AI Career Notes: May 2023 Edition
In this monthly feature, we bring you up to date on the latest career developments in the enterprise AI community – promotions, new hires and accolades. Here's the place to read about the movers and shakers, your colleagues, your friends, and maybe yourself.
WSO2, a provider of digital transformation technology solutions, promoted Asanka Abeysinghe as its chief technology officer. Asanka, who has held several technology leadership roles at WSO2 since 2008, most recently served as the company’s chief technology evangelist.
“At WSO2, we’re on a mission to simplify the creation of digital experiences for our customers as we expand our new generation of SaaS offerings and open-source software to help software development teams innovate faster,” said Abeysinghe. “Just as we advise enterprises on delivering customer-centric digital applications, as CTO, my foremost priorities will include educating the market, channeling user feedback to product engineering, and delivering strategic advisory services to empower our customers with the essential foundation for success.”
Troy Anderson, Rahim Bhatia, Dan McAllister, Jessica Soisson, and Greg Wolfe
Boomi, a global software as a service (SaaS) company, appointed Troy Anderson as its global commercial market vice president. Anderson most recently led data analytics sales at Google Cloud for North America. He has also held senior leadership roles at Qlik, SAP, Crystal Decisions, and Business Object.
In addition, Boomi appointed Rahim Bhatia as its chief strategy officer. Bhatia will help further develop and execute the company’s strategy for driving organizational growth and customer success. He brings more than 20 years of experience delivering scalable customer and revenue growth for technology businesses at companies such as SAP, CA Technologies, and Axway.
Dan McAllister joined Boomi as its senior vice president of global alliances and channels. McAllister will focus on further building the company’s global partner ecosystem and developing win-win partner enablement programs. McAllister previously led global teams and achieved industry-leading growth at Salesforce, MuleSoft, Box, NetSuite, Crystal Decisions, and SAP.
Boomi appointed Jessica Soisson as its chief accounting officer. Soisson will be responsible for overseeing all accounting matters and functions for the company. Before joining Boomi, she was previously the CAO and senior vice president and corporate controller at Citrix Systems.
Lastly, Boomi appointed Greg Wolfe its chief commercial officer. Wolfe will oversee the company’s global strategy, driving growth and exceptional customer experience across all business units and geographies. Prior to joining Boomi, he held C-level and executive roles at technology companies, including Adobe, SAP, Business Objects, Marketo, Crystal Decisions, and Xerox Corporation.
ScyllaDB, the database for data-intensive apps that require high throughput and predictable low latency, appointed Jon Bakke as its chief revenue officer. Bakke brings over 20 years of experience to ScyllaDB. Most recently, he served as the CRO of MariaDB. He’s also served in leadership roles at Oracle and MarkLogic.
“I’ve been watching ScyllaDB gain increasing traction as the go-to NoSQL database for demanding use cases,” Bakke said. “And with the insatiable demand for AI/ML-driven personalization, real-time virtual interactions, IoT device use, extensive fraud and threat detection, and so on … the market is clearly moving right into ScyllaDB’s sweet spot. It’s fundamentally architected to excel with what’s next.”
AI Squared, a low-code AI integration platform company, has announced Michelle Bonat as its new Chief Technology Officer. Bonat will be responsible for all technology – software engineering, data science, AI research – as well as IT, and product management. She joins the company from JPMorgan Chase where she served as a CTO and AI executive at Chase. In her new leadership role, Bonat led the tech team’s ChatGPT launch and will accelerate efforts to commercialize and scale the overall company offering.
“Michelle’s expertise in AI will be invaluable as we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible and revolutionize the industry,” said Benjamin Harvey, CEO of AI Squared. “Together, we will build a future where AI is not just a buzzword, but a transformative force for good and step change for organizations.”
Amplitude, Inc., a digital analytics platform company, appointed Nathaniel Crook as the company’s next chief revenue officer. With over 20 years of enterprise software sales and engineering experience, Crook will lead Amplitude’s sales and partner organizations globally.
"As organizations increasingly rely on technology to drive strategy and fuel growth, companies across all industries and segments need to build digital platforms and experiences that their customers love," said Crook. "As an essential part of the modern technology stack, our market is enormous and continues to rapidly grow. With a best-in-class product suite and a world-class team, I’m thrilled to join Amplitude and excited about our future."
Don Doerner, Turguy Goker, and David Turek
The DNA Data Storage Alliance, a SNIA Technology affiliate, announced the appointments of CATALOG Technologies and Quantum Corporation to the governing board of the Alliance. Don Doerner and Turguy Goker will represent Quantum, and David Turek will represent CATALOG.
Doerner joined Quantum in 2006 and is presently in the office of the CTO, responsible for technology strategy, vision, and leadership of Quantum products. Goker represents Quantum with LTO organizations and leads the Advanced Development Team focused on LTO technology. Turek joined CATALOG from IBM where he held numerous executive positions in high-performance computing and emerging technologies.
Richard Halkett and Danner Stodolsky
SambaNova Systems appointed Richard Halkett as its chief revenue officer. Halkett will be responsible for leading the sales, sales operations, revenue operations, customer engineering, and marketing teams. Halkett previously spent almost six years at Amazon Web Services as the managing director and WW Lead for Innovation & Transformation Programs.
In addition, SambaNova Systems appointed Danner Stodolsky as its senior vice president of cloud. Stodolsky will focus on SambaNova’s cloud strategy. He joined SambaNova from Google, where he spent over 11 years serving in various roles including as vice president of engineering for YouTube, Google Cloud Platform, and Ads Privacy.
AMD promoted Jack Huynh to the role of senior vice president and general manager of computing and graphics. Huynh has been at AMD for more than 24 years and most recently served as senior vice president (SVP) and general manager (GM) for the AMD Semi-Custom business group.
As SVP and GM, he was responsible for leading strategy, business management, and engineering execution for high performance custom solutions. Prior to that, Huynh served as corporate VP and GM, where he led the business execution of mobility solutions for the AMD Client PC business group.
Deltek, the provider of software and solutions for project-based businesses, appointed Dinakar Hituvalli as its chief technology officer. Hituvalli will be responsible for managing Deltek’s engineering and cloud operations teams. Dinakar previously spent 25 years at Oracle, most recently as group vice president of product development.
“I’m very excited to join Deltek to help drive the technology strategy forward and enhance our innovative product roadmap,” said Hituvalli. “As companies look for ways to stay competitive in today’s market, it is critical they have the right technology partners to help them evolve their business. I look forward to fostering a strong engineering culture and working with our talented team to help Deltek continue to innovate at a rapid pace, and in turn, deliver exceptional service to our customers.”
Appen Limited appointed Helen Johnson as its chief financial officer. Johnson brings with her a wealth of experience of more than 25 years leading finance organizations across a variety of industries, including privately held IT Managed Service providers, medium-sized public healthcare and financial services companies, and Fortune 500-ranked publicly traded corporations in the IT industry.
“I have a passion for building teams and delivering results,” Johnson said. “I am honored to join Armughan and the team to realize the strategic opportunity ahead for Appen.”
Hyperscience, a provider of enterprise artificial intelligence solutions, appointed Andrew Joiner as its chief executive officer. Joiner joined Hyperscience from InMoment, where he held the role CEO.
“I am thrilled to join Hyperscience and lead this exceptional team with its ground-breaking product and approach,” said Joiner. “Hyperscience is at the forefront of the intelligent automation revolution and our platform offers a unique combination of AI and human-in-the-loop capabilities that can streamline the most complex, high-volume document processes—and so much more. Today, the platform’s proven accuracy and efficiency are helping businesses reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, and increase productivity. I am thrilled to partner with the team to build on this success and drive the company to even greater capability.”
Raghunath Koduvayur and Sylwia Barthel de Weydenthal
IQM Quantum Computers appointed Raghunath Koduvayur as the head of the newly created Asia-Pacific business unit. In addition, Sylwia Barthel de Weydenthal was named as the head of marketing and communications for IQM.
“Our presence in Asia aligns with our commitment to building world-leading quantum computers for the well-being of humankind, now and for the future, and we are confident this new office will be instrumental in helping drive the development of the quantum community in Singapore and the region,” Dr. Jan Goetz, CEO and Co-founder of IQM Quantum Computers, said. “In addition, we will tap into the incredible local talent, and we are also excited about bringing our technical track record and world-class expertise to the region, and our regional team will play a crucial role in broadening our global development. We look forward to partnering with important players in the value-chain as we continue to push the boundaries for the ecosystem.”
Fortanix Inc., the multi-cloud data security company, appointed Ron Longo as its chief revenue officer. Longo will be responsible for overseeing the company’s global sales team. He most recently held the role of vice president of worldwide SDWAN/SASE sales at VMware.
“I have had the pleasure of working with some of the most innovative businesses in tech over the course of my career, but it could be argued that none have been as uniquely positioned in the market as Fortanix is right now,” Longo said. “Fortanix has proven to be a true pioneer in the data security landscape at a time when it has never been more vital, and I’m looking forward to building on its impressive growth trajectory. I couldn’t be more thrilled to get started.”
Do IT Now Germany, a joint venture between Do IT Systems (Italy) and HPCNow! (Spain), appointed Marco Merkel, a former sales executive at ThinkParQ, as the company’s chief executive officer.
“At Do IT Now, our mission is to empower businesses to fully harness their potential by delivering exceptional services and support,” said Merkel. “I am excited to join this innovative and progressive team, and I eagerly anticipate introducing our one-of-a-kind, dynamic approach to the industry in northern Europe.”
SnapLogic appointed Tony Owens, former President at Salesforce and senior executive at Oracle, to its board of directors. Owens will work closely with company leadership to guide strategy and identify new growth and sales opportunities.
“It's a privilege to join SnapLogic's board of directors as the company enters its next stage of growth,” said Owens. “SnapLogic has already established itself as a leader in enterprise integration and automation with proven success across major verticals. I look forward to working with the team to continue to drive innovation, expand the global footprint, and reach even more customers to help propel their business success."
Intel promoted Deepak Patil to the role of corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics group. For the past year, Patil has been serving as Intel’s chief technology and strategy officer in its Data Center and AI group.zPrior to Intel,
Patel was the senior vice president of APEX Engineering for Dell Technologies. He has also held leadership positions at Virtustream, Oracle, and Microsoft.
Read more coverage on HPCwire here.
Styra, Inc., the creators and maintainers of Open Policy Agent (OPA) and experts in cloud-native authorization, appointed Mark Pundsack as its chief executive officer. Pundsack brings more than 30 years of experience to the role with deep expertise in the software development industry, where he has spent much of his career leading product development teams and forging a path for developer experience.
“I’m honored to join Styra at such an exciting time,” said Pundsack. “The addition of Styra Load allows enterprises to scale their policy management through performance, efficiency, and time-to-market improvements – taking open source OPA to the next level.”
BackBox, a network automation company, appointed Rita Selvaggi its board of directors. Selvaggi most recently served as chief executive officer of ActivTrak and as the chief marketing officer of AlienVault, a security software company acquired by AT&T. She has also led marketing for SolarWinds leading up to and through an IPO in 2009.
“BackBox may be the best-kept secret for automating network backups, single-click recovery, OS upgrades, and health checks,” said Selvaggi. “Customers love BackBox because it’s easy to implement and use, scalable, reliable, and trustworthy. Automation of critical network tasks is a must-have as hybrid networks add complexity and network operations teams are resource-constrained. I’m excited to work with the BackBox team to get the word out on their market-leading solution to help more companies upgrade and achieve their network automation goals.”
NetApp, a cloud-led, data-centric software company, appointed Haiyan Song as its executive vice president and general manager of its cloud operations business unit. Song most recently served as executive vice president and general manager of F5’s security and distributed cloud business unit.
“I am excited to join NetApp and lead the company’s efforts to be a strategic and operational partner to customers on their journey to the cloud and in the cloud,” said Song. “Cloud is a key enabler for the new digital world powered by data and AI, but organizations of all sizes are still grappling with the complexities of developing and operating in multi-cloud environments. I look forward to working with the talented team at NetApp to deliver innovative solutions to help customers better manage this complexity and unlock the full potential of the cloud.”
Iterate.ai, a low-code enterprise development platform developer, appointed Magnus Tagtstrom as its corporate vice president of emerging tech and general manager for Europe. Tagtstrom brings decades of experience to Iterate.ai leading digital innovation projects and optimizing critical business processes, with a particular focus on AI technologies.
“I’ve been fortunate to see—first-hand, at Alimentation Couche-Tard—how Iterate’s low-code code platform can turn a digital innovation dream into a reality, and do so at scale,” said Tagtstrom. “Low-code and AI are quickly becoming use-or-be-left-behind strategies for businesses across industries. By continuing to quickly and securely incorporate the most impactful new technologies into its Interplay platform, Iterate is playing a pivotal role in ensuring its customers can stay ahead of competitors and deliver truly unique digital experiences. I’m thrilled to be joining Iterate for its next stage of growth.”
End-to-end immersion cooling solutions provider Submer appointed Phil Taylor as its vice president of sales data center. Taylor will lead Submer’s sales teams and be responsible for strategic account planning.
“The data center market is at a point in time where changes need to happen,” Tayler said. “The lack of power and the increased need for sustainable, energy-efficient products mean Submer is in pole position, and I am delighted to be working at such a forward-thinking company.”
Splunk Inc., a leading cybersecurity and observability company, appointed Min Wang as its chief technology officer. Most recently, she spent more than five years at Google, where she led a team responsible for critical components of the company’s AI-driven Google Assistant. Prior to Google, Wang served as the SVP of Visa Research. She has also held research leadership roles for Google Research, HP Labs, and IBM Research.
“I am excited to join Splunk at a time when advancements in AI present a tremendous opportunity to transform our security and observability solutions,” said Wang. “By better leveraging AI technologies like machine learning and natural language processing, Splunk can extract deeper insights, provide more precise predictive analytics and streamline data analysis processes to foster more informed decision-making for our customers. I look forward to partnering with Splunk’s leaders and teams to help ensure our customers’ mission-critical systems remain secure, reliable and resilient.”
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.