Neha Narkhede

Neha Narkhede (born

Education Narkhede was raised in Pune, Maharashtra and went to the Pune Institute of Computer Technology (PICT), University of Pune, where she gained a Bachelor of Engineering. In 2007, she received a masters in technology from Georgia Tech.

Career After obtaining her master's degree, Narkhede started her first job at Oracle as a software engineer. After Oracle, she worked as the lead of streams infrastructure at LinkedIn.

While working at LinkedIn in 2011, Narkhede created the Platform Apache Kafka, along with Jun Rao and Jay Kreps. In 2014 she founded Confluent, a Palo Alto based startup, along with Rao and Kreps and decided to start Confluent as a B2B infrastructure company.

In 2017 she co-authored Kafka: The Definitive Guide along with Gwen Shapira and Todd Palino which is about the technology that created Kafka.

She and her team at Confluent raised $125 million in 2019, bringing its total funding to $206 million in 2019.

Narkhede and her husband co-founded Oscilar in 2021, which develops a real-time artificial intelligence-based platform to help decrease the risks involved with online transactions. The company came out of stealth mode two years later, with Narkhede as CEO.

Recognition In 2017, MIT Technology Review listed her as one of the innovators under 35. In the following year Narkhede was listed as one of America's and the world's top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes In October 2020, Narkhede was listed #33 on the list of "America's Self Made Women" by Forbes.

Personal life Narkhede is married to Sachin Kulkarni, an engineering executive, with whom she has a son and daughter.