Episode 27 | Will LaForest, Field CTO @ Confluent

Posted on Friday, Jul 28, 2023 | Category: Cloud Technology | Series: Exploring the Cloud | Cloud, Technology, Sales, AI, FieldCTO
Will LaForest is the Field CTO @ Confluent, creators and maintainers of Apache Kafka. Before joining Confluent, Will held senior technical and sales positions at very successful companies like SPSS, Mark Logic, MongoDB, and Red Hat. He joins us to discuss his journey to the Field CTO position and why he sees an increasing need for that position in the software space. We also talk about Kafka, why people love it (and nobody is trying to get rid of it), and what he’s excited about as the new generation of pre-sales professionals enters their careers.

Show Notes

Episode #27 of “Can I get that software in blue?”, a podcast by and for people engaged in technology sales. If you are in the technology presales, solution architecture, sales, support or professional services career paths then this show is for you!

Will LaForest is the Field CTO @ Confluent, creators and maintainers of Apache Kafka. Before joining Confluent, Will held senior technical and sales positions at very successful companies like SPSS, Mark Logic, MongoDB, and Red Hat. He joins us to discuss his journey to the Field CTO position and why he sees an increasing need for that position in the software space. We also talk about Kafka, why people love it (and nobody is trying to get rid of it), and what he’s excited about as the new generation of pre-sales professionals enters their careers.

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Guests

Will LaForest

Will LaForest

Will LaForest is the Field CTO @ Confluent, creators and maintainers of Apache Kafka. Before joining Confluent, Will held senior technical and sales positions at very successful companies like SPSS, Mark Logic, MongoDB, and Red Hat. He joins us to discuss his journey to the Field CTO position and why he sees an increasing need for that position in the software space. We also talk about Kafka, why people love it (and nobody is trying to get rid of it), and what he’s excited about as the new generation of pre-sales professionals enters their careers.