AI Career Notes: February 2020 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 AI career news for early February:
Deepak Ahuja
Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja of Verily, Alphabet’s life sciences organization, has joined the Board of Directors at NetApp. Before Verily, Ahuja served as CFO of Tesla from 2008 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. Ahuja is credited for playing a role in Tesla’s rise from startup. Prior to Tesla, he worked for 15 years with Ford Motor Company.
Cloudera appointed Robert Bearden as president and chief executive officer (CEO). In 2019, Bearden was co-founder and CEO of Hortonworks before its merger with Cloudera. He was president and COO of SpringSource until VMWare acquired the company in 2009, and also served as COO of JBoss until Red Hat acquired the company in 2006.
"I am excited to become Cloudera's CEO and to help lead its next phase of growth as the enterprise data cloud company," Bearden said. "As a board member, I've been engaged with the leadership team on the company's vision and strategy. I am fully committed to that strategy and confident our team will continue to execute on our growth initiatives. There is a large market for enterprise solutions that manage the complete data lifecycle across any cloud or data center. The new Cloudera Data Platform will enable us to capture more of this high-growth opportunity."
Diane M. Bryant
Former Google Cloud Chief Operating Officer (COO) Diane M. Bryant has been appointed by Neural Analytics, Inc. as chairman and CEO. Outgoing CEO Leo Petrossian announced he will stay as co-founder and president. As COO of Google Cloud, Bryant's main focus was to drive the scale and reach of the business. She also played a role in furthering customer adoption and the development of next generation solutions. Before Google, she spent 32 years at Intel. Bryant currently serves on the boards of directors for United Technologies Corporation (UTC), Broadcom Inc. (AVGO), several technology-based start-ups, the University of California, Davis Chancellor's Board of Advisors, and the school's College of Engineering Board of Advisors.
"This is a very exciting time to be joining Neural Analytics. Through the application of technology, we have the opportunity to transform brain health care management. By applying machine learning, Neural Analytics' Lucid Robotic System can enable physicians to quickly recognize and diagnose critical brain conditions to tremendously improve patient care," Bryant said. "I look forward to leading this strong team and driving adoption of the technology."
Intel appointed Archana (Archie) Deskus as senior vice president and chief information officer (CIO). In this new role, Deskus will oversee Intel's global information technology operations and report to Intel Chief Financial Officer George Davis. Before Intel, Deskus was SVP and CIO at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.
"Intel is going through an exciting and historic transformation as it extends the reach and impact of information technology in an era of data," Deskus said. "I am thrilled to join the Intel management team and to lead an extraordinarily innovative global IT group at this strategic inflection point for the technology industry."
Microsoft added Andrew Jones as part of the Azure HPC engineering & product team. Jones brings over 20 years of experience as a researcher and end-user. He also has a background in software developer, service provider and manager, procurement, strategy, and consulting. Before Microsoft, he spent almost 12 years at Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) in the U.K. as vice president of Strategic HPC Services & Consulting. Jones is a well-regarded HPC community member and has written for several HPC publications, including HPCwire.
"I have been impressed with the approach taken by Microsoft Azure towards the HPC space," Jones said. "This includes strong technology and product offerings, a sector-leading people strategy, and much more. Of course, the journey towards leadership of cloud for HPC is still in progress, and I am excited to help drive that adventure by joining the Azure HPC team."
The IBM Board of Directors elected Arvind Krishna as chief executive officer (CEO) of the company. He was also selected as a member of the board of directors, which will take effect on April 6, 2020. Krishna will replace Ginni Rometty as CEO. She will continue under her role as executive chairman of the board until her retirement at the end of the year, after being with the company 40 years. Krishna is currently IBM SVP for Cloud and Cognitive Software and played a critical role when the company acquired Red Hat.
"I am thrilled and humbled to be elected as the next Chief Executive Officer of IBM, and appreciate the confidence that Ginni and the Board have placed in me," said Krishna. "IBM has such talented people and technology that we can bring together to help our clients solve their toughest problems. I am looking forward to working with IBMers, Red Hatters, and clients around the world at this unique time of fast-paced change in the IT industry. We have great opportunities ahead to help our clients advance the transformation of their business while also remaining the global leader in the trusted stewardship of the technology. Jim will be a great partner in the next step of this journey."
Cheryl Ingstad
Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar swore in Cheryl Ingstad as Director of the Artificial Intelligence & Technology Office (AITO). Before accepting this role, she led the commercialization efforts of AI and machine learning research and development at 3M. AITO was created to serve as the central body responsible for the development, coordination and application of AI.
“I am humbled to serve as the first Director of DOE’s Artificial Intelligence & Technology Office,” said Director Ingstad. “It is an honor to be able to lay the foundation for this critical office with DOE’s world-class AI experts. DOE and its 17 national labs are uniquely positioned – and already hard at work – to lead in AI’s application to our core missions. I look forward to working alongside America’s best and brightest minds to ensure our efforts are focused on accelerating the wise adoption of this emerging technology.”
Chris Lattner joined SiFive as SVP to lead SiFive Platform Engineering. Lattner has 15 years of leadership experience in a software engineering and machine learning infrastructure, leading teams at Apple, Tesla, and Google. Under the compiler infrastructure open source project, he is credited for authoring Clang, the compiler front-end, and LLVM.
"I'm thrilled to be joining the SiFive team and for the opportunity to work with a company that is enabling the future of silicon, all the way from idea to silicon," Lattner said. "RISC-V offers an exciting opportunity for customizable chips, and SiFive's RISC-V design methodology is unmatched in the industry. By making custom SoC development more accessible, we can accomplish technological breakthroughs that couldn't happen anywhere else."
WekaIO selected Shailesh Manjrekar as head of AI and strategic alliances. Before WekaIO, Manjrekar was head of AI at SwiftStack, and responsible for Product, Solutions, and Corporate Development. Prior to SwiftStack, he was senior director at Vexata, EMC, NetApp, Force10 Networks, and also held senior engineer roles at Hewlett Packard and Arohi Communications.
Shailesh will take ownership of WekaIO's strategic technical alliances, to align the company's product roadmap and validating the software on platforms in AI and machine learning, genomics, finance, and high-performance computing (HPC) markets. In addition, he will play a role in the leadership team in strategic and corporate planning.
AMD announced that Daniel (Dan) McNamara joined the company as SVP and general manager of the Server Business Unit. McNamara is credited with building on the momentum of the 2nd Gen AMD Epyc processors to continue the adoption of the company's server solutions with cloud, enterprise, and ecosystem partners.
McNamara's background consists of semiconductor and enterprise experience. He has a track record of driving growth in the data center market. Before AMD, he was senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Network and Custom Logic Group. During his 27-year career, McNamara held senior management and engineering roles at Altera, StarGen, SemiTech Solutions, and Raytheon. AMD recently announced four new promotions to their leadership team. To catch up with the latest developments, click here.
WekaIO selected Intekhab Nazeer as chief finance officer (CFO). As CFO, Intekhab will take on WekaIO's global accounting, and financial compliance. He will also play a vital role in the leadership team in strategic and corporate planning.
Before WekaIO, Nazeer was CFO at Unifi Software (acquired by DELL Boomi). He's also held CFO and chief operations officer (COO) appointments at Tribal Planet, HCL Group, Solix Group, Platfora (acquired by Workday), Greenplum (acquired by EMC), Appcelerator (acquired by Axway), and Pelikan Technologies.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) nominated Charles H. Noski as an independent director. Michael Angelakis announced he will not stand for reelection. He served on HPE’s Board of Directors for almost five years. From June 2011 through 2012, Noski served as vice chairman of Bank of America. From May 2010 to June 2011, he was the company’s chief financial officer.
“I am pleased with the opportunity to join HPE’s Board of Directors,” Noski said. “HPE has an impressive history and an exciting vision to redefine the customer experience and the industry model. I welcome the chance to be a part of this next chapter.”
Jan E. Odegard
The Ion appointed Jan E. Odegard as the senior director of industry and academic partnerships. He will oversee Ion's Academic Partner Network, currently comprised of 10 two and four-year post-secondary institutions, including TSU, Houston Baptist University, University of Houston, HCC, San Jacinto, and Rice University. Under this new role, Odegard will also manage the Ion's labs and will responsible for developing further academic and academic/industry partnerships. Odegard will continue to serve as executive director of the Ken Kennedy Institute and Associate Vice President Research Computing at Rice University until a replacement is found. He is also part of the organizing committee for the Oil and Gas High Performances Computing (HPC) Conference, which is hosted annually at Rice University.
"After 18+ years with the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice University, I am super excited to embark on a new chapter with the Ion Houston team to 'build an inclusive innovation hub in a tech-forward environment that promotes all that is great about Houston,'" Odegard said.
Barry Russell
Qumulo announced the appointment of Barry Russell as SVP and general manager of cloud. Russell will take ownership of Qumulo’s cloud strategy across business development, strategic relationships, and go-to-market implementation. Prior to Qumulo, Russell is credited for growing F5’s revenue by more than 90 percent as vice president of cloud business globally. At F5, he led cloud field sales, solution architecture, and the overall alliance strategy.
“Qumulo is a perfect fit for uniting my passion for disruptive technologies with customer-obsessed solutions,” Russell said. “Qumulo is enabling enterprise customers around the world to digitally transform and create impactful, data-driven outcomes. From producing animated films to crucial health research, Qumulo’s innovative approach is disrupting old-guard storage technologies that don’t run natively in the cloud, failing to meet the needs of distributed workloads or the large volumes of data used by cloud-based applications. I am super excited to join the Qumulo team and to help customers turn data into business outcomes.”
Anthony Scarpino joined NUVIA as senior director of its Software Engineering business unit and site leader of the newly opened office in Toronto, Canada. The Toronto office is part of technology hub ventureLAB, located in Canada’s second-biggest tech cluster. Scarpino has over 25 years of semiconductor industry experience. He held various senior software positions at ATI and AMD, where he focused on platforms such as open source, MacOS, and Android.
“We’re excited to be part of the ventureLAB community as we collaborate to increase the scale and resources available to our engineering teams locally in support of NUVIA’s growth plans for 2020 and beyond,” Scarpino said.
Brian Sparks
Brian Sparks re-joined Mellanox Technologies as senior director of HPC Consortiums and Alliances. Sparks is a senior executive with over 20 years in the HPC, hyperscale, and cloud datacenter markets with experience in managing, planning, and implementing marketing and communications activities.
Sparks held senior management roles at Mellanox Technologies from 2005 to 2015. In 2015, Sparks was promoted to the vice president role of the Marketing Communications team before moving to Netronome as vice president of Marketing Communications.
Kim Stevenson joined NetApp as senior vice president (SVP) and general manager (GM) of the company's Foundational Data Services Business Unit. Stevenson's most recent position was as SVP and GM of Data Center Products and Solutions at Lenovo. She is credited with growing the business by more than $2 billion. Before Lenovo, Stevenson served as CIO at Intel.
"I joined NetApp because the company's potential is clearly enormous," Stevenson said. "From my experience working with enterprise tech leaders, only NetApp is so deeply embedded across every stack that companies are relying on to power digital transformation and better harness data for today's world. The company's partnerships with the biggest public cloud providers, its engaged ecosystem, and diverse portfolio across storage solutions and data services, give it a great position. I'm excited to help realize this potential and keep NetApp ahead of the market."
Cisco appointed Lisa Su to its board of directors. In 2012, Su joined AMD, and in 2014 she was promoted to president and chief executive officer (CEO), where she presided over the launch of the first 7nm datacenter server processors and GPUs. She also serves on the AMD's Board of Directors. In 2007, Su joined Freescale as chief technology officer, leading the company's technology roadmap and research and development efforts. Su spent the previous 13 years at IBM in various leadership positions, including as vice president of the Semiconductor Research and Development Center.
From 1994 to 1995, Su was a member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments Incorporated. Su has a Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and Doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The IBM Board of Directors appointed James Whitehurst as IBM President. His role will take effect on April 6, 2020. Whitehurst is currently serving as IBM SVP and CEO of Red Hat, acquired in 2019. While at Red Hat, he is credited for playing a key role in growing the revenue eight times. Before Red Hat, he was chief operating officer at Delta Airlines, responsible for overseeing airline operations. Prior to Red Hat, he was a partner at The Boston Consulting Group.
"I am truly honored to be elected as IBM's President," Whitehurst said. "I look forward to working with Arvind, and with IBMers and Red Hatters alike, to continue to bring together the best of our companies and cultures. I've had the opportunity to interact with IBMers across the company over the past few months, and I have been so impressed with the talented and dedicated team we have. When I first joined, I said that I believe we have the opportunity to be the defining technology company of the twenty-first century. After working with our clients, IBMers and Red Hatters over the past months, I am even more convinced of that opportunity today."
John Jackovin
BrokerTech Ventures announced that John Jackovin joined the company as the new accelerator executive director. Since 2014, Jackovin has consulted for worldwide organizations of Fintech and InsurTech. Most recently he managed the Growth and Internal Services Product teams at Des Moines-based Dwolla.
"The need for an agent-broker-specific accelerator at this time is clear," said Jackovin. "To be able to help shape the first program specifically for investors and innovators building the next generation of tech solutions for insurance agencies and brokerages is truly a dream."
Leila Janah
We note, with sadness, news of a loss in our community: Samasource founder and CEO Leila Janah, 37, passed away this month from complications from Epithelioid Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. In an announcement, the company credits Janah for creating a global impact sourcing movement and note she was a champion for environmental sustainability and ending global poverty.
Janah was the founder and CEO of LXMI, a fair-trade, organic skincare company; Samaschool, a non-profit focused on reskilling for the new economy, and Samasource. Each organization's common mission was to 'Give Work.' Her longtime business partner and friend, Wendy Gonzalez has been appointed as interim CEO of Samasource.
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.
