Big Data Career Notes (June 2018)

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!

Kailash Ambwani

Waterline Data has announced the appointment of Kailash Ambwani as chief executive officer. Prior to this new role, Ambwani was the CEO of Actiance. He succeeds Waterline founder Alex Gorelik. Kailash is a graduate of McMaster University where he received a Master of Science in Theoretical Astrophysics and a Bachelor of Science in Theoretical Physics, graduating Summa Cum Laude.

“We are very excited to introduce Kailash as our new CEO,” said Alex Gorelik, founder and CTO at Waterline Data. “Kailash has a keen understanding of what Waterline brings to data governance, as a growing number of critical compliance regulations are implemented. As a serial entrepreneur with a long history of successes, Kailash brings a blend of passion and vision that will fit right in here at Waterline as we all look to take the company to the next level.”

Kelly Battles

Kelly Battles has been appointed to the DataStax board of directors. Kelly is the chief financial officer at Quora and a member of the board of trustees for the Wikimedia Foundation.

“Kelly brings a wealth of tech, business, and finance experience to the DataStax board,” said Billy Bosworth, chairman and CEO, DataStax. “Now that we have passed the $100M revenue mark while experiencing strong growth, Kelly’s experiences at industry titans like HP and Cisco, to scaling startups like IronPort and Host Analytics will help us make the most of our market potential and better serve the enterprise customers who fuel our success.”

Ron Frankel

VizExplorer has announced the appointment of Ron Frankel as the company’s new CEO. He succeeds Ian Bonner, who will become the executive chairman of the board. Frankel’s prior industry experience includes another executive role, board membership, advising, and investing.

“I’m excited to join VizExplorer at this pivotal point in its transformation, and to lead it into the next phase of maturation,” said Frankel. “I am impressed with what the team has delivered to date, and believe strongly in the application of its technology to solve a range of data needs across many types of businesses,” he added.

Shane Margraves

BlueData has announced the appointment of Shane Margraves as vice president of worldwide sales. Previously, Margraves served as vice president of global OEM storage sales and COO for global storage, converged, and data protection sales at Dell EMC.

“The vast majority of companies today are embarking on a data-driven, digital transformation. But it can be extremely difficult to deploy and scale their Big Data environments,” said Margraves. “I was struck by BlueData’s opportunity to fundamentally change this dynamic. And I’ve been impressed by the tremendous success they’ve had so far, with many of the largest enterprises in the world as customers. I’m thrilled to join the team and I look forward to building on that momentum.”

Brian Pawlowski

DriveScale has announced the appointment of Brian Pawlowski as CTO. Brian has 35 years of experience in companies including Sun Microsystems, NetApp, and Pure Storage, where he served as vice president and chief architect.

“DriveScale provides storage and compute innovations that uniquely redefine scale-out architecture for today’s data center. With composable infrastructure, DriveScale enables businesses to dramatically rethink how they deploy emerging applications for data analytics and machine learning––and that is really exciting,” said Pawlowski. “High growth startup environments have always informed my approach in business and I look forward to working with DriveScale to accelerate the adoption of Software Composable Infrastructure across an even broader spectrum of applications while ensuring a delightful user experience for our expanding customer base.”

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.