Alation Appoints Raj Gossain as SVP of Product and Junaid Saiyed as VP of Engineering; Strengthens Development and Customer Success with Launch of India Office

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Feb. 7, 2019 – Alation Inc., the data intelligence company, today bolstered its leadership team with the appointments of Raj Gossain as senior vice president (SVP) of product and Junaid Saiyed as vice president (VP) of engineering.

As SVP of product, Gossain will lead product strategy and development of the award-winning Alation Data Catalog. As VP of engineering, Saiyed will lead the engineering organization, a growing team that now includes a burgeoning technical center of excellence in Chennai, India. The new office is well positioned to create a pipeline of technical talent, with a location in the heart of Chennai’s technology sector and engagement with the nearby IIT Madras, a nationally renowned technology institute.

“We’re finding that a machine learning data catalog is a transformative technology that changes how enterprises work. And as the market for the Alation Data Catalog has grown, the use cases for a data catalog have expanded exponentially,” said Satyen Sangani, CEO of Alation. “Raj, with his deep background in the collaboration stack, and Junaid, with his strong expertise in the BI stack, are uniquely situated to build the next generation of capabilities to complement innovations like Behavior I/O, Agile Stewardship and SmartSuggest. Similarly, our Chennai team has already been incredibly impactful, helping Alation scale faster in every function.”

Gossain brings a wealth of experience in product leadership roles. Before joining Alation, he was VP of product and design at ClearSlide, now part of Corel Corp. Prior to ClearSlide, he was VP and general manager for Cloud & Mobile Collaboration applications at Cisco, where he incubated Cisco Spark and ran global product management for WebEx. In addition to his deep product experience, Gossain has held leadership positions at Yahoo!, Opsware and Netscape/AOL.

“Alation pioneered the Machine Learning Data Catalog category with a unique solution that combines human collaboration with machine learning innovation, enabling customers to create a data culture that positively impacts every employee,” Gossain said. “I couldn’t be more excited to join Alation at this phase of growth and to drive an innovation pipeline that empowers more users to make confident, data-driven decisions with the power of the Alation Data Catalog.”

Saiyed is highly experienced in building cloud BI products for enterprises and growing globally distributed teams that deliver products at a rapid pace. Prior to joining Alation, he was VP of engineering and product management at Birst. He has also served as senior director of engineering at Domo Inc., as VP of engineering and product at Elastra, and has held technical leadership roles at EMC and Sun Microsystems.

“Alation is entering a phase of incredible growth, built on an impressive solution that is driving real value for customers worldwide,” Saiyed said. “I’m thrilled to be joining the team. Not only does Alation’s goal of inspiring a data-fluent world epitomize my mission of empowering data-driven organizations, but I am truly impressed with the amazing culture at Alation.”

Along with the additions of Gossain and Saiyed, the growing team in Chennai will be integral to Alation’s growth. The Chennai team has already spearheaded valuable initiatives, including important integrations with the key technologies in AWS’ and Microsoft’s data stacks and the development of the Alation Snowflake connector. The office represents a center of excellence for technical talent and software development at Alation, helping to drive the innovation that has made Alation a leader in Machine Learning Data Catalogs. The opening also comes on the heels of Alation’s launch of its new European headquarters in London, furthering its global expansion to meet growing demand for data cataloging solutions worldwide.

Interested in joining the Alation team in Chennai? See the Alation Careers page for opportunities at https://www.alation.com/careers.

Learn more about the Alation Data Catalog:

• Read about Alation’s driver $50 million Series C funding round and category leadership

• Download GigaOm Research’s latest report on data catalogs for enterprise data governance

• Download 451 Research’s report examining the growing importance of data catalogs

• Download Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for Metadata Management Solutions

• Read how customers are adopting machine learning data catalogs across a variety of industries

Read more about Alation’s machine-learning data catalog online at alation.com.