Expanding board of directors – Kurt Daniel, CEO at Virtuozzo

The MariaDB Foundation is pleased to welcome Kurt Daniel, five-time CEO and current CEO of Virtuozzo, to its Board—bringing in a perspective shaped at the very heart of the database industry.

Kurt’s career spans leadership roles at MongoDB and Microsoft SQL Server, where he helped drive both strategy and market expansion at scale. At MongoDB, he was part of the journey that turned an emerging open source project into a category-defining company. At Microsoft, he built and led a product management team for a database portfolio generating over $1.5 billion in revenue.

Across these roles, Kurt has consistently focused on one theme: how to turn strong technology into real-world adoption and growth. His experience in scaling products, shaping markets, and aligning stakeholders brings a valuable dimension to the MariaDB Foundation as it continues to expand its ecosystem and industry reach.

We sat down with Kurt to discuss the shifting dynamics of the database landscape—from AI and cloud infrastructure to developer adoption and open source—and what it takes for a platform like MariaDB to grow into a durable, globally adopted standard.

You’ve spent your career at the intersection of databases, infrastructure, and cloud platforms. From that broader perspective, what do you see changing right now in the database landscape?

I’ve been fortunate to have worked at three different database organizations since the year 2000 – Microsoft (in the SQL Server product group), MongoDB (which my team renamed from 10gen), and now the MariaDB Foundation. In addition, I’ve worked at several other interesting infrastructure and cloud companies in the data center, device management, billing, mobile, and related spaces.

I like the database market due to its size, growth, and importance – everyone needs databases. It’s fascinating how many different approaches there are for solving different types of problems related to data. There are general purpose databases like MariaDB and highly specialized databases, of course.

Regarding what is changing now, enabling AI is top of mind for me, my company (Virtuozzo – a leader in high-efficiency operating system and related cloud infrastructure software), and for my company’s customers and partners. DBaaS (database-as-a-service) and data sovereignty continue to show strong interest among the cloud providers, SaaS companies, and others with whom I frequently speak. Developer experience and security continue to evolve. 

You’ve repeatedly been involved in transforming technically strong products into scalable, well-positioned platforms. What are the key shifts that define that journey?

It’s having the right vision – starting small and building step by step over time at the right time. It’s about team building and having the right people to scale. It’s about listening to customers and partners to hear their ideas to evaluate alongside your team’s ideas regarding product, marketing, and business shaping. It’s about good performance, stability, and usability while having a fair business model and capable technical support so you don’t lose the users you win in the first place.

Based on that experience, where do you see MariaDB today, and what is the next critical shift it needs to make?

I view MariaDB as the modern database standard, and a focused one. A strong open-source project that continues to actively develop. I’m excited to see how the MariaDB can enable AI, DBaaS, data sovereignty, and other areas mentioned earlier and continue to grow in adoption for a wide variety of use cases. I’m looking forward to contributing in whatever ways I can regarding positioning, roadmap shaping, and other ways.

MariaDB operates in a space where multiple databases are viable choices. What does it take for a database platform to stand out and become the default choice in real-world systems?

My first thought here is that it takes time in the database market to have a real impact. It takes building something with clear differentiation and a relentless approach to quality knowing what is at stake due to the nature of databases and the information involved. The open-source approach is key for MariaDB to stand out in addition to its technical advantages and team strengths.

You’ve worked across both commercial and open database ecosystems. What does it take in practice to balance open source principles with long-term commercial viability?

I have more commercial experience than open-source experience. The approaches are quite different, mainly I think around feedback, business models, and marketing. Both types of database projects can do great, but open-source projects like MariaDB and MongoDB (when I was there) have an easier time getting feedback and easier marketing and adoption early on while business models can be more challenging.

You’ve scaled organizations and platforms significantly over time. What are the early signals that tell you a database platform can grow into a durable global player?

Developer interest, technology partnerships, and customer design wins are three early signals that can point to future scale, especially if things are evolving quickly. These things are easy to measure, especially inside of a single project or company. Developer interest is calculated well by the DB-Engines Ranking. The team also gives indications as far as how long-term focused they are and how high the quality of key executives and technical leaders are to name a few.

Today most environments are multi-database by design. What role should a database like MariaDB play within that broader ecosystem?

MariaDB has a tremendous opportunity to play a bigger role over time within customer and partnerenvironments and within the broader database ecosystem as the community shapes and builds more and better capabilities in the future. MariaDB is a modern database project with clear interest and momentum. It must keep pushing forward.

From a Board perspective, where do you expect to contribute most to MariaDB over the next 12 to 24 months?

It’s early for me, but I’ve already contributed in small ways on positioning, business models, and partnerships since I joined. I look forward to contributing domain-wise regarding cloud, cloud infrastructure, SaaS, and service providers which match my Virtuozzo experience as CEO. I aim to leverage my past database experience and other software and business experience to contribute where it makes sense.

If we have this conversation again in two years, what would success for MariaDB look like to you?

Success in my view for MariaDB is many more successful users and secondarily even more critical project adoption by users. The state of the project in terms of technical capabilities will have advanced in a significant ways, and the community itself will be bigger, stronger, and even more engaged in helping us chart the best future possible for all involved.