Kurt J. Bilafer Joins ClearStory Data as Vice President of Sales to Drive Rapid Growth

MENLO PARK, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 9, 2014) - ClearStory Data, the company that's bringing Data Intelligence to everyone, today announced the hire of data and analytics veteran Kurt J. Bilafer as Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Services. Bilafer was previously Vice President of Sales at SAP, leading their global Business Intelligence and Predictive team. Bilafer will oversee ClearStory's sales across North America and the expansion strategy into EMEA and APAC, as the company scales to bring Data Intelligence to all business users.

"ClearStory has pioneered a new approach for disparate data analysis and fast, discovery-based insights. Demand has grown substantially as organizations struggle to wrangle more data sources together and make it consumable for the business. Having a seasoned executive like Kurt will help us meet that demand and accelerate our reach across the Global 2000," said Sharmila Mulligan, CEO and Founder, ClearStory Data. "Kurt has vast data and analytics experience and has worked at both new, transformational companies and established global companies like SAP. His background is unique, his track record impressive and we are thrilled to have him join ClearStory's executive team as we pursue the big opportunity ahead."

Bilafer is a sales veteran with more than 20 years of experience in direct sales, channel and partner development and business strategy. Prior to ClearStory, he was Global Vice President of Sales at SAP, previously serving the company as Vice President of Analytics for Asia, Pacific & Japan and Global Vice President of Business Analytics and Technology solutions, Ecosystem and Channel Partners. He was also SAP North America's Vice President, heading up enterprise performance and risk management and spent a year with PricewaterhouseCoopers to rebuild their SAP National Practice. Bilafer joined SAP after its acquisition of Pilot Software.

"There's a massive shift from casual consumers of information to the active, empowered user and ClearStory is enabling this shift," Bilafer said. "The way business users integrate and interact with various sources of data has to be simple and intuitive, less like pretty static dashboards, and more interactive and real-time collaboration across data variety. I'm excited to join ClearStory at a fast growth time and look forward contributing to its trajectory as we shape this next generation of data analysis."

About ClearStory Data
A Gartner Cool Vendor in Big Data for 2014, ClearStory Data is bringing next generation Data Intelligence to everyone in order to accelerate the way businesses get answers across any number of data sources. By dramatically simplifying data access to internal and external sources, harmonizing disparate data on-the-fly, and enabling fast, collaborative exploration, ClearStory Data's end-to-end solution includes an integrated platform and incredibly simple user application. The company is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, DAG Ventures, Google Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). To keep up with how the world is becoming more Data Intelligent, visit www.clearstorydata.com and follow us on Twitter @ClearStoryData.