Confluent Opens Operations in Japan with Masaki Katsumata (勝俣正起) as Area Vice President, Japan Country Manager

Expansion into Japan broadens Confluent’s reach, advancing its mission of setting data in motion so any organization can innovate and thrive in a digital-first world

Tokyo, Japan – April 14, 2021 – Confluent, Inc., the platform to set data in motion, today announced the opening of Japan operations with Masaki Katsumata (勝俣正起) as area vice president. In this new role, Katsumata will build Confluent’s local operations to enable every organization in Japan to quickly and easily make data in motion core to their business. Current Confluent customers across APAC include Bank BRI, Bank BTPN and Bank Mandiri.

“It’s estimated that approximately 70 percent of the Fortune 500 have used Apache Kafka as data in motion becomes a critical capability for the next generation of companies,” said Damien Wong, Vice President, Confluent Asia Pacific and Japan (APAC). “Katsumata’s management skills, experience in the Japan market, and commitment to our customers and partners makes him the right choice to lead our operations in one of the largest and most advanced software markets in the world.”

Katsumata is a highly accomplished leader who most recently served as Actifio’s Vice President, Japan Country Manager role he held since 2012. At Actifio, Katsumata played an instrumental role in leading Japan to be a highly productive region for the company globally. Prior to that, he spent 4 years at IBM Japan as the Business Unit Executive for their storage business , leading a huge team. Before IBM, Katsumata was one of the top district sales managers of EMC Japan.

“As companies play to win in the digital economy in Japan, more and more organizations are realizing the power that data in motion brings to transforming their businesses,” says Katsumata, Area Vice President, Japan Country Manager. “DevOps, IT and business leadership teams recognize that in order to run a modern business, applications need quick, reliable and scalable access to the data that continuously flows throughout their organization. I’m thrilled to be joining the Confluent team to deliver transformational technology and business impact for our customers in Japan.”

The Rise of Data in Motion

The digital realm has become the new competitive battlefield in the global economy. In order to compete and win in today’s world, organizations must continually innovate on software systems that run increasingly core aspects of their operations. This is a matter of life or death for every organization. Customer expectations have been set by tech upstarts that have built on modern platforms and are racing to get to scale. To fend off these disruptors, businesses in every industry are racing to rebuild their businesses on a modern software platform. The critical applications in a modern software-defined business are about delivering end-to-end digital customer experiences, and fully integrated real-time operations. These systems must cut across infrastructure silos and continually react, respond, and adapt to an ever evolving business in real-time. To accomplish this, organizations need data infrastructure that supports collecting a continuous flow of data from across the company and building applications that process and react to that flow of data in real-time. In other words, as a company increasingly becomes software-defined, it needs a data platform built for data in motion. This is why data in motion is at the center of the next major wave of technology innovation companies are undergoing.

Confluent is building the foundational platform for data in motion. Its cloud-native offering is designed to be the intelligent connective tissue enabling real-time data, from multiple sources, to constantly stream across the organization. With Confluent, organizations can create a central nervous system to innovate and win in a digital-first world.

• See how Confluent is helping its customers transform their businesses: https://www.confluent.io/customers/
• Learn more about Confluent: https://www.confluent.io/
• Follow Confluent on Twitter: https://twitter.com/confluentinc

About Confluent Confluent is pioneering a fundamentally new category of data infrastructure focused on data in motion. Confluent’s cloud-native offering is the foundational platform for data in motion – designed to be the intelligent connective tissue enabling real-time data, from multiple sources, to constantly stream across the organization. With Confluent, organizations can meet the new business imperative of delivering rich, digital front-end customer experiences and transitioning to sophisticated, real-time, software-driven backend operations. To learn more, please visit www.confluent.io.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “ahead,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “seek,” “plan,” “project,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. Confluent assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

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