Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Tuesday, March 19, 2024

AI Career Notes: November 2021 Edition 

(TrideRR/Shutterstock)

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:


Kristina Agassi and Paul Scholey 

Sisense, the AI-driven cloud platform provider for infusing analytics everywhere, appointed Kristina Agassi as its general counsel. Agassi will be responsible for overseeing Sisense’s legal, compliance and governance functions. 

Sisense also appointed Paul Scholey as its vice president of international sales. Scholey will be responsible for Sisense’s international sales. Before he joined Sisense, he served as vice president and general manager of international sales at BlueJeans.

Kenneth Van Alstyne

SoftIron Ltd., a provider of purpose-built and performance-optimized data infrastructure solutions, appointed Kenneth Van Alstyne as its chief technology officer. Van Alstyne will be responsible for building SoftIron’s technology strategy and roadmap. 

“A lot of companies talk about innovation, but SoftIron is redefining what that looks like on multiple fronts, at a time when the world needs new solutions,” said Alstyne. “A lot of companies are playing with software optimization for proprietary codebases, using commodity hardware platforms and calling that ‘innovation’. SoftIron is taking a more fundamental approach by starting quite literally at square one and asking, ‘what is really best for the customer?’…It’s a great honor to be a part of a team that challenges conventional thinking and I look forward to making a contribution to a new class of data infrastructure tools for an exciting age of computing.”

Nenshad Bardoliwalla 

DataRobot promoted Nenshad Bardoliwalla to the role of chief product officer. Bardoliwalla will be responsible for the company’s product strategy and roadmap. Bardoliwalla joined DataRobot in early 2020 through the acquisition of Paxata, where he was the co-founder and chief product officer. 

At DataRobot, Bardoliwalla has served as senior vice president of product and customer experience and has been instrumental in driving the end-to-end platform vision with a first-class experience for all users, from engineers and data scientists to IT operators and business consumers.

Jay Brown 

Domo, the business cloud platform provider, appointed Jay Brown to its board of directors. Brown co-founded Roc Nation, a full-service entertainment business, in 2008 and today serves as vice chairman, continuing the brand’s expansion. 

“As B2B technology delivers a more consumer-like experience, there are many lessons to share from the practice of building strong mass-market brands,” said Brown. “Domo has the brand values, a highly engaged customer base, and an outstanding product to help propel it to the next level. I am looking forward to putting my experience to work to help Domo’s management team in their next chapter of growth.”

Rodolphe Belmer

Atos appointed Rodolphe Belmer as its chief executive officer and board member. He will be responsible for leading a transformation program focused on secure and decarbonized digital services, pursuing growth both organically and through strategic acquisitions. Pierre Barnabé and  Adrian Gregory will serve as interim co-chief executive officers until Belmer takes office in January 2022. Belmer was previously the CEO of Eutelsat, a European satellite operator, a position he held since March 2016.

“The board of directors warmly thanks [outgoing CEO] Elie Girard for the deep transformation work he has undertaken over the past two years and his management of the Group and its employees during the COVID-19 crisis,” said Bertrand Meunier, chairman of the board of directors of Atos SE, chairman of the nomination and governance committee. “In view of the challenges facing Atos, we have appointed Rodolphe Belmer for his strategic acumen and his proven leadership and operational efficiency, as well as his ability to successfully lead complex transformations.”

Graham Breeze, Brock Mowry, and Phil Trickovic 

Tintri, a DDN subsidiary, appointed Graham Breeze as its vice president of products. Breeze has been a key contributor at various tech organizations across a career that spans more than 30 years, including nearly a decade with Tintri. 

Brock Mowry also joined Tintri as its field chief technology officer. Mowry will be responsible for developing new Tintri solutions that meet the enterprise’s changing needs, including the implementation of a microservices approach.

Lastly, Phil Trickovic joined Tintri as its senior vice president of revenue. Trickovic brings 25 years of tech experience to the organization, including nearly a decade of prior Tintri expertise. 

Anil Chakravarthy 

Ansys welcomed Anil Chakravarthy, executive vice president and general manager of digital experience and worldwide field operations at Adobe Inc, to its board of directors. Chakravarthy has held senior leadership positions at Informatica, Symantec, LogicTier and McKinsey & Company, Inc., He also held a board position at USAA Bank.

“As a leader in engineering simulation software, Ansys has already radically changed how products are brought to market better, faster and safer, and the company is just getting started,” said Chakravarthy. “I’m excited to join the board of a company that’s innovating across so many areas.”

Dominick Delfino 

Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, appointed Dominick Delfino as its Chief Revenue Officer. Delfino will be responsible for leading the company’s worldwide sales organization including sales engineering, sales operations, inside sales, OEM sales and channel sales.

“I have long admired Nutanix for its industry-defining technology, strong customer-centric culture and large market opportunity,” said Delfino. “I’m excited to join this talented team to deliver exceptional customer satisfaction and drive revenue growth. Given the simplicity, flexibility and resilience of Nutanix’s powerful cloud platform, I see tremendous opportunity to build on Nutanix’s strong foundation and continue expanding its loyal partner and customer base.”

Evangelos Eleftheriou

Semiconductor start-up Axelera AI appointed Evangelos Eleftheriou as its chief technology officer. Before joining Axelera AI, Eleftheriou, an IEEE and IBM Fellow, has held various leadership positions at IBM Research, including head of cloud and computing infrastructure and as leader of the neuromorphic and in-memory computing activities at IBM Research-Zurich.

“I am honored to be joining the executive team at Axelera AI,” said Eleftheriou. “Axelera AI will be changing the AI industry with its new technological designs. I look forward to working closely with their leadership, board and advisors to achieve the company’s goals and introduce new AI solutions around the globe.”

Bhaskar Gorti

Platform9, open distributed cloud service providers, appointed Bhaskar Gorti as its new chief executive officer. Gorti has previously held top industry positions including as senior vice president at Oracle Corp., president of Nokia Software and as chief digital officer at Nokia.

“I am delighted to join Platform9 to build the open distributed cloud category with the hyper growth of Platform9,” said Gorti. “The market opportunity for our products and technologies is extraordinary. Having created a new category, open distributed cloud, we are uniquely positioned to democratize cloud computing. With Platform9, enterprises can reach their cloud-native transformation goals faster and focus on the applications that drive competitive differentiation. I am thoroughly impressed with the passionate team, their mission, and most of all, the culture and values of Platform9.”

Maheen Hamid

The Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community, appointed Maheen Hamid, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Breker Verification Systems, to its governing council. Hamid brings more than 15 years of financial experience in deal structuring and operations management in diverse industries including wireless telecommunications, clean energy, health and infrastructure projects in emerging markets.

“I am delighted to be joining the governing council of this important organization at a key moment in its history,” said Hamid. “As Breker has grown to become an established EDA company working with semiconductor companies in the area of test suite synthesis, we have gained a wealth of experience and I hope to bring this perspective to the council.”

Patrick Henderson

Astera Labs, a provider of purpose-built connectivity solutions for intelligent systems, appointed Patrick Henderson as its vice president of sales. Henderson will lead the direct and channel sales operations for the company globally. Before Astera Labs, Henderson served as vice president and co-general manager of Broadcom’s mixed-signal ASIC products division. 

“Data and the speed with which it is processed is central to unleashing the full potential of applications such as artificial intelligence and machine learning for arriving at actionable insights,” said Henderson. “I am honored to lead Astera Labs’ efforts in broadening its market reach and accelerating the growing demand for its connectivity solutions that enable faster processing of data through the removal of performance bottlenecks within the data center.”

Scott Herren

Rubrik, the zero-trust data security company, appointed Scott Herren, the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Cisco, to its board of directors. Herren will also serve as chair of the audit committee. Prior to Cisco, Herren served as CFO for Autodesk and held senior strategy and financial positions at Citrix Systems, FedEx and IBM.

“Now more than ever, businesses need to be cyber-resilient and prepared for attacks associated with the evolving threat landscape,” said Herren. “I’m thrilled to support Rubrik’s strategic business transformation as they continue to provide data security and peace of mind for their customers.”

Eric Herzog

Infinidat, the provider of enterprise-class storage solutions, appointed Eric Herzog as its chief marketing officer. Herzog has more than 30 years of experience in the enterprise storage industry, managing all aspects of marketing, product management, and business development in both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. 

“Infinidat is the most innovative enterprise storage company at scale in the world today, delivering an AI-driven set-it-and-forget-it approach with unprecedented 100% availability, a superior performance that is faster than all-flash alternatives, an extensive storage software-defined portfolio, and lower total cost of ownership,” said Herzog. “I’m excited about the opportunity to reach every enterprise and service provider that will benefit from the power and flexibility of Infinidat solutions. With best-in-class solutions, exceptional support motivated channel partners, and an exciting vision for the future, we will expand the Infinidat brand to a leadership position in enterprise storage.”

Adi Kuruganti

Automation Anywhere, a robotic process automation solutions provider, appointed Adi Kuruganti as its first chief product officer. Kuruganti joined Automation Anywhere from Salesforce, where he spent the last 15 years, most recently as the company’s senior vice president and general manager of the experience cloud business unit.

“During the pandemic, organizations accelerated their digital transformation initiatives as employees and customers transitioned to a hybrid work-from-anywhere model,” Kuruganti said. “Cloud-native intelligent automation became the critical technology powering this change. Automation Anywhere is the leader in cloud-based automation and I am excited to empower our customers with new, innovative automation solutions that unlock human potential and transform the way we work.”

Kevin Lepak

AMD appointed senior fellow and server system-on-chip architect Kevin Lepak to AMD Corporate Fellow, in recognition of his critical role in the design of next-generation AMD EPYC processors. As an AMD corporate fellow, Lepak expands on his leadership in chip design to play a larger role in evolving AMD’s processor and systems vision.

Lepak has been with AMD for 16 years. He currently is a leading technologist with deep subject matter expertise in SoC design, memory and I/O performance, and CPU architectures. His technical aptitude and critical role in architecting an industry-leading roadmap have contributed to significant data center growth.

Jeff Lambert and Robert Purcell 

Talend, a data integration and data integrity company, appointed Jeff Lambert as its first chief legal officer. Lambert brings more than 20 years of industry experience, most recently serving as the CLO and chief corporate development officer for Powerschool, a cloud software and analytics provider in the education market. 

In addition, Talend appointed Robert Purcell as its chief financial officer. Purcell brings to Talend more than 25 years of experience in executive financial roles. Before Talend, he served as CFO of payments for financial software company Paysafe. He has served in leadership roles, including Intuit, Amgen, and Deloitte. 

Mark Novakovich

Protegrity, a data security company, appointed Mark Novakovich as its chief financial officer. Novakovich will lead Protegrity’s global finance organization and oversee all financial functions, including accounting, financial planning and analysis, treasury and tax.

“With its impressive data security technology platform and loyal base of enterprise customers, Protegrity immediately stood out to me – not only for the value it can drive for our existing customers but also the untapped greenfield of companies who are looking for proven, affordable ways to secure and protect their data,” said Novakovich. “It’s an exciting time to join the company and I look forward to collaborating with its world-class team as we accelerate Protegrity into its next chapter of rapid growth.”

Kathleen Swift 

Illumio, Inc., providers of zero trust segmentation solutions, appointed Kathleen Swift as its chief people officer. Swift will be responsible for all aspects of human resources, including global strategy, learning and development, talent acquisition, compensation and benefits, team engagement, and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

“It’s incredibly exciting to join the Illumio team during a period of exponential growth,” said Swift. “I’m inspired by the opportunity to help build upon the company's strong culture to ensure this is the most engaged and collaborative workforce in cybersecurity and to support the company by growing and scaling the team.”

David Tharp

Dataiku, the provider of the platform for everyday AI, appointed David Tharp as its senior vice president of ecosystems and alliances. Tharp will be responsible for driving the strategy, development and field operations of Dataiku’s global partner program including technology alliances, global systems integrators and channel partners.

“I feel fortunate to join Dataiku at this important inflection point in our growth. We have already established an incredible partner ecosystem with the world’s largest professional services firms and cloud computing giants. The opportunity to unite these partnerships provides our customers an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate their AI transformations. Meeting the Dataiku leadership team and supportive investor community made this an easy career decision for me,” said Tharp. “I am excited to evolve Dataiku’s partner program to accelerate our growth with and through partners who are leading the largest AI transformations in the world. I look forward to scaling these relationships, building a team and delivering value and innovation for our customers, partners and all other stakeholders.”


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.

 

EnterpriseAI