Databricks’ India VP steps down

Databrick’s vice president (VP) for India and SAARC region Anil Bhasin has announced his exit from the company. January 15 was his last day at the California-headquartered AI company. In his LinkedIn post announcing his departure from the company, Bhasin said that he would be stepping into the cybersecurity field with a new venture.

“Today is my last working day at Databricks and it has been a truly spectacular journey for me over the last 10+ quarters. I have had the privilege of working together with a super talented team, building the Databricks brand and I can say with absolute confidence and honesty that Databricks today is indeed the leading Data and AI brand in India,” said Bhasin.

“I feel truly humbled by the fact that the majority of the Top 500 Enterprises in India allowed us to earn their trust and chose to partner with Databricks. I couldn't be more proud of what Team India has achieved in a short period of time.”

Bhasin, an IT industry veteran, has three decades long experience in the networking, cyber security, and Intelligent Automation domains. He worked at Databricks for two and a half years. Before DataBricks, Bhasin was Managing Director and VP of UiPath India and South Asia region. He has also worked in organisations such as Palo Alto Networks, Cisco Systems, and Getronics Dubai.

Bhasin stepped down the same week when Databricks reportedly raised $5 billion in financing. As per Bloomberg’s report, the funds were raised from lenders such as Blackstone, Apollo Global Management and Blue Owl Capital, in what can be considered the company’s largest debt raise ever. 

Databricks, which calls itself the pioneer of data lakehouse, has taken the plunge into generative artificial intelligence (AI) with the launch of tools like Dolly in the past years. In 2023, in a major deal in the AI domain, Databricks acquired MosaicML, touted as the OpenAI competitor, for $1.3 billion.