‘Stephen [Orban] has a long history of helping companies build and scale successful partnership programs, including more than a decade leading cloud migration and partner programs at AWS and Google Cloud,’ Databricks says regarding its new product ecosystem and partnerships leader.
Fresh off unveiling its $1 billion acquisition of database startup Neon this week, Databricks has hired cloud marketplace guru Stephen Orban to expand Databricks’ partner ecosystem and boost the Databricks Marketplace.
“At AWS, Stephen invented and launched AWS Data Exchange, which now offers data from hundreds of providers,” Databricks told CRN in an email. “Stephen has a long history of helping companies build and scale successful partnership programs, including more than a decade leading cloud migration and partner programs at AWS and Google Cloud.”
Orban left Google Cloud in April as the cloud company’s vice president of migrations, ISVs and the Google Cloud Marketplace after joining in 2022.
[Related: Microsoft Vs. AWS Vs. Google Cloud Earnings Q1 2025 Face-Off]
Prior to Google Cloud, Orban was general manager and vice president of the AWS Marketplace, control services and ISVs.
Combined, he spent over a decade as a key leader for both Google Cloud and AWS’ online marketplace strategies, while also expanding both cloud giants’ partner ecosystems.
Orban officially joined Databricks this week as its new senior vice president of product ecosystem and partnerships.
Databricks said Orban will be instrumental in expanding its ecosystem to tens of thousands of partners. He will also be involved in Databricks product development, ensuring that partners’ road maps and strategic plans are aligned to mutually grow and benefit.
Orban Joins Databricks ‘To Build Earth’s Most Robust Data And AI Ecosystem’
In a LinkedIn post Thursday, Orban said he joined Databricks to “build Earth’s most robust data and AI ecosystem.”
“We aspire to give every customer every tool or dataset they could ever want while helping any company building on Databricks share more data, build better tooling, access more customers and, most importantly, grow their business,” said Orban on Linkedin.
Orban aims to streamline the process for new ISVs and data partners to list and grow in the Databricks Marketplace.
Another priority for Orban will be increasing access to more third-party datasets that Databricks customers can use to pair with their own assets to improve the accuracy of data intelligence workloads.
“During my first 90 days I’m aiming to meet with at least 90 customers and 90 partners to learn what you’d like to see from the Databricks ecosystem,” Orban said.
Databricks Wraps Up $15B Financing Round, Unveils Neon Buy
Orban’s hiring comes on the heels of Databricks closing a Series J funding round in 2025, adding a $5.25 billion credit facility to its previously announced $10 billion equity financing.
The San Francisco-based company said existing investor QIA, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, along with new investors Temasek and entities administered by Macquarie Capital also participated in the Series J funding round that puts Databricks’ market cap at $62 billion as of early 2025.
Meanwhile, by acquiring serverless Postgres specialist Neon, Databricks looks to give developers serverless Postgres technology that can “keep up with agentic speed, pay-as-you-go economics and the openness of the Postgres community,” said Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi.
“The era of AI-native, agent-driven applications is reshaping what a database must do,” said Ghodsi in a statement. “Neon proves it: Four out of every five databases on their platform are spun up by code, not humans.”
The deal is expected to close later this year.
