Big Data Career Notes: April 2022 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!

Gunjan Aggarwal

Confluent, Inc., the data streaming platform to set data in motion, appointed Gunjan Aggarwal as its chief people officer. Gunjan joined Confluent from RingCentral, where she most recently served as executive vice president and the company’s first CPO. 

“Confluent’s excellent leadership team and category-defining product attracted me to join the company and I could not be more thrilled to dive right into work with the people organization,” said Gunjan. “I see many opportunities at Confluent to continue developing this as a home for top-tier talent with an amazing culture and remote-first mindset. Our diverse group of awesome people excel at helping our customers achieve their goals. I want Confluent to remain the destination for the best talent where our people can do great work, all while having fun in the process.”

Chris Baddeley

MANTA appointed Chris Baddeley as its senior vice president of sales. Baddeley brings over 20 years of experience leading high-growth sales teams, particularly in technology including data management, business intelligence, and analytics platforms. 

Before Baddeley joined MANTA, he was a regional sales director at Cloudera and VP of worldwide sales at Cazena. Before that, he was VP of North America Eastern sales at Chef Software, an early pioneer of the DevOps movement.

Chip Ernst 

Speedb, the maker of a data engine that helps organizations evolve their hyper-scale data operations, appointed Chip Ernst as its vice president of US sales. Ernst brings over 20 years of experience in building global sales teams from the ground up and driving strategic partnerships at both deep-tech startups and large multinationals. 

He joins Speedb from Lightbits Labs, where as vice president of strategic sales, he drove US enterprise business development efforts and helped build highly scalable sales practices, while also overseeing its indirect channels program. Previously Ernst served as VP of sales and business development for Reduxio (now Ionir), where he opened the US Northeast market and achieved the company’s first sales, before leading its worldwide sales organization.

George Joseph

Lumeo, a designer of computer vision solutions, appointed George Joseph as its vice president of engineering. Joseph comes to Lumeo from Innovation & Design Warehouse Technologies LLC, where he was the president and founder. He spent the bulk of his career as an executive director with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. where he led various multi-functional teams and oversaw multi-million-dollar projects.

“I am excited to join the Lumeo team as its growth has definitely captured the eyes of the industry,” said George. “I feel that my experience with developing edge management platforms, integrating IoT devices, and developing mobile applications meshes perfectly with Lumeo’s vision to accelerate the development of video and vision AI solutions.”

John Kahan

Domino Data Lab, the provider of the enterprise MLOps platform, appointed Microsoft’s Chief Data Analytics Officer Emeritus John Kahan as its strategic advisor to both its chief executive officer and board of directors. Kahan will advise Domino’s product development and go-to-market efforts.

“Domino Data Lab has led the movement by many of the world’s largest companies to build machine learning models into core business functions with important transparency and collaboration that is needed to succeed in today’s world,” said Kahan. ”I am thrilled to contribute my experience, as well as my passion for advancing the impact of data on health, to Domino and its customers’ success.”

Preet Michelson

AHEAD, an enterprise cloud solutions provider, appointed Preet Michelson as its chief people officer. Michelson will be responsible for all aspects of AHEAD’s human resources strategy, including talent management, leadership development, and compensation and benefits.

“AHEAD is highly acquisitive and my number one goal going into this role is to continue to knit the fabric of this impressive company together,” said Michelson. “With so many people, cultures and legacy systems converging, I want to ensure everyone feels like they have a place and a path so that, ultimately, the AHEAD culture speaks for itself.”

Lucas Moody

Alteryx, Inc, the analytics automation company, appointed Lucas Moody as its senior vice president and chief information security officer. Moody brings decades of security and technology experience to Alteryx. He joined most recently from Twitter, where he oversaw global security technology teams protecting the company’s more than 192 million daily users. 

“I am excited and honored to be part of a mission to help companies democratize analytics,” said Moody. “I am inspired by the all-star executive leadership team along with the recent company growth and cloud momentum that speak volumes about the trajectory of the organization in the coming years.”

Dave Packer and Mark Johnston

Matillion, providers of the enterprise cloud data integration platform, appointed Dave Packer as its president of worldwide field operations. Packer brings almost 30 years of experience leading field operations for technology organizations. Prior to joining Matillion, he was senior vice president of worldwide field operations at Ping Identity, a provider of cloud identity management solutions.

In addition, Mark Johnston joined Matillion as its chief marketing officer. Most recently, Johnston was interim CMO and vice president of product marketing at Domo, a cloud BI platform. He also spent 14 years at Microsoft, where he contributed to the successes of the company’s most notable enterprise products, including Azure and Office 365.

Sanjay Poonen and Tony Werner

MinIO Inc., creators of the MinIO multi-cloud object storage suite, appointed Sanjay Poonen as the company’s advisor. Poonen is a technology executive with more than 25 years of experience leading enterprise software companies, such as VMWare, SAP, and Informatica. He will provide counsel on growth and go-to-market strategy.

Tony Werner, a senior advisor to Comcast and former president of technology, product, and Xperience of Comcast Cable also joined MinIO as an advisor and investor. Prior to Comcast, Werner served as senior vice president and chief technology officer for Liberty Global, Inc., where he led the company’s global strategy for video, voice and data services.

Shireesh Thota and Yatharth Gupta

SingleStore, the single database for all data-intensive applications, appointed Shireesh Thota as senior vice president of engineering. Thota will lead the company’s engineering efforts and oversee the design and development of the SingleStore DB product. Thota previously ran the engineering efforts for Cosmos DB and Postgres Hyperscale (Citus) services at Microsoft, where he worked in multiple roles for more than 15 years. 

Yatharth Gupta joined SingleStore as its vice of product management and design. Before joining SingleStore, Gupta worked for more than 14 years at Microsoft, where he led the product team for Azure Databricks products. As a founding member of the Azure Databricks team, Gupta was responsible for driving the product, and partnerships as well as bringing the service to market and shaping the growth over the past three years. Prior to Azure, he held various leadership roles in Windows at Microsoft.

Adam Towns 

Dataiku, the platform for everyday AI, appointed Adam Towns as its chief financial officer. Towns will lead Dataiku’s financial strategy and operations focused on scaling its already thriving business.

Before joining Dataiku, Towns served as the CFO of Sisense, where he led the company’s global finance and business operations team. Before that, he was senior vice president of strategic finance and FP&A at Mimecast, managing the company through a successful IPO in 2015.

Kuntal Vahalia

ThoughtSpot, the modern analytics cloud company, appointed Kuntal Vahalia as its senior vice president of worldwide channels and alliances. Vahalia will be responsible for overseeing ThoughtSpot’s global partner, alliances, and channel programs as part of the go-to-market team.

“Everywhere you look, data is rewriting the rules of what’s possible for businesses, and as the volume of data continues to grow exponentially, so too does its potential impact for businesses. Turning this potential into transformational outcomes, however, requires companies to go beyond traditional analytics and rethink entirely how they leverage data,” said Vahalia. “Luckily, there’s an entire ecosystem of players building solutions to tap into the value of data, but they need a means to put that value in the hands of employees and customers. That’s why I’m so excited to bring ThoughtSpot’s unique platform, one that brings together data, search, AI, and cloud, to companies ready to lead in the years ahead.”

Luis Visoso 

Splunk Inc., the data platform leader for security and observability, appointed Luis Felipe Visoso to its board of directors. Visoso currently serves as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Unity Software Inc., a public technology company providing a software platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D content.

“Splunk is one of the foremost innovators in the business, helping organizations protect and make sense of their data across hybrid, multi-cloud environments. I’m excited to join the Board at this critical juncture as the Company executes against an incredible opportunity in the cloud security space,” said Visoso. “I look forward to working closely with Graham, Gary and the rest of the Board to continue delivering innovation and value for customers and partners and driving meaningful returns for shareholders.”

Lambert Walsh

Lambert Walsh joined Amplitude, Inc. as its chief customer officer. As CCO, Walsh will lead Amplitude’s customer engagement and retention strategy and will head up the global customer success team. He comes to Amplitude from DocuSign, where he led customer success, professional services, solution consulting, and customer support. Prior to that, he was the vice president and general manager at Adobe Global Services. 

“Customer teams are under immense pressure to drive growth within their organization, and that cannot be done without a deep understanding of customer behavior,” said Walsh. “I’m bullish about Amplitude because I’ve seen firsthand how valuable product data can be for teams tasked with improving adoption, expansion, and retention. I believe in Amplitude’s product, vision, and leadership team, and I can’t wait to work with its world-class customer community.”

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.