Big Data Career Notes: August 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!

Andrey Alekseenko 

Teradata appointed Andrey Alekseenko as its vice president of Teradata Nordics, Russia, Poland, and the Czech Republic countries. Alekseenko joined Teradata in 2008 holding roles in finance and sales and has held the role of country manager and area vice president of Teradata’s business in Russia for the past eight years.

“Having joined the company more than 13 years ago, I have seen how Teradata has evolved to be a cloud leader, transforming how businesses work and people live through the power of data,” said Alekseenko. “I remain dedicated to Teradata’s vision and strive to further build and strengthen customer confidence in Teradata’s technology and services in the cloud and deepen cooperation with partners in the region.”

Wayne Ariola

ScyllaDB, creators of the high-performance Scylla NoSQL database, appointed Wayne Ariola as its chief marketing officer. Ariola will be responsible for leading the initiatives to expand awareness of Scylla’s NoSQL database for real-time applications. 

“Businesses are being rewritten as code, which makes the ability to scale infrastructure absolutely essential,” said Ariola. “ScyllaDB’s disruptive database technology enables organizations to thrive amidst the explosion of critical data that is now required to serve customers.”

Mark Bannon

KX tapped Mark Bannon to lead the North American sector as its president of sales. Bannon joined KX from TIBCO and brings a background in data management and streaming analytics. Before TIBCO, Bannon led sales for StreamBase Systems before its acquisition by TIBCO. 

“I’m absolutely thrilled to join KX with all of its potentials to change the data management landscape, bringing the real-time power proven by Wall Street to Main Street,” Bannon said. “I cannot wait to share the capabilities of KX with businesses across every sector and help them capitalize on their perishable business moments.”

Damien Brophy 

ThoughtSpot, the modern analytics cloud company, appointed Damien Brophy as its vice president of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa regions. Brophy will be responsible for managing ThoughtSpot’s operations across EMEA. Before he joined ThoughtSpot, Brophy served as the regional director for the UK and Ireland at MongoDB.

“As a member of ThoughtSpot’s EMEA team, I’ve been privileged to work closely with some of the region’s most innovative companies, helmed by leaders trailblazing the future of their organizations with analytics,” said Brophy. “I’m so excited to step into this new role at ThoughtSpot at a time when we’re helping our customers push the boundaries of what’s possible with their cloud data like never before while building a team ready to take on one of the hottest sectors in technology today.”

David DeWitt

Splunk Inc., the provider of the data-to-everything platform, welcomed David DeWitt as its vice president and technical fellow. DeWitt brings to Splunk more than 45 years of experience working on high-performance data systems, most notably his contributions to parallel database systems advancement and his foundational work on SQL Server while at Microsoft.

“Splunk is known for redefining the boundaries of technology innovation and I’m pleased to join the team to help uncover innovative ways we can solve today’s toughest data challenges in the cloud,” said DeWitt. “Organizations need a streamlined way to analyze and act on their data across multiple sources and cloud environments. Serving as a Splunk technical fellow is a wonderful opportunity to advance data analysis and query strategies as data volumes exponentially increase worldwide.”

Nancy Flores

Element appointed Nancy Flores, executive vice president, chief information officer and chief technology officer of the company, to its board of directors as an independent board member. Before Flores joined McKesson, she served as VP and CIO at Johnson Controls, where she managed the information technology, cybersecurity, and analytics business areas.

“Industrial companies have always struggled with inefficiencies between IT and OT, which can have significant financial implications on a business,” said Flores. “What Element is doing with Unify to align data between the two will be a game-changer for the industrial sector and I look forward to contributing to board discussions as the company continues to grow.” 

John Hurley

Quantum Corp. appointed John Hurley as its chief revenue officer. Hurley brings to Quantum more than 25 years of experience selling to and growing enterprise accounts and building high-performing teams. Before Quantum, Hurley led multiple client segments at Cisco, including his most recent role as vice president of the global commercial segment.

“I’m excited to be joining Quantum to help accelerate the growth of the company as it evolves into a best-in-class software and as-a-Service company,” said Hurley. “Quantum’s experience in helping clients orchestrate colossal amounts of video and unstructured data sets the company apart from the competition, and I look forward to building on this to generate growth in new markets around the globe.”

Gilad Katz

Sisense, an AI-driven analytics cloud platform provider, welcomed Gilad Katz as its senior vice president of engineering. Katz will be responsible for leading Sisense’s global engineering and development department. He comes to the company from AppsFlyer, where he led the research and development and product teams and grew the engineering department from 60 engineers to more than 300.

“I am thrilled to bring my experience in engineering to the fast-growing, world-class team here at Sisense,” Katz said. “Sisense has incredible momentum and I am fortunate to join such an exceptional business that saw the need for the cloud early on. I look forward to helping Sisense continue to expand and develop leading technologies that transform businesses around the world.” 

Jon Kondo

OmniSci welcomed Jon Kondo as its chief executive officer. Kondo brings over 30 years of general management, sales, and marketing experience to the role. Most recently, he served as senior vice president of global sales and marketing at Appen, a provider of data for artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions.

“OmniSci has proven through its customers that it can tackle massive, complex analytics challenges across industries both in the private and public sector,” said Kondo. “It is clear to me that OmniSci is ready for a major step forward in market acceptance. Its capabilities and passion, not to mention the opportunity to join with Todd in realizing his vision on the largest of commercial stages, are very compelling.”

Ewan Nicolson

Forecast, a data consultancy business headquartered in Edinburgh, appointed Ewan Nicolson as its head of data science.  Ewan brings to Forecast 15 years of experience holding data science and management leadership roles for Skyscanner and the BBC.        

“I’m as excited to join Forecast as I was when I started working at Skyscanner some 10 years ago,” Nicolson said. “It is one of Edinburgh’s, if not the UK’s, most exciting data firms with a hugely ambitious and humble team. I look forward to working with Forecast’s talented data scientists and nurturing talent to help support the firm’s continued growth.” 

Sam Pugmire, Tim Marsh, and Ajay Khanna  

Explorium, the external data platform provider,  announced three new executives to its leadership team. Sam Pugmire joined the company as its chief revenue officer. In his most recent role, Pugmire served as director of worldwide sales at VMware. Before VMware, he was the senior vice president of global sales for SaltStack, an IT automation and security company.

Tim Marsh joined Explorium as its vice president of alliances and channels to drive Explorium’s partnerships with global system integrators, consulting firms, resellers and technology providers. Tim comes to the company from Mulesoft, where he held several senior strategic partnership and alliance roles across the commercial and government sectors. 

Ajay Khanna joined Explorium as its chief marketing officer. Khanna will be responsible for product marketing, demand generation, sales enablement, branding and communications. Most recently, Khanna held the role of vice president of marketing for Reltio, a master data management SaaS platform provider.

Dario Zamarian 

Pavilion Data Systems, a data storage solutions provider, appointed Dario Zamarian as its chief executive officer. Zamarian has held multiple leadership positions, including as global vice president and worldwide general manager of enterprise systems and solutions at Dell. Before joining Pavilion, he was CEO of Space Systems/Loral, a company of Maxar.

“Pavilion’s current technology is unmatched, and its next-generation of products will create even more innovation that delivers unrivaled customer outcomes,” said Zamarian. “As artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data-driven requirements accelerate, Pavilion is best suited to meet the needs of organizations adapting to data-centric decision making. I’m excited to be joining a world-class team and accelerating the company forward.”

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.