CData Appoints Ken Yagen as Chief Product Officer to Lead AI Connectivity Strategy

Why It Matters

By appointing a seasoned integration leader, CData positions itself to capture the fast‑growing AI connectivity market, helping enterprises and ISVs overcome the critical barrier of giving AI agents both data access and system‑level context, which could accelerate AI adoption and create a new infrastructure standard.

Summary

CData Software has hired former MuleSoft executive Ken Yagen as Chief Product Officer to steer its AI‑native connectivity strategy. Yagen will oversee product strategy and engineering for CData’s Managed Model Context Protocol (MCP) platform, including the recently launched Connect AI service that provides live, governed access and semantic context for AI agents across 350+ enterprise systems. The move supports CData’s dual go‑to‑market plan to serve both large enterprises and independent software vendors seeking embedded AI connectivity, leveraging Yagen’s 25‑year background in enterprise integration and AI initiatives at Warburg Pincus, MuleSoft, Box and Symphony. The company aims to become the default connectivity layer that makes AI systems enterprise‑ready from day one.