Welcome to ExtraMile by SecureITWorld, a Q&A series where industry leaders share their expertise, insights, and visions shaping the tech landscape.
Today, we are excited to feature Alexander Walden, CEO of Ververica, the original creator of Apache Flink®. Ververica is transforming the data streaming space with its Unified Streaming Data Platform. The company allows businesses to use real-time analytics and scalable event-driven architectures.
With remarkable contributions to the data streaming sector over the years, Alex has set benchmarks in his leadership approach. He believes in continuous innovation while standardizing data streaming methodologies, ensuring enhanced customer service. Apart from data streaming, our guest has thorough expertise in other domains, including IT sales, IT architecture, and business management.
Join us as we explore the future of real-time data processing and the driving force behind Ververica’s success.
Hello Alexander, it’s a pleasure to have you with us!
1. Your career has taken you through many roles before becoming CEO. If you could pick one important moment in your journey that shaped your leadership style, what would it be and why?
Ans. One defining moment in my career was leading large-scale transformation initiatives that required balancing technical innovation with business impact at T-Systems. I realized early on that success isn’t just about building cutting-edge solutions or using the latest technologies - it’s about ensuring those transformative solutions create tangible value for customers and employees have the shared vision for enabling that. This experience shaped my leadership philosophy: to empowering teams with autonomy while ensuring a clear strategic vision that aligns with long-term business goals and delivers value for the customer.
At Ververica I encourage innovation that is customer-driven, ensuring that everything we develop is aligned with real world needs for delivering innovation with a purpose.
2. At Ververica, you lead a team working on data streaming. What does a typical day look like for you, and how do you keep the team motivated and creative?
Ans. At Ververica I’m always encouraging my team to push the boundaries of what’s possible. Recently we expanded our deployment offering on our Unified Streaming Data Platform with Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC)’, allowing enterprises with existing cloud infrastructure to leverage their spending commitments and with cloud providers while retaining full data sovereignty. No days are typically the same, although often revolve around strategic planning to capitalize on opportunities in the market landscape. I am a firm believer in an open-door policy and encouraging collaboration that sparks creativity. We foster an environment where our engineers and product teams feel safe experimenting with new ideas while staying customer-focused. Keeping the team engaged also involves recognizing their contributions and celebrating milestones - big and small.
3. Every industry faces barriers. Can you mention one of the recent challenges faced by the company and how your team turned it into a learning opportunity?
Ans. Along with identifying the gap in the market to expand our product offering with BYOC, another challenge we recently faced was the growing complexity of data architectures in enterprise environments. Many organizations struggle with integrating real-time data processing into their existing IT ecosystems. Our solution was to double down on making our technology integrations more accessible through Ververica’s Unified Streaming Data Platform. This challenge taught us that customer education is just as critical as technical advancements. As a result, we’ve expanded our documentation and built stronger partnerships with enterprises transitioning to real-time data-driven strategies.
4. With technology evolving rapidly, what do you envision as the next big breakthrough in data streaming? How is Ververica preparing to embrace these changes?
Ans. We’re already starting to see a shift between a bridged gap between unified data streaming and data lakehouses. Recently at Flink Forward Berlin 2024, we announced ‘Fluss’, a streaming storage system designed to power real-time analytics by acting as the real-time data layer for the Lakehouse. Enabling businesses to achieve sub-second latency, high throughput, and cost efficiency for data analytics.
At Ververica, we have invested significant effort into advancing the data streaming ecosystem, including major contributions to Apache Flink, Apache Flink CDC, and Apache Paimon. With the release of Fluss, available as open-source software, we’ve incorporated it into our solution. We see the benefits Fluss offers the market and are behind contributions to it’s technological advancements.
5. Your products are designed to tackle complex data challenges. Can you share a story about a customer whose problem was solved, and which solutions did you use?
Ans. We’re always pleased to see how our Unified Streaming Data Platform is transforming enterprises. One compelling example is our work in real-time fraud detection for One Mount Group, Vietnam’s consumer application trusted by millions of users. They needed to process millions of transactions daily while ensuring fraud prevention. Using Ververica’s Unified Streaming Data Platform, they deployed their Apache Flink® jobs on our Ververica Platform: Self-Managed deployment, enabling real-time monitoring, fraud detection, and instant decision-making to secure transactions before losses occur.
Read more about One Mount Group’s real-time fraud detection success: https://www.ververica.com/use-case/fraud-detection
6. Ververica has had major successes, like your cooperation with Airbus and Booking.com. Which achievement makes you most proud, and what was its impact on your vision of the company?
Ans. At Ververica, we take immense pride in every milestone that advances our mission of empowering businesses with high-performance data streaming and processing solutions. Whether it’s working with industry leaders like Airbus to enable them to build real-time intelligence for the products they serve within the aviation market. Or Booking.com to provide a robust security system for their internal teams. Our greatest achievement isn’t set to one stand-alone but seeing our customers and the wider data streaming communities transform their real-time data challenges into opportunities.
7. You emphasize a collaborative culture at Ververica. What unique initiatives or activities do you encourage to foster teamwork and innovation among your employees?
Ans. At Ververica, we prioritize an open and inclusive culture that fuels innovation. As a largely remote organization across multiple time zones, it’s important to come together in face-to-face settings to ensure our collaborative cultures can continue. Every year, the entire organization comes together for an offsite. These aren’t just about work but about building real relationships across teams. I’m a firm believer that innovation doesn’t happen in silos - it happens when people with different perspectives collaborate.
8. As someone who has navigated the tech landscape, what’s one piece of wisdom you would share with young professionals looking to make their mark in the industry?
Ans. The most valuable lesson I’ve learned is to remain adaptable and open to learning. The tech industry evolves rapidly, and those who succeed are the ones who can pivot when necessary and embrace continuous growth. I always advise young professionals to get hands-on experience - whether through contributing to open-source projects, internships, or networking with industry experts. Success in this field isn’t just about technical skills; it’s about curiosity, resilience, and the willingness to solve hard problems.
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