(L-R) Greg Taylor, Ed Lenta, Bede Hackney (Databricks)
Unified data analytics platform vendor Databricks has appointed former Amazon Web Services (AWS) Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) vice president Ed Lenta as its new senior vice president and general manager for the APJ region.
Lenta joins Greg Taylor, freshly-minted Databricks regional vice president for Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) and Southeast Asia, in heading up the company’s operations in the local region, along with former Tenable A/NZ country manager Bede Hackney, who was named Databricks’ A/NZ country manager in November last year.
Based in Australia, Lenta brings nearly two decades of experience in the tech sector to the role. In addition to his most recent role at AWS, Lenta helped to build the AWS Australia and New Zealand and the global accounts businesses.
Lenta has also done time at VMware, for which he held regional leadership roles in Southeast Asia and Australia and New Zealand.
In his new role, Lenta is responsible for Databricks teams in more than 20 countries across APJ and is tasked with expanding the company’s customer-facing teams and support organisations.
“I am thrilled to be joining the regional leadership team at Databricks,” Lenta said in a statement. “In its short history, Databricks has helped organisations of every size, across every industry transform themselves through data and AI [artificial intelligence].
“But it’s still very early. While every company seems to understand the critical role that data and AI must play in accelerating innovation, staying competitive, and anticipating customers needs, very few have figured out how to do it successfully.
“I truly believe that Databricks has figured this out, and couldn’t be more excited to help make organisations in the APJ region successful,” he added.
Taylor, meanwhile, comes to Databricks after acting as New Relic group vice president for APJ for over three years. Taylor has also held a number of leadership roles across A/NZ and Asia with Marketo, BMC and Oracle.
For Hackney, Lenta and Taylor represent a duo that will help to see Databricks expand its customer-base and presence in the local market.
“Ed and Greg are joining during an exciting period of growth for Databricks in Australia and across the region,” Hackney said. “With the depth of leadership expertise, these appointments will allow us to continue providing customers with unique and innovative data-driven solutions and expand our exciting portfolio of start-ups, enterprise and government organisations.”
The appointments come after Databricks, which uses artificial intelligence for its data analytics platform, attracted a U.S.$400 million Series F investment backed by Andreessen Horowitz’s Late Stage Venture Fund, effectively valuing the company at U.S.$6.2 billion.
The funds are being used for the company’s research and development (R&D) efforts, along with hiring more engineers and a global expansion across Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
