Splunk Hires AWS Database Exec As New President Of Products And Technology

Shawn Bice, who worked at Microsoft before joining AWS, will oversee all product development and technical operations at the data management platform company.

Data management software company Splunk has hired Shawn Bice, who currently manages Amazon Web Services’ lineup of database products, to the newly created position of president of products and technology.

Bice (pictured) will report to CEO Doug Merritt and will oversee all Splunk technical divisions including product, engineering, design and architecture operations, as well as the CIO, CTO and chief information security officer functions at the company.

Bice’s appointment, effective June 1, comes less than a month after former CTO Tim Tully left Splunk to join venture capital firm Menlo Ventures as a partner, overseeing that firm’s Menlo XV fund for early-stage startups. Tully, who informed Splunk of his plans to leave on April 9, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, had been Splunk’s CTO since August 2017.

[Related: Splunk Doubles Down On IT Management And DevOps With New Observability Cloud]

Bice joins Splunk from AWS where he has worked for five years overseeing the cloud giant’s portfolio of database products including Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Amazon Aurora, Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon DocumentDB.

Before joining AWS in 2016 he worked at Microsoft for 17 years in various leadership roles, including managing the company’s SQL Server database product and Azure cloud data services.

“I am excited to join the talented team at Splunk and look forward to helping Splunk’s customers along their journey to the cloud and the company advance during this next phase of growth,” Bice said in a statement announcing his hiring.

“When it comes to data, we have only scratched the surface, and there is a tremendous opportunity for customers to reimagine and accelerate their business, both in the cloud and on-premises edge. Splunk leads with a customer-centric approach and is people-centered at the heart of its business. That value system empowers Splunk’s customers and employees to greatly transform the way we work together,” Bice said.

Bice’s appointment comes at a critical time for Splunk as the company continues to develop new products for cloud computing, based on its machine data “data-to-everything” platform, and adapt its existing product portfolio for the cloud.

Bice’s hiring comes on the heels of Splunk’s April appointment of Teresa Carlson, also a former AWS and Microsoft executive, for the newly created job of president and chief growth officer, overseeing all sales, marketing and customer relations operations.

Splunk said the company still plans to hire a CTO to replace Tully with that person reporting to Bice.

Splunk said in a statement that Bice “has a successful record of building and operating native cloud services at scale and velocity and driving on-premises to SaaS transitions. A portion of his success has come through deep customer centricity and top talent attraction and retention.”

“The extensive cloud knowledge and data domain expertise that Bice brings is unparalleled. It will help accelerate Splunk‘s technology solutions and cloud capabilities at scale - fueling our success as a high- growth company and furthering our mission of removing the barriers between data and action,” CEO Merritt said in a statement.

In a follow up email with CRN, Merritt said Splunk’s ecosystem of channel partners, especially OEM and technology partners, will benefit from Bice’s appointment.

“Splunk is uniquely positioned to help customers and channel partners on their cloud journey, so they can more quickly and securely make meaningful data-based decisions,” Merritt said.

“Shawn joining our team not only adds value to our channel partners, his customer-first mindset adds value to both customers and partners as we continue to help them meet, and even exceed, their data needs,” Merritt said. “His track record of building and operating native cloud services at scale and velocity, as well as driving on-prem to SaaS transitions, is exactly what Splunk requires as we continue to drive our transformation to a cloud-first company.”