Databricks Announces the Appointment of Kevin Jonkergouw as Regional Vice President of Benelux to Support Business Growth and Drive Customer Success

Amsterdam, Netherlands — November 21, 2023 — Databricks, the data and AI company, today announced the appointment of Kevin Jonkergouw as Regional Vice President of Enterprise for Benelux, bolstering its growth and expansion of its business in the region, which is a key market in Northern Europe. Databricks recently closed a $500 million Series I funding round, with a valuation of $43 billion. The company now has over 10,000 customers worldwide, including FrieslandCampina, ABN Amro, Shell, UCB and Ahold Delhaize in the Benelux region.

Jonkergouw is an experienced leader with over 15 years of experience working in the information technology and SaaS industries. In his new role, he will focus on leading the Benelux business, strengthening the local partner ecosystem, and helping data-forward organizations across the region adopt the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform.

Prior to joining Databricks, Jonkergouw served as VP of Benelux & Nordics at Sprinklr where he drove business growth by building out partner ecosystems and formulating a strong local strategy. He also spent over five years at Samanage, an IT service management and operations management provider, and served as General Manager, EMEA.

“We are thrilled to have Kevin join our team to supercharge our growth throughout Benelux and help even more customers realize the opportunity of data and AI, “ said Michael Green, VP, Head of Northern Europe at Databricks.” He brings a wealth of relevant experience and a proven track record in helping businesses solve their technology challenges. I have every confidence that he will drive adoption of our Data Intelligence Platform in the region, supporting customers to solve complex business challenges.”

Driving local growth with data and AI

Jonkergouw's appointment takes place at a pivotal time when data and AI are critical to innovation and business growth. There is a real opportunity to drive even more adoption of the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, which is built on a lakehouse architecture.

A recent Databricks survey of senior data and technology executives, in collaboration with MIT, revealed that 81% of global executives surveyed are convinced that AI will increase efficiency in their industry by at least 25% within the next two years. One-third of them believe that this efficiency gain will be more than 50%. Dutch executives are among the most optimistic about data modernization and AI investments in efficiency, savings, and innovation in their industry in the next two years, according to the same survey. The most desired data architecture in the era of generative AI is found to be a lakehouse architecture, and 99% of lakehouse adopters state that this architecture will help them achieve their data and AI goals. However, currently, of the global executives surveyed in the Netherlands, only 60% of their companies have implemented a Lakehouse architecture.  Of the remaining Dutch executives, all responded that they are likely to do so in the next three years.

“There has never been a more exciting time to join Databricks. As these survey findings show, there is a massive opportunity to help customers in the Netherlands and across the whole region to adopt a Lakehouse architecture in the era of generative AI,” said Kevin Jonkergouw, RVP, Enterprise, Benelux at Databricks. “I am excited to be here, working with a fantastic team to drive customer success, innovation, and growth in the region at such a pivotal time in AI history.”

About Databricks

Databricks is the Data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, Grammarly, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to unify and democratize data, analytics and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe and was founded by the original creators of Lakehouse, Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow. To learn more, follow Databricks on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.