Big Data Career Notes: March 2021 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!

Marianne Bailey

Marianne Bailey joined Cohesity as its advisor. Baily will help Cohesity continue to add value and meet the growing needs of federal agencies. At NSA, Baily held numerous high-level positions, including chief executive of information assurance engineering and deputy director of cybersecurity engineering. She also served at the Office of the Secretary of Defense as principal deputy for cybersecurity and deputy chief information security officer.

“Modern data management solutions are playing a more prominent role in modern cybersecurity. I became an advisor to Cohesity because their data management technologies can help agencies and organizations improve their security postures while enhancing overall risk management,” said Bailey. “The company’s laser focus on radically simplifying data management helps customers manage, protect, and get more value from their data. Equally important to protecting against attacks is the ability to recover from an attack, and Cohesity’s approach to data management can greatly limit the potential damage to data and business continuity from attacks.”

Shruti Bhat

Rockset, a real-time indexing database company, appointed Shruti Bhat as its first chief product officer and senior vice president of marketing. Bhat, who joined Rockset in 2017, was promoted from her role at the company as its SVP of product and marketing. She will continue to oversee product management, design, marketing, demand generation, and branding.

“The past three years with Rockset have been a tremendous experience, building alongside some of the industry’s brightest minds in web-scale data management, distributed systems, and real-time analytics,” said Bhat. “Rockset delivers a solution to a challenge that desperately needs attention: real-time analytics in the age of modern digital businesses, where interactive data applications are replacing static reports. Rockset continually ‘wows’ users because of how fast, flexible, and easy we make it to embed real-time analytics in these applications, and we are just getting started. It’s in the Rockset DNA to continue pushing ourselves to innovate and improve, and I’m more excited than ever about what Rockset’s future holds.”

Chantelle Breithaupt

Aspen Technology, a provider of asset optimization software solutions, named Chantelle Breithaupt as its senior vice president and chief financial officer. Breithaupt served as VP of finance for Cisco’s customer experience and services division before being promoted as SVP of finance.

“I look forward to supporting AspenTech at this pivotal moment in its 40-year journey,” Breithaupt said. “I am impressed with the ambition and market-leading technology that underpin its growth trajectory. I look forward to building on the solid foundation to accelerate agility and transformation within the finance organization and across the company.”

Gordon Brooks

Reltio, provider of the data management SaaS platform, welcomed Gordon C. Brooks as its chief financial officer. Brooks will be responsible for Reltio’s global financial operations. His leadership experience includes holding CFO positions at FinancialForce, Citrix GetGo, Aerohive Networks, and Blue Coat Systems.

Data is the new center of technology, and Reltio’s cloud offerings are imperative for businesses to leverage data-driven insights successfully in this economy,” Brooks said. “In addition, Chris Hylen is one of the best technology leaders with whom I have worked, so it was a natural decision to join him and the Reltio team. I look forward to scaling finance and operations across the business while managing the velocity of Reltio’s growth.”

Stephanie Buscemi and Lara Caimi

Confluent, Inc., an event streaming platform provider, welcomed Stephanie Buscemi as its chief marketing officer. Buscemi comes from Salesforce, where she served as executive vice president and CMO. She has served in executive leadership and senior marketing roles within the enterprise applications, analytics and business intelligence, cloud, mobile, and database technology sectors throughout her career.

Confluent, Inc. also welcomed Lara Caimi to its board of directors. Caimi currently serves as chief customer and partner officer at cloud‑based platform and solutions provider ServiceNow and as a partner at global management consulting firm Bain & Company.

Paul De Sousa

Massive Analytic, a precognitive artificial intelligence company, appointed Dr. Paul De Sousa as its health and agriculture customer success director. Sousa comes from the University of Edinburgh, where he was a senior lecturer in the center for the regenerative medicine department. He also spent 22 years at the Roslin Institute, where he led basic and applied animal biotechnology and human stem cell research.

“Having collaborated with Massive Analytic for the past two years, I was driven to join them and help realize the vision of integrating its powerful data science, image analysis, and robotics AI products with an end-to-end integration of data and knowledge, from discovery to the end application,” De Sousa said. “I am joining with the confidence that Massive Analytic is uniquely placed to offer solutions to the challenges in the life science sector based on its successes to date.”

Josh Epstein

AtScale, an intelligent data virtualization company, appointed Josh Epstein as its chief marketing officer. Epstein will be responsible for the strategy and execution of the company’s marketing initiatives. He brings 25 years of experience including working at EMC, Oracle, and CA Technologies, and with smaller, high-growth teams at Acme Packet, Reddo Mobility, and Kaminario.  Most recently, he served as CMO at ObserveIT.

“I have been watching AtScale with interest for the past few years and am incredibly excited to be part of the team,” said Epstein. “I started my career as a business analyst and remain a data-driven marketer at heart. I know, first-hand, the value of democratizing data and the enormous potential of augmenting business intelligence with AI/ML augmented insights. AtScale is at the right time in history as the entire analytics world is re-platforming itself for the cloud.”

Paul Forte and Oliver Schabenberger

SingleStore, the Database of Now platform provider, appointed Paul Forte as its first chief revenue officer. Forte has led sales teams at several cloud and data-centric software companies, and he will be responsible for developing and executing SingleStore’s global sales strategy. He comes to SingleStore from data management company Actifio, where he served as the president of global field operations.

Oliver Schabenberger also joined SingleStore as its chief innovation officer. He recently served in a dual role as chief operating officer and chief technology officer at analytics and AI solutions provider SAS.

Kathryn Guarini

Kathryn Guarini was appointed to the role of chief information officer at IBM. Guarini comes from IBM Research, where she most recently held the roles of chief operations officer and vice president of impact science. She led the IBM Research transformation to increase impact, extend technical distinction and improve the operational efficiency of the division.

As VP of Impact Science, Guarini was responsible for driving the IBM Research workstreams around the Future of Health, Work, and Climate, as well as the Governance of Science and Technology. Guarini has been with IBM for over 20 years holding various technical, management and executive positions in and development.

Tifenn Kwan

Collibra, the data intelligence company, welcomed Tifenn Dano Kwan as its chief marketing officer. Kwan has held numerous marketing leadership roles at SAP, including as CMO of SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass. Most recently, she served as CMO of Dropbox.

“The opportunity to join such an amazing company at a pivotal point in its growth was one I could not pass up,” said Kwan. “I’m a big believer in measuring everything you do and using data and analysis to guide strategic decision making, so I’m thrilled to join Collibra and share how we’re helping companies trust the data that matters to them.”

Jean Lau

Adapdix Corp., a provider of EdgeOps automation software, appointed Jean Lau as its chief technology officer. Lau comes from Hitachi Vantara’s Software Digital business unit, where she was vice president and head of engineering.

She was responsible for turning a multi-million-dollar product portfolio into a software-as-a-service delivery model to solve Industrial IoT challenges. She brings more than 25 years of engineering experience to the role and has held leadership positions at Sybase, SAP, and GE Digital.

Vinod Marur

Databricks, the data and artificial intelligence company, appointed Vinod Marur as its senior vice president of engineering. Marur brings decades of enterprise technology background, including a nearly a 15-year tenure holding senior leadership positions at Google. Most recently, Marur was SVP of engineering at Rubrik.

“I am thrilled to be joining Databricks at such an exciting point in the company’s trajectory,” said Marur. “Opportunities to build a platform with this impact potential only come along so often. The work Databricks is doing to pioneer the lakehouse platform across the industry is a true reflection of the innovation factory that it is and will continue to be. I am honored to be part of the journey with this team.”

Chris Polishuk

Lucidworks welcomed former Salesforce executive Chris Polishuk as its chief revenue officer. Polishuk take over the ongoing transition to the cloud and drive market adoption of Lucidworks connected experience cloud product solution.

“Last year, despite an economic downturn, Lucidworks tripled growth in cloud-based annual recurring revenue,” said Polishuk. “I’m looking forward to building off of the foundation the team has created and led a more connected go-to-market organization. What we’ve learned through CXC is that the best work happens when everything is connected. We have a responsibility to our ecosystem of stakeholders to drive digital transformation for companies across ecommerce, financial services, and healthcare. I am honored to be a part of this next step on Lucidworks’ journey.”

Vijay Pendyala and Jeff Seifert

Logi Analytics, the provider of embedded analytics solutions, appointed Vijay Pendyala as its senior vice present of engineering and Jeff Seifert as VP of alliances and channels. Pendyala has over 20 years of engineering experience building software products. Most recently, Pendyala served as SVP of at Guavus, where he led architecture, engineering, data science and technical operations.

Seifert comes IBM where he served as its global business unit executive of its channel sales division. He was responsible for the creation of partner programs across global markets including channel, OEM and strategic technology alliance initiatives.

Eric Raab

First Derivatives PLC,  a software and services company, appointed Eric Raab as the chief technology officer for KX, FD’s high-performance, in-memory computing, streaming analytics and operational intelligence solutions provider. Raab will be responsible for research and development and the technology roadmap at KX. He joins FD from Information Builders Inc., a data and analytics software company that TIBCO recently acquired.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time to join KX,” Raab said. “As the volume and complexity of data continue to grow unabated, it is driving change across all sectors. Organizations are looking for a partner who can help them achieve tangible business value from their vast historical data and what comes in real-time, whether it’s in the cloud or at the edge, and KX is well-positioned to address this need.”

Todd Ruff, Brian Reed, and Richio Aikawa

Panasas announced three new hires, bringing 70-plus years combined experience to HPC storage leader’s management team. Todd Ruff, vice president of marketing, and Brian Reed, vice president of product and alliances, have joined the Panasas senior management team. Richio Aikawa has also joined Panasas as director of vertical solutions, a key role as the company looks to expand its focus for financial services, trading and manufacturing customers. All three executives will report to Chief Operating Officer Brian Peterson.

“Our current growth trajectory, coupled with the addition of three great senior leaders, reflects today’s demand for an enterprise-grade, high-performance computing experience,” said Peterson. “Todd and Brian are exemplary leaders who will help expand our diverse customer base – a base whose diversifying workloads increasingly requires adaptable HPC storage solutions. Richio meanwhile will leverage his expertise in critical industries to help us create a stronger set of vertical solutions.”

Barry Russell

Barry Russell joined Teradata, a multi-cloud data warehouse platform provider, as its senior vice president of business development and general manager of its cloud division. Russell will be responsible for accelerating Teradata’s cloud and SaaS growth strategy. Before joining Teradata, he led Qumulo’s cloud business unit. He has also held senior leadership positions at F5 and Amazon Web Services.

“I am passionate about building and transforming organizations using the cloud to do exceptional things for customers,” said Russell. “Teradata has evolved quickly utilizing the cloud, enabling us to innovate fast on the cloud data analytics needs of enterprises worldwide. Our advantages in today’s multi-cloud world are already helping customers migrate data workflows to the cloud and create data intelligence real-time across their business, and I am ready to help Teradata grow quickly with our customers and partners.”

John Schweitzer

Informatica, an enterprise cloud data management solutions provider, welcomed John Schweitzer as its executive vice present and chief revenue office. Schweitzer brings over 25 years of leadership experience, including working at Workday, Datastax, SAP, Oracle and Hyperion, and SoftwareAG.

“I am excited to join team Informatica. They are driving data-driven digital transformation across enterprises in a wide variety of verticals,” said Schweitzer. “Informatica’s AI-powered cloud-native product innovation, combined with its vendor neutrality in partnering with cloud hyperscalers positions it uniquely to be the preferred choice in a multi-cloud environment with the most comprehensive platform for enterprise-scale cloud data transformation. I couldn’t be more excited to join the industry leader in cloud data management, and look forward to building on our global momentum.”

Vita Shannon and Shelley Morrison

Vita Shannon and Shelley Morrison joined business cloud platform provider Domo as its vice president of partnerships and ecosystem and vice president of demand center, respectively.  Shannon most recently served as the senior director of advisory services at KPMG.

During Shannon’s stay at KPMG, she oversaw the Ford relationship and two of the firm’s largest technology accounts. Morrison comes to Domo from Accenture Interactive, where she established comprehensive demand programs for large B2B tech companies, including Adobe, Amazon, and SAP.

Jim Snabe

C3 AI, an enterprise AI software provider, appointed software industry veteran Jim H. Snabe to its board of directors. Snabe currently serves as chairman of the supervisory board at Siemens AG, and as chairman of the board at A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S, a shipping and transportation company. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the non-profit World Economic Forum.

“In my opinion, the C3 AI model-driven AI platform is becoming the standard for the intelligent enterprise of the 21st century,” said Snabe. “I am deeply impressed with the company’s track record of creating substantial social and economic value through its innovative technology and its ability to execute. I am thrilled to work alongside a world-class board and with a growing set of industry-leading customers globally.”

Adam Towns

Sisense, an artificial intelligence-driven platform provider, welcomed Adam Towns as its chief financial officer. Towns will be responsible for the company’s finance and business operations teams. He joined Sisense from Mimecast, where he was senior vice president of finance.

“I am thrilled to bring my experience in strategic planning, operational excellence and scaling businesses,” said Towns. “Sisense is at an exciting stage and I’m fortunate to step into a remarkably strong business and leadership team that is ready to push the boundaries and accelerate growth.”

Dan Wright

DataRobot promoted Dan Wright to the role of chief executive officer. Wright served as DataRobot’s president and chief operating officer since January of 2020. Before DataRobot, he worked at AppDynamics as its COO.

“Over the last year, we expanded on the foundation established by our visionary founder – increasing operational capacity, augmenting our leadership team, and helping more customers than ever unlock the power of their data with AI,” said Wright. “As we look to build on this momentum and execute on our ambitious growth plans, I am honored to have the opportunity to lead DataRobot into its next chapter.”

Kelly Breslin Wright

Gong, an artificial intelligence-based platform provider, appointed Tableu’s former executive vice president of sales Kelly Breslin Wright to its board of directors. Wright, a 30-year sales executive, currently serves on the board of high-growth companies, including Fastly, Lucid, Even, and previously at Amperity.

“As a career sales professional, I’m fascinated by the constant evolution in our industry, heightened now with remote work. The best companies are transforming their sales organizations with data-driven insights, allowing them to better serve customers and dramatically improve sales performance,” said Wright.  “With their differentiated product, exceptional team, exponential growth, and enviable culture, Gong is clearly the worldwide leader in the Revenue Intelligence category. Gong is positively changing the world of sales. Given my lifelong passion for sales, I’m thrilled and honored to join the board and help drive innovation and scale through this next stage of growth.”

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.