Berlin, October 11, 2024
FIWARE Foundation announced today that Chandra Challagonda is appointed as a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Clara Pezuela as a Chief Operating Officer (COO). They became new members of the FIWARE Board of Officers, effective immediately.
“In a bid to help FIWARE achieve great strategic goals and move forward with the transparency, integrity, and open communication that our global community expects and deserves, we are pleased to bring these leaders on board who have decades of professional experience, a history of driving business to excellence, and who are recognised for being active and widely known members of the FIWARE since its inception. We believe that this will positively impact FIWARE’s further growth, globalisation, and successful results on sustainable development of the FIWARE ecosystem and positioning as a leader of open source solutions on the market.”
Yasunori Mochizuki, Chairman of FIWARE’s Board of Directors
With 26 years of experience in the technological industry, including Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, open source technologies, Chandra Challagonda is well known as a business transformator, driving sustainable growth, and leading with a focus on innovation and customer-centric strategies. Chandra has extensive experience in executive leadership and technology-driven organizations taking such positions as Co-Founder, Board member, CEO and CTO. Over the last year, Chandra was working as a FIWARE community and board member, architect and Vice President, growing its global network and ecosystem and helping to develop sustainable strategies and partnerships in the organisation.
“As a member, Senior Architect, and Business Developer, I have been involved with the evolution of FIWARE since its early days. My new appointment as the new FIWARE CEO reflects a new level of commitment from my side to FIWARE’s mission and goals on the global stage. I am very proud to take this highly respected position to achieve big results, such as increasing FIWARE’s community engagement and ensuring that together with our members and partners, we actively promote and develop FIWARE technologies worldwide. I believe it will help to define new paths for the foundation and its rapid growth for innovative open source solutions.”
Chandra Challagonda, CEO at FIWARE Foundation
Clara Pezuela, having more than 24 years of experience in research for digital technologies, has a high level of skills in innovation management and, R&D European projects Management. Her technical knowledge is mainly in data spaces, cloud and edge computing, data platforms, open source communities, and digital solutions for smart cities. Additionally, she has leadership and organization competence, optimizing complex global operations and implementing scalable processes in leading international technological organisations. From 2022, Clara was working as FIWARE Vice-President of Funded Programs.
“I am honored to be appointed as Chief Operating Officer of FIWARE Foundation and take responsibility for overseeing the foundation’s day-to-day operational performance, accelerating the new potential for FIWARE, our members, and new innovation projects, ensuring efficiency and enhancing cross-functional collaboration to deliver value to our global community, partners, and the whole ecosystem.”
Clara Pezuela, COO at FIWARE Foundation
