Big Data Career Notes: February 2022 Edition

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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!

Mohammed Aaser 

Domo appointed Mohammed Aaser as its chief data officer. Aaser brings more than 15 years of experience to the role, most recently serving as the chief data officer at McKinsey and Company. As CDO at Domo,  Aaser will support customers by helping them create modern data experiences that automate and accelerate key business processes and optimize strategic outcomes. 

“I’ve seen firsthand how Domo transforms an organization’s use of data, significantly shortening development lifecycles from months, and sometimes years, down to days, while making it easier for people in all departments to understand and engage with data in an easy-to-use way,” Aaser said. “Domo has approached the data problem from a completely different angle, which eliminates the technological and organizational complexity that teams so often face in delivering value from data.  Due to its integrated approach, Domo empowers innovators to build data apps in just a few weeks and flexibility of integrating with best-of-breed tools.”

Tim Berglund 

StarTree, Inc. appointed Tim Berglund as its vice president of developer relations. Berglund will be responsible for leading the company’s efforts to expand and deepen ties with the Apache Pinot developer community. Berglund joined StarTree from Confluent, where he helped developers for nearly five years adopt Kafka and event-driven architecture. Prior to Confluent, Berglund worked as the director of training and then vice president of developer education at DataStax.

“The way we build and scale systems and manage complexity has changed,” said Berglund. “We’re at the point where people have pivoted to an event-driven world. We should be able to query data and get real-time insights in ways that none of the other existing tools are really fit to do. When I discovered what Pinot was doing for companies like LinkedIn and Uber in that regard, I thought everyone should be doing this – especially now that we have Kafka everywhere, and Pinot is a perfect fit to extract more value from the data flowing through Kafka.”

Vincent Calcagnile, Frederik Naessens, and Mark Van Der Heijden

Coalesce, the data transformation company, expanded its leadership team with the additions of Vincent Calcagnile, Frederik Naessens, and Mark Van Der Heijden. Calcagnile joined Coalesce as its vice president of sales. He brings more than 20 years of experience in technology, most recently co-founding DataToko and leading sales for the data-focused start-up. 

Naessens joined Coalesce as its lead architect. Naessens brings more than 20 years of experience as a technical architect, most recently having co-founded DataToko. As lead architect, Naessens will responsible for leading the development of the DataOps platform and working closely with team members and clients to drive platform growth.

Lastly, Van Der Heijden joined Coalesce as its lead engineer. He is a seasoned leader with more than 15 years of experience working in technology companies, including being a founding member of the DataToko team, leading engineering.

Yolanda Lee Conyers

Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a data storage and infrastructure solutions provider, appointed Yolanda Lee Conyers to the company’s board of directors and to serve on the compensation committee of the board.  Conyers brings more than 30 years of broad, international experience in roles spanning technology, global operations, and talent management. 

Conyers spent 14 years with Lenovo, including three years based in Beijing, where she most recently served as president of the Lenovo Foundation, chief diversity officer, and vice president of global human resources. Conyers was responsible for leading Lenovo’s people strategy and serving as chief advisor to multiple executive committee members and Lenovo’s board of directors on leadership development, talent acquisition and retention, among other areas. 

Jerry Conway

Sema4, an AI-driven genomic and clinical data intelligence platform company, appointed Jerry Conway as its senior vice president of market access. Conway brings more than 30 years of experience across Fortune 500 and start-up companies, including Foundation Medicine, Genzyme Genetics, and, most recently, Scipher Medicine where he served as SVP of market access and corporate development.

“I am excited to join Sema4 because it is enabling precision medicine solutions that benefit patients, payers, and the healthcare system,” said Conway. “I am looking forward to working with my new colleagues at Sema4 to further expand market access to our platform and to further drive the company’s mission of transforming healthcare through data-driven insights.”

Kim Crider 

Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Kim Crider joined Deloitte’s government and public services practice to lead the organization’s artificial intelligence innovation for national security efforts and help government agencies adopt and implement effective data analytics and AI solutions. Crider will also foster and promote Deloitte’s Women in AI initiatives and serve as a fellow on Deloitte’s AI Institute for Government, conducting research on how to apply AI to support national security efforts, especially in space. 

Crider serves as a board director for the National Cybersecurity Center, overseeing its Space Information Sharing Analytics Center. She also serves as an advisor to several nonprofit organizations about digital innovation, emerging space system technologies and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

Maneesh Dhir 

Pepperdata, the leader in big data performance management, appointed Maneesh Dhir as is chief executive officer. Dhir comes to Pepperdata from FICO, where he was the chief product strategy officer. From 2010 to 2015, Dhir was managing director for Apple’s India business. Preceding his time at Apple India, Dhir served as executive vice president at AOL International. 

“I am excited and honored to be Pepperdata’s new CEO,” said Dhir. “Ash was key to bringing Pepperdata to the place it is now, and we’ll continue to benefit from his insight and expertise as Chairman of the Board. I’m looking forward to continuing to bring our customers unparalleled performance in the big data ecosystem and am excited to lead the company through its next stage of growth.”

Ian Drury

Ocient, a hyperscale data solutions company serving organizations that derive value from analyzing trillions of data records in interactive time, appointed Ian Drury as its chief technology officer. Drury brings more than 20 years of experience in the database, data analytics and technology industries and in managing engineering teams at scale. 

“I’m thrilled to join Ocient during this critical moment of growth across new customers and industries,” Drury said. “Ocient is accelerating the delivery of previously not possible hyperscale data analysis at high performance levels and low costs never seen before. This market is growing exponentially year over year and I look forward to being part of the team re-defining how to derive significant business value from data at hyperscale.”

Margaret Francis

dbt Labs, a pioneer in analytics engineering, appointed Margaret Francis as its chief product officer. Francis will be responsible for executing the company’sproduct roadmap that serves data teams at startups and the Fortune 100, supporting users across open source and commercial product lines. Francis was previously president, COO and member of the Armory board of directors. 

“I’ve been a dbt user and customer in prior roles and have experienced first-hand the real problems that dbt is solving for thousands of data practitioners,” said Francis. “dbt has grown into an essential part of the modern data stack and is supported by a vibrant and engaged community. dbt Labs is playing a vital role in the shift to the cloud, and I am delighted to be joining them during this pivotal time.”

James Geurts

Torch.AI, the provider of artificial intelligence-powered ultra-high speed data processing solutions, appointed former assistant secretary of the Navy James “Hondo” Geurts to its board of advisors. Geurts also served as the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition from 2017 to 2021.

“Innovation and technology evolution come through working together with a collective purpose as the driving force,” said Geurts. “I’m proud to join the Torch.AI Board of Advisors. Torch.AI is a highly differentiated, mission-focused technology company, filled with former warfighters who remain dedicated to enabling operational outcomes while serving the taxpayer. I’m eager to work with Torch.AI to support company objectives.”

Paula Hansen and Keith Pearce 

Alteryx, Inc. promoted Paula Hansen to the role of president and chief revenue officer. Hansen will be responsible for leading the sales, marketing and customer success and services organizations at Alteryx.

In addition, Alteryx named cloud marketing industry veteran Keith Pearce as its chief marketing officer. Pearce brings more than 20 years of experience driving awareness and demand for enterprise software products having served executive roles at Genesys, Salesforce, and Allianz.

Norman Henderson 

CAST AI, the SaaS company specializing in Kubernetes automation and cost optimization for customers running cloud-native applications, appointed Norman Henderson as its chief revenue officer. Henderson will be responsible for CAST AI’s revenue-generation strategy globally, and his duties include overseeing business development, partner program and direct sales.

“I am directly familiar with the challenge companies face when trying to optimize cloud costs,” said Henderson. “I’ve spent my career in senior executive positions at both startups and top-tier enterprises, so I’ve seen the cost reports from various cloud providers first-hand. It’s incredibly frustrating because there has been no practical way to optimize those costs. Even in the best scenario, optimizing state with manual cost management tools can take months, and there is no way to remain optimized. Today CAST AI’s platform automates this entire process and brings immediate and significant cost savings to our customers, and I’m thrilled to be part of the team as we position ourselves for further growth.”

Diane Honda and Adam Famularo

Lucidworks, the provider of next-generation AI-powered search applications and developer of the connected experience cloud platform, appointed Diane Honda and Adam Famularo to its board of directors. Honda is the chief administrative officer, general counsel, and secretary at Barracuda Networks, a provider for cloud-enabled security solutions. 

Famularo is the chief executive officer of WorkFusion, a provider of robotic process automation and intelligent automation solutions. Previously, he served as CEO at erwin Inc., a software company that helps organizations discover, manage, protect and leverage enterprise data to drive successful digital transformations.

Meredyth Jensen

DDN, a provider of artificial intelligence and multi-cloud data management solutions, appointed Meredyth Jensen as its chief marketing officer. Prior to DDN, Jensen served as senior vice president of corporate marketing and brand communications at RGP, a global consulting firm.

“I am excited to join DDN at this critical inflection point in the company’s growth trajectory,” said Jensen. “Our customers across commercial, government and academia are grappling with the complexity of how to approach their data management as well as extracting value from it. DDN is perfectly positioned to enable their digital transformation across enterprise workflows, AI and analytics with our award-winning products and solutions.”

Rolddy Leyva

Splunk Inc. appointed Rolddy Leyva as its chief diversity officer. Leyva will be responsible for leading the company’s worldwide diversity, equity and inclusion and employee experience. In his role, Leyva will work closely with Splunk leaders to grow a diverse workforce, nurture a culture of inclusion in the workplace, and drive positive change in the marketplace for Splunk and its customer and partner communities. 

“It’s an honor to join an organization with a clear focus and investment in DEI action,” said Leyva. “Splunk is known for its remarkable culture as well as its high-performing and engaged employees. Diversity makes us all stronger and I look forward to enabling business impact and advancing our competitive edge.”

Subbu Iyer 

 Aerospike Inc., the real-time data platform provider, appointed Subbu Iyer as its chief executive officer. Subbu brings to Aerospike more than 25 years of experience managing teams at enterprise technology companies, including Oracle, Veritas Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell EMC and Riverbed Technology.

“Real-time businesses are the new normal, and the winners will be determined by those who modernize their data architectures to handle petabyte-scale at sub-millisecond performance,” said Subbu Iyer, CEO, Aerospike. “I’m delighted to lead Aerospike’s rapid growth and execute our bold vision by helping companies become the world’s next digital trailblazers.”

Philippe Mathieu

Palantir Technologies Inc. appointed Philippe Mathieu as the head of the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Mathieu will be responsible for driving the expansion of Palantir across the EMEA region. He comes to Palantir from Oracle, where he was executive vice president of EMEA and JAPAC regions. 

“Palantir has become the operating system of choice for Enterprises and the demand is growing exponentially,” Mathieu said. “I am thrilled to join the company that employs the best engineers in the industry and to contribute to the acceleration of our global footprint.”

Harry Powell

TigerGraph, the provider of a graph analytics platform, appointed Harry Powell as its head of industry solutions to build and lead the industry solutions team, which will focus on key business drivers impacting forward-thinking companies. Before joining TigerGraph, Powell was the director of advanced analytics at Barclays. 

“I’m very excited to join TigerGraph at this pivotal time in its global expansion,” Powell said. “As a long-time user of graph, I have come to recognize the power of TigerGraph as the leading solution for advanced data analytics applications. I believe this technology will play a key role in the development of Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing sector and answering the call for advanced data analytics and machine learning in financial services and other sectors. I look forward to getting to know TigerGraph’s customers, finding out about the challenges they face in their businesses, and helping them use TigerGraph to find solutions, take action and make money.”

Gaurav Rao 

AtScale, the provider of semantic layer solutions for modern business intelligence and data science teams, appointed Gaurav Rao to the newly created position of executive vice president and general manager of machine learning and AI. Most recently, Rao served as vice president of product at Neural Magic, developers of software acceleration for deep learning utilizing sparse model architectures.

“After spending almost 20 years in data, ML and AI, I am excited to be joining a team focused on a truly transformational technology,” said Rao. “The semantic layer is the missing link in creating scalable data strategies that can feed AI/ML models and connect model-generated insights to decision makers. AtScale is at least five years ahead of anyone else looking at this problem. I am thrilled to be coming on board at this important time.”

Debanjan Saha

DataRobot appointed Debanjan Saha as the company’s new president and chief operating officer. Saha will be responsible for driving the continued rapid expansion of the company’s AI Cloud platform to deliver more impact to customers globally. Saha brings to DataRobot 20 experience leading data and cloud businesses, including Google and Amazon Web Services. 

“AI will drive the next wave of innovation and transformation for business and society, and we have to put it in the hands of more people,” said Saha. “Unlike innovation in infrastructure, which is primarily about cost savings, this is about creating value and driving top line growth for businesses. I believe in DataRobot’s mission of democratizing AI and empowering the entire organization — not just a few — to use the awesome power of data to its full potential.”

Richard Timperlake

Confluent, Inc., the data streaming platform to set data in motion, appointed Richard Timperlake as its senior vice president of sales the EMEA region.Timperlake will be responsible for driving growth in EMEA and will will work with customers across the region to help them set their data in motion. 

“Confluent is a category creating company that has set the industry standard in how brands use real-time data. I look forward to working with this talented team and culture to build on its success as we make the use of streaming data a competitive advantage for organisations throughout EMEA ,” said Timperlake.

Danica Wang, Kiran Mehta, and Eric Sun

Alluxio, the developer of the open-source data orchestration platform for data-driven workloads such as large-scale analytics and AI/ML, appointed Danica Wang as its senior vice president of global legal and head of China operations.  Before joining Alluxio, Wang worked as associate general counsel with Hillhouse Capital. 

In addition, Kiran Mehta joined Alluxio as its vice president of engineering. Before joining Alluxio, Mehta held engineering and product leadership roles at MapR (acquired by HPE). Prior to HPE/MapR, at Informatica, he was responsible for the development of Informatica’s zero-code high-performance data integration platform. 

Lastly, Eric Sun joined Alluxio as its vice president of business development in China. Before Alluxio, Sun worked as head of business development with Amazon China. Before that, he was the GM of mobility solutions with SAP China. Sun joined SAP from Watchguard, where he ran the China business as Greater China GM. 

Alan Wong 

Cape Privacy, the platform that enables businesses to run predictive machine learning models on encrypted data, appointed Alan Wong as its head of finance and operations . Wong brings to Cape Privacy more than 20 years of experience as a start-up founder as well as finance and administrative operations leader. Previously, Wong led the finance and administration functions as vice president of finance at OmniSci. 

“The team that Cape Privacy has assembled, the product we’re building, and the vision that drives this company is beyond impressive,” said Wong. “The chance to be a part of that vision is what drew me here. There’s great potential here to change the way data is used; to unlock the full promise of data as a source of value. It’s a privilege to bring my experience to support the growth and success of this company and this amazing opportunity.”

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.