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I’ve spent nearly two decades in technology sales building long term customer…
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Tony Brinkhaus reposted thisTony Brinkhaus reposted thisNeed to get Kafka topics into Iceberg tables? Don't use Spark or rely on tiered storage. Use WarpStream Tableflow. It's so simple that it almost feels like magic and does it with low latency while taking care of compaction 👉 https://lnkd.in/grAfKQNv
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Tony Brinkhaus posted thisI’m considering a trip back to HIMSS this year. If you’re planning to attend, I’d love to connect. It’s always energizing to reconnect with familiar faces and meet new ones across the healthcare and data space. Let me know if you’ll be there.
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Tony Brinkhaus shared this“Pressure is a privilege.” I heard this recently, and it hit home. The last couple of months gave those words real meaning. I coached both of my boys’ football teams while navigating a stretch of important work projects. Most days my wife and I only connected over morning coffee or a quick meal before I was out the door again. Long days, late nights, and plenty of moments running on fumes. But I won’t ever regret the time with my kids, their teammates, or the effort poured into work that matters. When the seasons wrapped up, my wife and I took a long overdue trip to Banff. It gave me space to reflect on how full my life really is. Balancing everything wasn’t a burden. It was a privilege. I’ve also been thinking a lot about a close teammate and friend who has been battling brain cancer since March 2024. His mantra has always been to “be like a buffalo and run into the storm,” and he continues to live that every day. His strength puts everything into perspective. This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for my family, friends, coworkers, and customers, many of whom have become friends. I’m grateful for the opportunities, the challenges, and the people who make the pressure worth carrying. Happy Thanksgiving.
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Tony Brinkhaus shared thisNew Orleans is calling. I can already hear the jazz, smell the jambalaya, and feel the buzz of Bourbon Street. On October 29–30, #Current25 brings the global data streaming community together to learn, share, and connect. Join me in NOLA for the biggest event in data streaming! Questions? Drop a comment or shoot me a DM. https://cnfl.io/463TD5I
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Tony Brinkhaus shared thisBBQ in your kitchen. Bourbon in your glass. WarpStream in your stack. Register now to sip, sauce, and stream with us. 👇 https://lnkd.in/eQie6RSsA Confluent Experience: Whiskey, WarpStream & the Art of BBQA Confluent Experience: Whiskey, WarpStream & the Art of BBQ
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Tony Brinkhaus shared thisSpring has arrived in Minnesota, and the next stop on the Data Streaming World Tour will be Minneapolis on May 13 at O'Shaughnessy Distilling Co. We’re returning to a great venue near the University of Minnesota to bring the local data community together once again. You’ll hear a keynote from Kai Waehner, insights from Fastenal, and plenty of real-world discussion around Kafka, GenAI, and what’s next for modern data architecture. The event is free, with great food, drinks, and even better conversation. Whiskey not your thing? No problem. We will be next door to Malcolm Yards and Surly, two Minneapolis staples worth exploring before or after the event. If you’re in Minnesota and working in data, come join us. https://lnkd.in/gDmDCTRa
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Tony Brinkhaus shared thisWe’re bringing the Data Streaming World Tour to Minneapolis on May 13, and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s right in the backyard of my alma mater, the University of Minnesota. We’re returning to O’Shaughnessy Distilling Co., where we hosted last year during what some of us still like to call The Artist Formerly Known as the Data in Motion World Tour. The feedback was great, and this year’s shaping up to be even better. We’ll kick things off with a keynote from Kai Waehner, one of my favorite voices in data streaming, along with a spotlight from Fastenal, and another local customer speaker is nearly confirmed. If you’re working with Kafka, exploring GenAI use cases, or considering what’s next for your data architecture, this would be a great use of your time. https://lnkd.in/gDmDCTRa
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Tony Brinkhaus shared thisTableflow is now generally available, and the response from customers has been incredible. It makes data in Confluent Cloud instantly available for analytics by registering it as external tables in open formats, like Apache Iceberg with Polaris or Delta Lake with Unity Catalog. No more traditional ETL. Real-time data is now instantly accessible and actionable. Through our partnerships with Databricks, Snowflake, and a growing list of strategic partners, we’re helping customers seamlessly integrate real-time and historical data, simplify their data architecture, and deliver AI-ready data products across both operational and analytical environments. I love where we’re heading as a company, and our customers feel the same. Exciting times ahead.Tableflow: Represent Kafka topics as Apache Iceberg® or Delta Lake tables in a few clicksTableflow: Represent Kafka topics as Apache Iceberg® or Delta Lake tables in a few clicks
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Tony Brinkhaus reposted thisTony Brinkhaus reposted thisThe future of data engineering is evolving toward real-time, reliable, and efficient operations, and we're ready to guide you through the transformation. Join our very own Nick Larson, VP of Technology, and Bart Kersteter, Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering at Confluent on February 19th in Minneapolis for an engaging half-day event where you will: ➡️ Dive into the Shift Left approach to enhance data pipelines ➡️ Participate in insightful roundtable discussions with customers and Confluent subject matter experts ➡️ Experience hands-on sessions with #Flink & #Stream Governance This event showcases how #Confluent #Microsoft technologies converge under the leadership of companies like #Improving to tackle complex customer issues. Limited seats are available—secure your spot now! -> https://cnfl.io/4aTWvEv #ShiftLeft #Confluent #LifeAtImproving
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Tony Brinkhaus liked thisTony Brinkhaus liked thisLast week I had the privilege of speaking at the scholarship luncheon at University of St. Thomas. No agenda. No ego. Just a conversation about humble beginnings, the people who shaped me, and the power of "the butterfly effect". It takes parents/siblings that show you grit. Teammates who hold you accountable. Coaches who see something in you before you see it yourself. Donors who made it affordable. I was lucky enough to have all of that here. Every thread of my life — my family, my career, the non-profit — traces back to this institution. My ask was simple: don't forget where you came from. And don't forget to pay it forward. God is Good! #RollToms #UniversityOfStThomas #GiveBack #ChangeStartsWithMe
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Tony Brinkhaus liked thisTony Brinkhaus liked thisI am excited to announce that I have joined Solace as Senior Director, North America Partnerships. Solace is dedicated to enabling real-time, event-driven systems through an event mesh that connects applications, data, and AI agents and orchestrates their interactions. Beyond the technology, I am impressed by the people at Solace and their genuine commitment to helping customers solve real problems. I would like to extend my gratitude to Bill Jackes for his contributions over the years and for establishing such a strong foundation, and to Paul Fitzpatrick for the opportunity to build upon this legacy and elevate it to the next level. I look forward to getting started with the team, our partners, and customers.
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Tony Brinkhaus reacted on thisTony Brinkhaus reacted on thisAttn: Fellow volunteer Baseball/Softball coaches. You should be using AI to help you manage lineups/rosters/positions. Especially for Rec. league when you want to give every kid an equal opportunity. I used Claude to build an Excel file that does all the work for me and erased a huge headache of manually tracking batting lineup and fielding positions. Message me if you have questions.
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Tony Brinkhaus liked thisTony Brinkhaus liked thisA few weeks ago, I was honored to be nominated for the AWS Future Leaders Academy, a program that brings together individuals from across AWS to learn from executives, explore perspectives on leadership, and collaborate on a capstone project with real impact for the broader organization. What's struck me most so far is the people. My peers in this cohort have been every bit as inspiring as the leaders speaking to us, and I'm inspired by the work we'll do together. In my day-to-day, I navigate a lot of ambiguity, and I'm fortunate to do that alongside a fantastic team. This program is sharpening how I nurture that team and lead through the unknown with more intention and grace. Grateful to my leadership for investing in my growth, and to my new cohort for the hard work ahead. Sincere thank you to Anu Kanneganti Kris Satterthwaite for the nomination! And to my new cohort, Dustin K Brown Sruthi Sonnenberg Jeff Escott Sai Lolayekar Danny K. Tim Ramos, Let's Go! 🚀
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Tony Brinkhaus reacted on thisTony Brinkhaus reacted on thisExcited to share that I've joined Databricks as a Strategic Account Executive on the Healthcare Payer team led by Kristen Grusin & Edward Leahy!! 🎉 After four years at Gartner working with Global Enterprise clients, I've had the privilege of advising some of the world's largest organizations on their most critical business and technology decisions. That experience gave me a front-row seat to how transformative data and AI will be across industries and how much is still left on the table for most companies. The Data + AI space is moving fast, and Databricks is setting the pace. I'm incredibly excited by the opportunity to work at the intersection of industry leading technology and healthcare right here in Michigan. An industry where better data decisions can genuinely improve the health of Michiganders. I'm grateful for everything I learned at Gartner, the relationships I built along the way, and the leaders that helped me grow Dan Snyder Justin Clesas Michelle Faychak. I'm going to miss my clients and colleagues dearly. As with most things in life, onward and upward to the next chapter!
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Tony Brinkhaus liked thisTony Brinkhaus liked thisNext week, I’ll be speaking at IBM Think with Scott Brokaw on how to build trusted AI on a real-time data foundation. We’ve seen rapid progress in models and agentic tooling, yet B2B enterprise AI still lags. The bottleneck isn’t the model, it’s the data. Enterprise data systems are messy (they always have been) and rarely reflect what’s happening right now. Without real-time visibility, AI is always a step behind. That matters in B2B environments where decisions depend on live signals like fraud, supply chain shifts, and customer behavior. In this session, we’ll cover: - Why real-time data is foundational to making AI actually work in production - How AI requires both real-time signals and historical context, and what that means for enterprise data architecture - How IBM watsonx and Confluent come together to enable trusted, event-driven AI systems If you’re attending Think, would love to connect.
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Tony Brinkhaus liked thisTony Brinkhaus liked thisToday marks my first official day as the Chief Revenue Officer at @MongoDB. The best companies are defined by their ability to solve the most complex problems for their customers. As organizations modernize their application architectures for the AI era, @MongoDB is uniquely positioned at the heart of this evolution. I am thrilled to lead our global sales organization as we help customers unlock the power of their data across increasingly complex, multi-cloud, and enterprise-wide workloads. I had the opportunity to meet some of the team at Sales Kickoff recently, and I couldn’t be more energized by the warm welcome and the incredible culture I've experienced firsthand. I’m also honored to be working alongside MongoDB’s incredible leadership team: Chirantan "CJ" Desai, Deepa Gopinath, Erica Volini, Jim Scharf, May Petry, Andrew Stephens Harsha Jalihal Benjamin Cefalo Pablo Stern and Mike Berry to support MongoDB’s next phase of growth. CJ’s vision for the future of the data platform is inspiring, and I look forward to building on the incredible momentum this team has already created. Dev Ittycheria Cedric Pech Paul Capombassis Lip-Bu Tan Carl Eschenbach Rob Enslin Jay Kreps Erica Ruliffson Schultz Matt Miller Thomas Neergaard Hansen Dominick Delfino Kelly O. Kay Jeff SandersAlexis Hennessy Daniel Dines Martin Casado Samir Ranavat Alyssa Henry Mike Volpi Tom Killalea Chip Hazard Brandon Sweeney Evantic Capital Tom Grady Gustavo Loewe Simon Eide Sean Heneghan MJ McCarthy Cristina Castillo McCreary (Wheeler) #LifeAtMongoDB
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Tony Brinkhaus liked thisTony Brinkhaus liked thisBuried in my LinkedIn profile (and resume for that matter) you’ll find “coach, highland ball” - 3+ years running. I’ve coached this dude’s baseball teams and his sisters softball teams for years and will again this season. Happy summer coaching season to all of you who celebrate and participate; I see you. And go twins! ⚾️
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Education
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University of Minnesota
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Activities and Societies: Football Team
Academic All Big Ten (four years)
Scholar Athlete Award (four years)
Semifinalist, The Campbell Trophy (Academic Heisman)
National Football Foundation Hampshire Honor Society
Elected team captain by teammates
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Alex Smith
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Guilherme Sepe
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Phillip Rodas
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Lou Wolf
ZoomInfo just took its partnership with Claude to the next level. 📈 In this video, Henry Schuck, CEO and Founder of ZoomInfo, walks through how you can enrich a company list directly inside Claude in just 45 seconds. ZoomInfo data no longer lives only inside ZoomInfo. With our MCP server, ZoomInfo enrichment can plug into the tools where GTM teams already work—LLMs like Claude, internal apps, CRM workflows, and marketing automation—so teams can move from “finding data” to “using data” faster. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gjeKN3sM
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