Neha Narkhede
Neha Narkhede is an Indian American technology entrepreneur and the co-founder and former CTO of Confluent, a streaming data technology company. She co-created the open source software platform Apache Kafka. Narkhede now serves as a board member of Confluent. In 2020, she was listed as one of America’s Self-Made Women by Forbes.[1]
Neha Narkhede | |
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Born | Pune, Maharashtra, India |
Nationality | American |
Education | Pune Institute of Computer Technology (PICT), University of Pune Georgia Tech |
Education
Narkhede was raised in Pune, Maharashtra and went to the Pune Institute of Computer Technology (PICT), University of Pune, where she gained a Bachelor of Science in engineering. In 2007, she received a masters in technology from Georgia Tech.[2]
Career
After obtaining her Master's degree, Narkhede started her first job at Oracle as a principal software engineer.[3] After Oracle, she worked as the lead of streams infrastructure at LinkedIn.[3][4]
While working at LinkedIn in 2011, Narkhede created the Platform Apache Kafka, along with Jun Rao and Jay Kreps.[1] They came up with the idea while on a project at the company and developed Kafka as an open source Platform.[5] In 2014 she founded Confluent, a Palo Alto based startup, along with Rao and Kreps and decided to start Confluent as a B2B infrastructure company.[6]
In 2017 she co-authored Kafka: The Definitive Guide along with Gwen Shapira and Todd Palino which is about the technology that created Kafka.[4]
She was the CTO of Confluent and later also took upon the role of Chief Product Officer until 2020.[6] She now serves as a board member.[7]
She and her team at Confluent raised $125 million in 2019, bringing its total funding to $206 million in 2019.[2] And in April 2020, the company raised $250 million bringing its total funding to $456 million.[1]
Confluent as a company has filed for an IPO on June 1, 2021 and was valued at $4.5 billion.[7] Companies such as Goldman Sachs, Netflix and Uber use the platform for data driven purposes.[8]
Awards and honors
In 2017, MIT Technology Review listed her as one of the innovators under 35.[9] In the following year Narkhede was listed as one of America's and the world's top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes[1] and she won the Oracle Groundbreaker Award at the Oracle Code One conference in San Francisco.[10] In October 2020, Narkhede was listed #33 on the list of "America's Self Made Women" by Forbes.[1] In 2022, Neha received the Abie Award for Technology Entrepreneurship Award Winner at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing from Anitab.
References
- "Neha Narkhede". Forbes. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- "Neha Narkhede". www.gtalumni.org. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- Higgins, Laine (November 15, 2018). "Tech Entrepreneur Neha Narkhede Credits Sound Counsel for Her Success". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- Dada, Jumoke K. "Technista Talk: Neha Narkhede - LinkedIn Employee To Confluent Boss". Forbes. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- Tamaseb, A. (2021). Super Founders. PublicAffairs.
- "Neha Narkhede changing the face of superstar developers (she co-created Apache Kafka and Confluent!)". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- Novet, Jordan. "LinkedIn spinout Confluent files for IPO, with annualized revenue of over $300 million". CNBC. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- "Neha Narkhede | Innovators Under 35". www.innovatorsunder35.com. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- "2017". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- Morales, A. (2018). Oracle Blog. Retrieved June 4, 2021.