AI Career Notes: March 2021 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:
Chantelle Breithaupt
Aspen Technology, a provider of asset optimization software solutions, named Chantelle Breithaupt as its senior vice president and chief financial officer. Breithaupt previously served as VP of finance for Cisco’s customer experience and services division.
“I look forward to supporting AspenTech at this pivotal moment in its 40-year journey,” Breithaupt said. “I am impressed with the ambition and market-leading technology that underpin its growth trajectory. I look forward to building on the solid foundation to accelerate agility and transformation within the finance organization and across the company.”
Kevin Bury
SolarWinds, an IT management software provider, welcomed Kevin Bury as its chief customer officer for the SolarWinds’ MSP division. Bury brings decades of experience and a passion for building and leading teams to help partners realize their maximum potential by solving their most pressing challenges.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with the SolarWinds MSP team. They have an incredible vision, and over the last few years, they’ve built a foundation to help their MSP partners become world-class,” said Bury. “I am excited to be part of an organization filled with so many talented and passionate people tightly aligned around the idea of building great products and services that help fuel our partners’ success. Leading the SolarWinds MSP partner team is my dream job; I can't wait to work with this exceptional group to make sure the word ‘partner’ is more than just another word—it’s our mission."
Stephanie Buscemi and Lara Caimi
Confluent, Inc., an event streaming platform provider, welcomed Stephanie Buscemi as its chief marketing officer. Buscemi comes from Salesforce, where she served as executive vice president and CMO. She has served in executive leadership and senior marketing roles in a variety of areas, including enterprise applications, analytics and business intelligence, cloud, mobile, and database technology throughout her career.
Confluent, Inc. also welcomed Lara Caimi to its board of directors. Caimi currently serves as chief customer and partner officer at cloud‑based platform and solutions provider ServiceNow and as a partner at global management consulting firm Bain & Company.
Paul De Sousa
Massive Analytic, a precognitive artificial intelligence company, appointed Dr. Paul De Sousa as its health and agriculture customer success director. Sousa comes from the University of Edinburgh, where he was a senior lecturer for the regenerative medicine department. He also spent 22 years at the Roslin Institute, where he led basic and applied animal biotechnology and human stem cell research.
“Having collaborated with Massive Analytic for the past two years, I was driven to join them and help realize the vision of integrating its powerful data science, image analysis, and robotics AI products with an end-to-end integration of data and knowledge, from discovery to the end application,” De Sousa said. “I am joining with the confidence that Massive Analytic is uniquely placed to offer solutions to the challenges in the life science sector based on its successes to date.”
Josh Epstein
AtScale, an intelligent data virtualization company, appointed Josh Epstein as its chief marketing officer. Epstein will be responsible for the strategy and execution of the company’s marketing initiatives. He brings 25 years of experience including working at EMC, Oracle and CA Technologies and with smaller, high-growth teams at Acme Packet, Reddo Mobility and Kaminario. Most recently he served as CMO at ObserveIT.
“I have been watching AtScale with interest for the past few years and am incredibly excited to be part of the team,” said Epstein. “I started my career as a business analyst and remain a data-driven marketer at heart. I know first-hand the value of democratizing data and the enormous potential of augmenting business intelligence with AI/ML augmented insights. AtScale is at the right time in history as the entire analytics world is re-platforming itself for the cloud.”
Jeffrey Evans
Internet2 appointed Jeffrey G. Evans as its chief financial officer and treasurer. Evans will be responsible for developing financial strategies for Internet2's operations. Serving as the treasurer for the Internet2 Board of Trustees, he will also oversee the financial resources for domestic and global activities.
Evans brings over 20 years in corporate finance. Most recently, he held the role of CFO at Columbus Regional Airport Authority where he was responsible for the company’s financial operations. He also held CFO positions with the Detroit Zoological Society, Stout Risius Ross, PMA Consultants and Smith Group.
Paul Forte and Oliver Schabenberger
SingleStore, the database of now platform provider, appointed Paul Forte as its first chief revenue officer. Forte has led sales teams at several cloud and data-centric software companies, and he will be responsible for developing and executing SingleStore’s global sales strategy. He comes to SingleStore from data management company Actifio, where he served as the president of global field operations.
Oliver Schabenberger also joined SingleStore as its chief innovation officer. He recently served in a dual role as chief operating officer and chief technology officer at analytics and AI solutions provider SAS.
Sumit Gupta
Sumit Gupta has joined Google as senior director of the company’s machine learning infrastructure division. Gupta will be responsible for product management for Google’s internal machine learning infrastructure.
He comes to Google from IBM, where he held the role of vice president of artificial intelligence strategy and chief technology officer of the company’s data and AI division. He was responsible for driving company-wide strategy and execution plans for AI. Before IBM, he held the role of general manager for the GPU Accelerated Data Center Computing division at Nvidia.
Elly Keinan and Maria Bartolome Winans
IBM has named two leadership executives to lead the as-yet unnamed new independent company that will be formed later this year when IBM’s Managed Infrastructure Services business unit is spun out. Elly Keinan was named the group president of the new company, while Maria Bartolome Winans was named as its chief marketing officer.
Keinan, a 30-year technology industry veteran, most recently served as a venture partner of Pitango Venture Capital, an Israeli venture capital group. Winans has risen to top marketing roles in her 25-year career at IBM and has spent the last three years as the chief marketing officer for IBM Americas.
Tifenn Dano Kwan
Collibra, the data intelligence company, welcomed Tifenn Dano Kwan as its chief marketing officer. Kwan has held numerous marketing leadership roles at SAP, including as CMO of SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass. Most recently, she served as CMO of Dropbox.
“The opportunity to join such an amazing company at a pivotal point in its growth was one I could not pass up,” said Kwan. “I’m a big believer in measuring everything you do and using data and analysis to guide strategic decision making, so I’m thrilled to join Collibra and share how we’re helping companies trust the data that matters to them.”
Vinod Marur
Databricks, the data and artificial intelligence company, appointed Vinod Marur as its senior vice president of engineering. Marur brings decades of enterprise technology background, including almost 15 years in various senior leadership positions at Google. Most recently, Marur was SVP of engineering at Rubrik.
“I am thrilled to be joining Databricks at such an exciting point in the company’s trajectory,” said Marur. “Opportunities to build a platform with this impact potential only come along so often. The work Databricks is doing to pioneer the lakehouse platform across the industry is a true reflection of the innovation factory that it is and will continue to be. I am honored to be part of the journey with this team.”
Dan Olds
HPC industry analyst Dan Olds joined HPC analyst firm Intersect360 Research as its chief research officer. Olds comes to Intersect360 Research from OrionX, where he was a partner, analyst, and consultant for the HPC/AI market. Olds is known in the community for heading up the Gabriel Consulting group for two decades and his deep involvement with the Student Cluster Competition. He previously led teams at IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Cray.
“I’m really excited to work with [Addison Snell, CEO of Intersect360 Research] and the rest of the Intersect360 team,” said Olds. “As an industry analyst, I’ve been admiring their reputation for generating highly reliable data and usable insights for their clients for more than a decade now. I’m really looking forward to furthering the mission to discover and interpret HPC/AI industry trends.”
Stefano Pironio
Cambridge Quantum Computing appointed Dr. Stefano Pironio as its scientific advisor on quantum cryptography. Pironio is a Fund for Scientific Research senior research associate at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he completed his Ph.D. in physics.
Pironio has held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology, the Institute of Photonic Sciences, and the University of Geneva. He is well known for his work on deriving one of the earliest security proof of device-independent quantum key distributions and his contributions to the first experimental demonstration of device-independent quantum random number generation.
Naveen Rao
Naveen Rao has joined NeuReality’s board of directors. Rao was the chief executive officer at deep-learning startup Nervana Systems, which Intel acquired in 2016. He joined Intel as part of the acquisition, but parted ways in February 2020, not long after Intel’s purchase of Habana Labs, which made similar AI chip technology.
“After seeing so many AI companies focusing on deep learning accelerators at the device level, NeuReality intrigued me with their refreshing view of overall AI deployment barriers and their unique systems-level approach that will eclipse today’s outdated data center architecture,” said Rao. “NeuReality’s innovative design solves AI scalability and cost challenges.”
Kristine Remedios
KPMG welcomed Kristine Remedios as its global head of inclusion and diversity. Remedios will be responsible for the inclusion and diversity strategy across the organization. She will also manage the implementation of KPMG’s Collective Action Plan; a set of steps KPMG firms will take to tackle injustice and inequality.
“I am incredibly excited to take on this role,” said Remedios. “It’s an honor to help build on KPMG’s commitment to be an advocate for equal opportunity; engendering an inclusive culture, built on trust; with an educated, empathetic workforce.”
Todd Ruff, Brian Reed, and Richio Aikawa
HPC data storage vendor Panasas announced three new hires, bringing 70-plus years combined experience to HPC storage leader’s management team. Todd Ruff, vice president of marketing, and Brian Reed, vice president of product and alliances, have joined the Panasas senior management team. Richio Aikawa has also joined Panasas as director of vertical solutions, a key role as the company looks to expand its focus for financial services, trading and manufacturing customers. All three executives will report to CEO Brian Peterson.
“Our current growth trajectory, coupled with the addition of three great senior leaders, reflects today’s demand for an enterprise-grade, high-performance computing experience,” said Peterson. “Todd and Brian are exemplary leaders who will help expand our diverse customer base – a base whose diversifying workloads increasingly requires adaptable HPC storage solutions. Richio meanwhile will leverage his expertise in critical industries to help us create a stronger set of vertical solutions.”
Barry Russell
Barry Russell joined Teradata, a multi-cloud data warehouse platform provider, as its senior vice president of business development and general manager of its cloud division. Russell will be responsible for accelerating Teradata’s cloud and SaaS growth strategy. Before joining Teradata, he led Qumulo’s cloud business unit. He has also held senior leadership positions at F5 and Amazon Web Services.
“I am passionate about building and transforming organizations using the cloud to do exceptional things for customers,” said Russell. “Teradata has evolved quickly utilizing the cloud, enabling us to innovate fast on the cloud data analytics needs of enterprises worldwide. Our advantages in today’s multi-cloud world are already helping customers migrate data workflows to the cloud and create data intelligence real-time across their business, and I am ready to help Teradata grow quickly with our customers and partners.”
Ido Sarig
Indiggo, an AI-powered solution provider, welcomed Ido Sarig as its chief marketing officer. Sarig brings almost 30 years of experience in marketing and growth strategy, most recently serving as head of global marketing at Ayehu. He also served as vice president of corporate development and general manager of the internet of things solutions group at Wind River.
"Indiggo has a unique and powerful solution transforming the way leaders create value and for the first time, measure the return on leadership they are achieving," said Sarig. "From my first conversations with the entire leadership team at Indiggo, I was further motivated to join the company and help to enable leaders at all levels with the tools to further drive productivity and scale."
John Schweitzer
Informatica, an enterprise cloud data management solutions provider, welcomed John Schweitzer as its executive vice present and chief revenue officer. Schweitzer brings over 25 years of leadership experience, including working at Workday, Datastax, SAP, Oracle, Hyperion and SoftwareAG.
“I am excited to join team Informatica. They are driving data-driven digital transformation across enterprises in a wide variety of verticals,” said Schweitzer. “Informatica’s AI-powered cloud-native product innovation, combined with its vendor neutrality in partnering with cloud hyperscalers, positions it uniquely to be the preferred choice in a multi-cloud environment with the most comprehensive platform for enterprise-scale cloud data transformation. I couldn’t be more excited to join the industry leader in cloud data management, and I look forward to building on our global momentum.”
Shelley Morrison and Vita Shannon
Shelley Morrison and Vita Shannon have joined business cloud platform provider Domo, with Morrison serving as vice president of Domo's demand center and Shannon as vice president of partnerships and ecosystems. Morrison comes to Domo from Accenture Interactive, where she established comprehensive demand programs for large B2B tech companies, including Adobe, Amazon and SAP.
Shannon most recently served as the senior director of advisory services at KPMG. During Shannon’s stay at KPMG, she oversaw the Ford relationship and two of the firm’s largest technology accounts.
Jim Snabe
C3 AI, an enterprise AI software provider, appointed software industry veteran Jim H. Snabe to its board of directors. Snabe currently serves as chairman of the supervisory board at Siemens AG, and as chairman of the board at A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S, a shipping and transportation company. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the non-profit World Economic Forum.
“In my opinion, the C3 AI model-driven AI platform is becoming the standard for the intelligent enterprise of the 21st century,” said Snabe. “I am deeply impressed with the company’s track record of creating substantial social and economic value through its innovative technology and its ability to execute. I am thrilled to work alongside a world-class board and with a growing set of industry-leading customers globally.”
Marianna Tessel
Cisco appointed Marianna Tessel to its board of directors. Since January 2019, Tessel has been executive vice president and chief technology officer of financial software company Intuit, where she was promoted from her role as chief product development officer of Intuit’s Small Business & Self-Employed Group.
Before joining Intuit, Tessel served as senior vice president of engineering and executive vice president of strategic development for Docker Inc., a software containerization platform. She also previously served as vice president of engineering with VMware.
Dean Thomas
Alation Inc., an enterprise data intelligence solutions provider, appointed Dean Thomas as its senior vice president of customer success. Thomas will be responsible for Alation’s support, services, and client strategy team. Most recently, he held the role of VP of customer experience at Sumo Logic, an infrastructure intelligence software company.
“I’ve always believed integrity is one of the most important qualities of a customer success organization. Our customers trust us to do the right thing and by doing so, we earn their loyalty rather than expect it,” said Thomas. “Alation is laser-focused on delivering customer value, and I’m looking forward to scaling our talented and passionate customer success team to ensure our customers exceed their business goals.”
Adam Towns
Sisense, an artificial intelligence-driven platform provider, welcomed Adam Towns as its chief financial officer. Towns will be responsible for the company’s finance and business operations teams. He joined Sisense from Mimecast, where he was senior vice president of finance.
“I am thrilled to bring my experience in strategic planning, operational excellence and scaling businesses,” said Towns. “Sisense is at an exciting stage and I’m fortunate to step into a remarkably strong business and leadership team that is ready to push the boundaries and accelerate growth.”
Patrick Williamson
WISeKey International Holding, a cybersecurity, AI and IoT company, appointed Patrick Williamson, as its chief operating officer. Williamson had joined Arago, a subsidiary of WISeKey, as its chief product officer in April 2018 and was later promoted to COO, where he managed product, support, SaaS operations and delivery across arago’s solutions portfolio.
As COO, Williamson will oversee WISeKey’s product developments, customer success and operations. He brings over 25 years of experience in the software industry, holding various positions across product management, technology leadership, sales and marketing. His managerial experience includes a global product management role at Symantec and serving as business development manager for Yahoo.
Kelly Breslin Wright
Gong, an artificial intelligence-based platform provider, appointed Kelly Breslin Wright to its board of directors. Wright, a 30-year sales executive, currently serves on the board of high-growth companies, including Fastly, Lucid, Even and previously at Amperity.
“As a career sales professional, I’m fascinated by the constant evolution in our industry, heightened now with remote work. The best companies are transforming their sales organizations with data-driven insights, allowing them to better serve customers and dramatically improve sales performance,” said Wright. “With their differentiated product, exceptional team, exponential growth and enviable culture, Gong is clearly the worldwide leader in the revenue intelligence category. Gong is positively changing the world of sales. Given my lifelong passion for sales, I’m thrilled and honored to join the board and help drive innovation and scale through this next stage of growth.”
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.
