About Me

Independent Advisor for Data Streaming, Data Integration, Process Intelligence, Trusted Agentic AI, Industrial IoT and Enterprise Architecture

Kai Waehner
Advisory Field CTO at Kai Waehner GmbH and Global Field CTO at Kestra

For more than 20 years, I’ve helped Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies with their most important data and AI decisions: which data infrastructure to invest in, how to evaluate AI architectures before committing, and which trends actually matter. Over my career, I’ve advised more than 400 enterprises worldwide.

I work across industries, including financial services, manufacturing, automotive, energy, telecom, retail, and the public sector. Industrial IoT has been a focus for more than a decade, connecting OT on the plant floor with enterprise IT. One day I’m in a strategy session with a CIO, the next in a deep architecture review with an engineering team. Good decisions need both the business and the technical view.

I’m known for my independent technology landscapes for data streaming, data integration, process intelligence, trusted agentic AI, and industrial IoT. No vendor pays to appear in them, and no vendor reviews them before publication.

On my blog, I write about real-world use cases, architecture best practices, and the trends that matter for enterprise architects, CTOs, CDOs, and data engineers.

I’ve spoken at more than 100 events worldwide, from AWS re:Invent and O’Reilly Software Architecture to CIO and CTO summits. I work with clients across Europe, North America, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia on advisory projects, workshops, and keynotes. I also support private equity and venture capital investors with technical due diligence.

Facing a big architecture decision, or evaluating a data or AI company as an investor? I give you an independent second opinion. Vendors who want to share a real-world customer use case with my readers are welcome to reach out as well.

"Independent analysis for the data and AI decisions that matter most."

Today I split my time between my role as Global Field CTO at Kestra and my independent advisory practice, Kai Waehner GmbH. I help enterprises connect business goals with technical reality across data integration, data streaming, workflow orchestration, trusted agentic AI, and enterprise architecture.

Independence matters in advisory and due diligence work. Kestra is a workflow orchestration vendor, so I do not advise on or perform due diligence for its direct competitors. Beyond that, I work vendor-independently across data streaming, data integration, process intelligence, agentic AI, and enterprise architecture, including vendor selection and RFPs. I check and disclose potential conflicts of interest before every engagement.

My background spans two decades: I started in vendor-independent consulting and system integration, then worked at the software vendors Talend and TIBCO. After that, I spent more than nine years at Confluent, focused on data streaming.

Throughout, my work has covered both sides: moving data, from batch to real-time streaming, and automating processes, from business process management to workflow orchestration.

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PUBLIC SPEAKING

I speak regularly at international conferences such as AWS re:Invent, Kafka Summit, Current, Devoxx, and QCon, and at CIO and CTO executive events.

CUSTOMER EVENTS

A few impressions from customer events over the years, bringing together IT leaders, architects, developers, and business teams. These photos are from data streaming community events at BMW Group, Daimler Truck, and Michelin during my time at Confluent.