Big Data Career Notes July 2024

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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!

Keerti Melkote

Seasoned Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur and Aruba Networks co-founder Keerti Melkote announced this week that he’s taken the CEO position at Anyscale, the commercial outfit behind the open source Ray framework. Melkote succeeds Robert Nishihara, who created Ray and co-founded Anyscale with Philipp Moritz and Ion Stoica from the RISELab at UC Berkeley.

Keerti Melkote

“I’ve experienced 3 massive tech waves in my career – Internet, Mobile and Cloud. The next one is very clearly AI and it is only just getting started,” Melkote said on X. “As with other waves, there will be a massive AI infrastructure buildout over the coming decade, and I’m so excited to partner with Robert, Ion, Philipp, and the whole Anyscale team to tackle this challenge.”

The introduction of Melkote move marks a maturation of the Anyscale business and indicates a period of active growth, particularly with stories like Amazon saving $120 million per year by replacing an Apache Spark application with Ray.

“Today, I’m thrilled to welcome Keerti Melkote as our new CEO,” Nishihara wrote in a July 31 blog post. “A visionary who founded Aruba Networks in his (literal) garage in 2001, Keerti led the company through monumental growth, taking it public in 2007 and reaching over $5 billion in revenue. Very few founders have taken a startup all the way through every scale of growth the way Keerti has, and I’m overjoyed to be working with him as we take on the massive AI infrastructure buildout over the coming decade.”

Douglas Gourlay

Douglas Gourlay

Software-defined storage vendor Qumulo has hired tech veteran Douglas Gourlay to be its new president and CEO. Gourlay hails from Arista Networks, where he helped scale the company from an early-stage startup to a publicly traded firm worth more than $100 billion as a vice president and general manager. Gourlay succeeds the retiring Bill Richter, who will stay on the board and serve as an executive advisor.

“I am delighted to join Qumulo,” Gourlay said. “The combination of an outstanding culture and team, innovative on-premises and cloud software, opportunity in Applied AI, and the Scale Anywhere vision drew me here. I look forward to executing our unique vision and strategy for our customers, partners, and channels. To quote America’s first astronaut just before launch: ‘Let’s light this candle!’”

Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz

Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz

Stratio BD, a provider of data fabric and GenAI solutions, has hired European tech veteran Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz to be its new CEO. Sepúlveda Schulz comes to Stratio BD following various stops at Intel, Novell, KPMG Peat Marwick, and CapGemini, among other positions. He takes the top job previously held by Stratio BD’s co-founder Oscar Mendéz Soto, who has decided to step into the role of chairman after a decade at the helm of the Madrid, Spain-based company.

“When you look at the global tech industry, European businesses aren’t celebrated often enough for their innovation,” Sepúlveda Schulz said. “I firmly believe that Stratio’s platform can and should be the technology of choice for companies that rely on their data as a strategic differentiator, those wanting to harness the power of AI to make truly data-driven decisions at all levels.”

Tolga Kurtoglu

Tolga Kurtoglu

Lenovo this month announced that Tolga Kurtoglu has been appointed its new chief technology officer. Kurtoglu previously held top tech and research positions, including CTO at HP, global head of HP Labs, CEO of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and the lead of the product development group at Dell.

Kurtoglu will head Lenovo’s research team and serve as a member of the Lenovo Executive Committee. He succeeds Yong Rui, who was promoted to president of Lenovo’s Emerging Technology Group.

“I’ve long admired Lenovo from afar for its bold commitment to innovation,” Kurtoglu said in a press release. “At a time when all consumers and companies are seizing the potential of AI, I’m looking forward to working with research teams around the world to further accelerate the development of Lenovo’s portfolio and deliver powerful, flexible, and responsible AI solutions that transform industries and empower individuals.”

Ron Ash

Ron Ash

Accenture Federal Services announced that Ron Ash will take over as CEO of the company starting September 1. Starting his career at Accenture in 1996, Ash had served as COO since 2022, where he helped clients solve complex challenges using the latest technology.

“I’m deeply honored to serve as the next CEO of Accenture Federal Services,” Ash said in a press release. “Our people are the heart of everything we do, and I’m thrilled to lead such an exceptional team. I look forward to shaping the future of the federal government together and making a lasting impact on the missions we serve.”

Anwesa Chatterjee and Lai Cheung

Anwesa Chatterjee

Lai Cheung

Airbyte recently announced two new appointments, including Anwesa Chatterjee, who will take over as head of product marketing, and Lai Cheung, director of technology support.

Chatterjee arrives at Airbyte with 15 years of product marketing experience at technology startups and enterprises including Informatica, Pure Storage, and SAP Labs. “Anwesa’s experience and strategic vision in product marketing will be instrumental in elevating Airbyte’s market presence and driving growth,” said Airbyte CEO and co-founder Michel Tricot in a press release.

Cheung has 25 years in the business, including stints at Oracle and Sun Microsystems. “Lai’s extensive background in technology support and customer service will be a tremendous asset as we continue to scale our operations and enhance our customer experience,” Tricot said. “She will help us ensure that our increasing number of users receive the best support possible for their data movement projects.”

Joe Novak

Joe Novak

Hitachi Vantara announced this month that Joe Novak has joined the company as its new senior vice president (SVP) of global customer success and support, where he will  be responsible for driving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention on a global scale. Novak, who has nearly 40 years of experience in tech, will report directly to Hitachi Vantara CEO Sheila Rohra.

“With its renewed focus on AI-enabled data infrastructure, Hitachi Vantara is quickly asserting its dynamic capabilities in hybrid cloud management,” Novak said in a press release. “With an already strong foundation to build from, I am confident that we will be able to quickly and seamlessly develop new, comprehensive success programs to help our customers embrace an AI-led approach to data management.”

Matthew Harrell

Matthew Harrell

Dataminr this month announced the appointment of Matthew Harrell as its new chief partner officer. Harrell comes to the AI software company from positions at Cloudflare and Google Cloud, where he was head of global channels and alliances and Americas channel leader, respectively.

Harrell will be called on to help drive growth of Dataminr’s global partner ecosystem, which includes companies like Google, AWS, Microsoft, Splunk, and Carahsoft. Dataminr currently serves two-thirds of the Fortune 50, more than 100 U.S. government organizations, and more than 20 international governments across both the corporate and government markets, the company claims.

“Dataminr is at an important inflection point in its growth journey: It’s one of the few companies in the AI space that has demonstrated strong product market fit for its AI platform,” Harrell said in a press release. “There is an opportunity to bolster our partner strategy to fully leverage our industry-leading AI platform to help partners bring unique applications, solutions and services to their customers that combine the power of Dataminr’s predictive and generative AI to achieve far better outcomes.”

Jeff Olson

Jeff Olson

CrateDB, which develops a database management system for storing time-series data, documents, and vectors, announced the appointment of Jeff Olson as its new chief revenue officer (CRO). Olson comes to CrateDB from MongoDB, where he lead go-to-market for edge and mobile.

“I am excited to join CrateDB and so impressed with what they built so far,” Olson said in a press release. “”This is an outstanding team and I look forward to working with them to further accelerate the company’s growth and solidify its position as a leader in the database market.”

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