You may not have heard of Snowflake but if you’re active in the Toronto technology scene, you’ll know their Canadian Managing Director Bilal Khan.
Buried below assorted board roles and accomplishments including Bay Street Bull’s Power List and Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, you’ll see on LinkedIn that Khan was the Founding Chief Executive Officer of Canada’s largest scale-up innovation hub, OneEleven.
Appointed Snowflake’s Head of Canada last year, Khan is still eager to help scale home-grown Canadian companies but now he wants them to unleash the power of data with Snowflake’s Data Cloud.
Snowflake offers companies one solution that provides multiple capabilities. It centralizes virtually all data in a single, governed repository that enables easy and secure data sharing without moving or copying data. The multi-cluster shared data architecture that powers Snowflake’s fully managed platform delivers near-unlimited storage and computing practically in real time to virtually any number of concurrent users doing business in the Data Cloud.
It also functions seamlessly across multiple cloud providers and regions. And with Snowflake Data Marketplace, companies can securely offer, discover, and consume live governed data and data services at scale but without the latency, cost, and effort required with traditional marketplaces.
“As I saw how Snowflake enabled companies to become truly data-driven, I was inspired to join its mission. As the new head of Snowflake Canada, I’m committed to helping more organizations discover the capabilities of the Data Cloud,” Khan penned in a blog post announcing his hire.
“Canada is home to an exciting and growing technology industry with startups that are innovating rapidly and a list of newly minted unicorns that are competing globally. We also have established, best-of-breed, global enterprises in industries such as financial services, retail, energy, and telecommunications.”
Khan believes that unfortunately Canada, like many economies around the world, suffers from a data deficit. “Whether it’s the private or public sector, small startups or large enterprises, much of our data is locked up, siloed, and fragmented.”
Snowflake’s Data Cloud can empower startups to scale and grow quickly, and it can enable large enterprises to migrate from their restrictive legacy infrastructure to a modern data infrastructure that fosters innovation.
With Khan leading the way, Snowflake is making significant investments in Canada. The San Mateo company has doubled their Canadian team in the last 12 months, now employs close to 100 north of the border, and their Toronto engineering site has become a major global engineering hub.
Last year, Snowflake acquired Toronto-born privacy-focused startup CryptoNumerics to enhance its product capabilities for simplifying data collaboration while complying with privacy regulations, and it plans to continue seeking strategic investments in Canada.
The Snowflake Canada team is on a mission to even the playing field between large technology giants and established incumbents. Interested in joining their mission? Check out their open roles which include Account Executives, Recruiters, Software Engineers, and Solutions Architects.