it easier to balance innovation and protection of the public.”

Doug Laney. Image courtesy of Import.io

Doug Laney

Import.io has announced the addition of Doug Laney to its advisory board. Laney is currently the principal data strategy with the consulting firm Caserta, and has previously served as vice president and distinguished analyst with Gartner’s chief data officer advisory team. He also co-founded the Deloitte Analytics Institute and is a visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Import.io’s reputation for delivering high volume, high quality web data to the enterprise is unmatched, and I’m thrilled to share ideas that will help them better serve the market,” said Laney. “Web data has become an integral part of enterprise decision making and Import.io is the only choice for companies that need business-critical insights informed by web data.”

Lauren Vaccarello

Talend has announced that it has appointed Lauren Vaccarello as chief marketing officer. Vaccarello was previously vice president of marketing at Box and held executive marketing roles at AdRoll and Salesforce. She has written two marketing books and received a number of awards for her work.

“Without question, data has become the most critical asset for every company,” said Vaccarello. “For data to be useful, however, it needs to be timely and it must be trusted. Ultimately, this is the value Talend integration and integrity solutions uniquely provide. I’m excited to join such a great team and to help showcase the power of Talend to a broader range of customers around the globe.”


To read last month’s edition of Career Notes, click here.

Do you know someone that should be included in next month’s list? If so, send us an email at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.

Datanami