Neha Narkhede (born 1984 or 1985[1]) is an American technology entrepreneur and the co-founder and former CTO of Confluent, a streaming data technology company. She co-created the open source software platform Apache Kafka. Narkhede now serves as a board member of Confluent. She co-founded risk detection platform developer, Oscilar, in 2021, where she is the CEO. In 2020, she was listed as one of America’s Self-Made Women by Forbes.[2]
After obtaining her Master's degree, Narkhede started her first job at Oracle as a software engineer.[4] After Oracle, she worked as the lead of streams infrastructure at LinkedIn.[4][5]
While working at LinkedIn in 2011, Narkhede created the Platform Apache Kafka, along with Jun Rao and Jay Kreps.[2] They came up with the idea while on a project at the company and developed Kafka as an open source Platform.[6] In 2014 she founded Confluent, a Palo Alto based startup, along with Rao and Kreps and decided to start Confluent as a B2B infrastructure company.[7]
In 2017 she co-authored Kafka: The Definitive Guide along with Gwen Shapira and Todd Palino which is about the technology that created Kafka.[5]
She was the CTO of Confluent and later also took upon the role of chief product officer until 2020,[7] but remained as a board member.[8]
She and her team at Confluent raised $125 million in 2019, bringing its total funding to $206 million in 2019.[3] And in April 2020, the company raised $250 million bringing its total funding to $456 million.[2]
Narkhede and her husband co-founded Oscilar in 2021, which develops a real-time artificial intelligence-based platform to help decrease the risks involved with online transactions. The company came out of stealth mode two years later, with Narkhede as CEO.[1]
Recognition
In 2017, MIT Technology Review listed her as one of the innovators under 35.[10] In the following year Narkhede was listed as one of America's and the world's top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes[2] and she won the Oracle Groundbreaker Award at the Oracle Code One conference in San Francisco.[11] In October 2020, Narkhede was listed #33 on the list of "America's Self Made Women" by Forbes.[2] In 2022, Narkhede received the Abie Award for Technology Entrepreneurship Award Winner at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing from Anitab.[12]
Personal life
Narkhede is married to Sachin Kulkarni, an engineering executive, with whom she has a son.[1]