HELSINKI, Finland — February 17, 2021- Aiven, a software company that combines the best open source technologies with cloud infrastructure, announced today the appointment of Julian Lange as Chief Financial Officer and James Arlen as Chief Information Security Officer to the Aiven team.
Bringing a combined 35+ years of experience to Aiven, both Lange and Arlen represent key additions to an executive team the company has started building out last year. The additions follow Aiven’s $40M Series B from early 2020, after which the company further emphasized several new initiatives, including the expansion of its product roadmap and operations in North America, to heighten global awareness of Aiven’s offerings.
“The strategic appointment of Julian and James is paramount to our future success,” said Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO of Aiven. “Given our continued fast growth, it is important we bring onboard seasoned professionals in vital functions such as Finance and Information Security, next to our big investments into our technological, engineering and go-to-market capabilities.”
Lange has more than 15 years of experience in private and public companies, having worked with large corporations and startups in a variety of B2B and B2C industries. Previously CFO at ASX listed Marley Spoon, he helped grow a small startup into a profitable $300+ million revenue company, operating on three continents, over the course of six years. Before that, Lange worked at General Electric (GE) for 10 years and held several key financial roles in both the US and Europe.
“Aiven’s growth to-date has been impressive,” Lange said. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to join the company at such a pivotal moment in its evolution and look forward to contributing to Aiven’s continued success.”
With more than two decades of experience delivering information security solutions to Fortune 500, TSE 100 and major public-sector companies, Arlen has held key roles in publicly traded financial companies, large-scale power utilities and internationally-recognized manufacturing and financial organizations. Prior to joining Aiven, he most recently served as the Director of Production Engineering at Salesforce Heroku. Arlen’s expertise, which includes security certifications in CISSP, CISA and CRISC, has led him to be a known voice in the industry as a blogger, podcaster, speaker and contributor to media and standards.
“In this new role with Aiven, I plan to broaden our compliance base, continue to execute an already advanced security program and fully integrate security across all our organization’s functions. The future for Aiven is bright, and I am excited to offer my skills and insights as the company continues to evolve,” Arlen said.
About Aiven Headquartered in Helsinki with offices in Berlin, Sydney, Toronto and Boston, Aiven is an SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certified cloud data platform provider, operating managed open source database, event streaming, cache, search, and graphing solutions for over 500 customers worldwide. For more information, visit https://aiven.io or follow Aiven on Twitter: @aiven_io.