CData Taps MuleSoft Vet to Build the Brains Behind Enterprise AI

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – November 25, 2025 – In a move that signals a significant strategic pivot toward the next frontier of artificial intelligence, data connectivity provider CData Software has appointed Ken Yagen as its new Chief Product Officer. While executive appointments are routine, this one warrants closer inspection. Yagen, a seasoned product leader with a formidable track record at MuleSoft and most recently at private equity giant Warburg Pincus, is not just being hired to manage a product line; he's being tasked with building the critical infrastructure that could determine the success or failure of autonomous AI within the enterprise.

CData is betting that the future of AI isn't just about smarter models, but about connecting those models to the complex, messy reality of corporate data systems. Yagen’s appointment is a clear statement of intent to dominate this emerging and crucial market of ‘AI-native connectivity,’ moving beyond simple data access to something far more profound: operational fluency.

The Architect of Integration

To understand the gravity of this hire, one must look at Ken Yagen’s career. His experience reads like a blueprint for building the foundational layers of modern enterprise technology. During his pivotal tenure at MuleSoft, Yagen was instrumental in shaping the product strategy for APIs and integration platforms—the very technologies that became the bedrock of enterprise architecture in the cloud era. He helped create the digital plumbing that allows disparate applications to communicate, a skill set that is now directly transferable to the challenges of AI.

Following MuleSoft, his leadership roles at Box and Symphony further honed his expertise in building out robust platforms and secure, collaborative enterprise tools. Most recently, as SVP of Value Creation at Warburg Pincus, he was on the front lines of corporate AI adoption, leading initiatives to integrate LLMs and other advanced AI technologies across the firm’s diverse portfolio companies. This gave him a unique vantage point on the real-world blockers hindering AI from delivering on its transformative promise.

This background makes him an unusually strategic fit for CData. He possesses a rare combination of deep technical knowledge in distributed systems, a proven ability to build and scale enterprise platforms, and firsthand experience with the strategic imperatives and practical hurdles of deploying AI. As CData CEO Amit Sharma noted, "His track record building enterprise platforms at scale, combined with his deep expertise in distributed systems and AI infrastructure, makes him an ideal fit to lead our product organization as we help customers navigate the AI era."

Beyond Access: The Quest for 'System Fluency'

The central problem CData aims to solve under Yagen’s leadership is a subtle but critical one. For years, the integration challenge was about data access—getting information from point A to point B. However, with the rise of ‘agentic AI’—autonomous systems designed to execute complex, multi-step tasks—simple access is dangerously insufficient. An AI agent given access to a company’s NetSuite or SAP system without understanding its internal logic, business rules, and data relationships is like a new employee given keys to a factory but no training on how to operate the machinery. The potential for costly errors is immense.

This is where CData is focusing its efforts, championing the concept of system fluency. The company’s new Connect AI platform is designed not just to pipe data to an AI model, but to provide it with the embedded semantic intelligence required to operate safely and effectively. It aims to teach the AI the structure, relationships, and business logic native to each of the 350+ business systems it connects to.

In Yagen’s own words, this is the core of the mission. "AI will fail to achieve meaningful outcomes if agents don't understand the systems they're acting in," he stated. "The enterprises that will dominate the AI era are the ones whose agents have real system fluency—not just access." This shift from raw connectivity to operational intelligence is what CData believes will transform AI from a clever predictive tool into a trusted digital operator capable of executing tasks reliably and at scale.

Building the Unseen Foundation for the AI Era

To capture this market, CData is pursuing a shrewd dual go-to-market strategy, a classic platform play that Yagen’s experience at MuleSoft makes him uniquely qualified to accelerate. The first prong targets enterprises directly. CData offers its managed MCP (Model Context Protocol) platform as a standardized connectivity fabric, allowing a company’s various departments to deploy AI initiatives on a secure, governed, and consistent foundation. This provides CIOs and CTOs with the control and predictability they need to unleash AI safely within their organizations.

The second, and perhaps more powerful, prong targets Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). By enabling software providers to embed its connectivity technology directly into their own AI-powered products, CData is positioning itself to become the unseen, indispensable infrastructure for a vast ecosystem of applications. An AI-powered HR platform, for example, could use CData’s embedded technology to seamlessly and intelligently interact with a customer’s existing payroll, benefits, and recruiting systems without having to build and maintain those complex integrations itself.

This strategy effectively makes CData’s platform the default connectivity layer for the AI era. "The opportunity is to make CData a go-to connectivity layer—one that enterprises can rely on internally and that product builders embed by default," Yagen explained. This isn't just an incremental improvement; it's a bid to establish a new industry standard. By providing the essential 'context and control fabric,' CData is making a compelling case that its platform is what will make every AI system enterprise-ready from day one, a value proposition that is difficult for both enterprises and software developers to ignore.