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Accelerating innovation with
next-generation graph
We believe in the power of graph technology to solve today’s biggest data and business challenges.
Leadership
Shekhar Iyer, CEO
Shekhar Iyer is a global technology executive that has spent close to three decades of his career in enterprise software, primarily focused on Big Data, Data Management, Database, AI & ML and Analytics. He has a broad range of international go-to-market experience across sales, marketing, solution engineering, business development partnerships, field enablement, professional services, products and customer success. Prior to ArangoDB, he held executive roles at StreamSets, Couchbase, SAP, SAS and Informatica, among others.
Frank Celler, PhD, CTO & CISO
Frank Celler is the Co-Founder and CTO of ArangoDB and wrote the first lines of code for ArangoDB. He studied in Aachen and London and obtained a PhD in mathematics and computer science. Prior to founding ArangoDB, Frank worked for several German technology companies as a consultant, team lead and C/C++ developer. Frank has over 30 years of experience and an authority in databases and distributed systems. Recently he has been leading the efforts in integrating Knowledge Graphs with LLMs and Graph ML applications for real world initiatives.
Jason Heine, CFO
Jason Heine is an experienced Chief Financial Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry. He has held financial leadership roles at companies including Instana, Moogsoft, AppDynamics, Cloud.com, and Zimbra, where he managed fundraising, cash flow, business planning, and go-to-market strategy. Jason is a Certified Public Accountant and studied accounting at DePaul University.
Mark Hedderman, Global VP of Sales
Mark is an accomplished enterprise software leader with a 15+ year track record of building successful businesses through expertise in strategy, sales, product go-to-market, operations, channels, and sales development. He brings a broad perspective, extensive problem solving skills, and the proven ability to convert strategy to action and results. Mark has a track record of successfully growing global teams that drive record revenues and profitability through increased productivity and effectiveness. His proven ability to drive revenue growth stems from many areas of expertise in which he has driven repeated success. These areas include worldwide sales strategy and execution, staff hiring and development, marketing and sales demand generation, customer success/renewals, sales operations, and new products go to market. Prior to joining ArangoDB, Mark worked for companies such as SAS, TIBCO, Instana and SingleStore
Tom Blossom, VP of Customer Success
Tom Blossom has over two decades of experience building and leading technical Customer Success and Support teams at multiple startups including: Tecton.ai, Sentry and Instana. He is dedicated to driving customer value and generating high rates of net growth by strategically building teams, refining processes and implementing metrics to continually track and improve on results. Tom's expertise at delivering exceptional levels of user satisfaction is grounded in extensive experience working with Data Engineers, Data Scientists, Software Engineers and Site Reliability Engineers.
Corey Sommers, CMO
Corey is one of the early pioneers of the discipline of Field Enablement within high technology, with over 20 years of dedicated B2B Marketing and Field Enablement experience in his 25+ year career. He is co-author of the Amazon best selling book Whiteboard Selling (Wiley Press 2012) about one of the most important skills in high tech B2B sales - Visual Storytelling. This background translates into a singular passion for providing sellers with the right mix of messaging, training, automation, and tools to increase their productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness. Corey has helped to bridge the Marketing and Sales gap at startups all the way up to large, public technology companies. He manages teams in the spirit of out-of-the-box thinking, collaboration, and accountability.
Jasmin Weaver, Global Director of Human Resources
Jasmin Weaver is a global HR leader with extensive experience directing start-up departments, company transitions, government project management, and recruiting from large-scale hiring to special or emergency projects with very specific goals. Her areas of expertise include talent acquisition and recruiting, corporate and employee communications, as well as rewards, recognition and performance management.
Board of Directors
Shekhar Iyer, CEO
Shekhar Iyer is a global technology executive that has spent close to three decades of his career in enterprise software, primarily focused on Big Data, Data Management, Database, AI & ML and Analytics. He has a broad range of international go-to-market experience across sales, marketing, solution engineering, business development partnerships, field enablement, professional services, products and customer success. Prior to ArangoDB, he held executive roles at StreamSets, Couchbase, SAP, SAS and Informatica, among others.
Claudius Weinberger, Co-Founder, ArangoDB
Claudius studied economics with business informatics as a key aspect at the University of Cologne. For more than 20 years he has built databases, including in-memory to mostly memory, K/V stores over multi-dimensional cubes, as well as graph. In 2015, Claudius co-founded ArangoDB, where he served as CEO and CPO (Chief Product Officer) for the first seven years of the company.
Murray Rode, General Partner, Bow Capital
Murray Rode is a venture investor, software executive (CEO & CFO) and director with over 30 years of experience in the technology industry, spanning both public and private companies and including broad expertise in corporate transactions and M&A. Murray spent much of his career at TIBCO Software Inc., where he held various roles including CFO, COO, and CEO. Murray is a graduate of the University of Alberta.
Curt Gunsenheimer, Managing Partner, IRIS
As an investor at IRIS, Curt Gunsenheimer has supported more than 20 European and U.S. companies from the growth phase to global acquisitions or IPOs. Prior to Iris Capital, Gunsenheimer worked at Goldman Sachs and Robertson Stephens in London and San Francisco, where he was responsible for numerous IPOs of technology companies across Europe and international M&A transactions. He also worked for MIT on programs on entrepreneurship and technology spin-outs.
Mirko Novakavic, Founding Partner, New Forge
Mirko Novakovic is the founding Partner of New Forge and tech serial entrepreneur. He supports portfolio companies in challenging their business models and go-to-market strategies. Prior to New Forge, Mirko co-founded Germany-based codecentric AG and has been founder and CEO at Instana Inc. (acq. by IBM in 2021).