Wes Gelpi

Wes Gelpi

Apex, NC 27502 704.249.7959 jhgelpi@gmail.com

Summary

Engineering leader with two decades of experience guiding global data, analytics, and cloud compute teams of up to 75. Known as a team-first leader who invests deeply in people and culture, with a proven record of securing multi-million-dollar investments, driving enterprise-wide platform modernization, and delivering patented innovations that unlock significant revenue and create strategic advantage.

Key Strengths

Data Science Platform Engineering Cloud Infrastructure Data Analytics & Engineering Solution Architecture OKR & KPI Design & Implementation Technology Strategy Organization Design & Development

Professional Experience

Director, R&D, Orchestration

SAS Insititute, Cary, NC Jan 2026 - Curr
  • Lead a 50+ person global R&D organization with full product vertical ownership for SAS Orchestration — encompassing Workload Management, Job Execution Service, Workflow Manager, Process Orchestration, and BOSS.
  • Expanded scope from prior role to include end-to-end accountability across Software Development, Product Management, and Product Security — owning strategy, execution, and product direction for the entire orchestration portfolio.
  • Restructured the organization within the first months of tenure to better align team capabilities with product priorities and establish a more scalable leadership model.
  • Launched a new strategic product initiative to drive the next generation of orchestration capabilities for the SAS Viya platform.
  • Established standardized engineering operating practices across the organization — including development and testing standards, CVE response protocols, and a consistent critical issue management framework — improving operational discipline and reducing response variability.

Director, R&D, Cloud Compute

SAS Institute, Cary, NC Dec 2021 - Jan 2026
  • Lead a 75-person global R&D organization of software engineers and managers across North America, Europe, and Asia. Established a "leader of leaders" structure with 7 direct-reporting managers.
  • Drove a strategic compute engine rewrite that enabled legacy SAS code to run on the modern Viya platform, unlocked millions in customer migration revenue, and secured a patent for a novel method of predictive Kubernetes node sizing.
  • Transformed the division's operational model, shifting engineering capacity from reactive maintenance to strategic product initiatives (from 5% to 40% of team time) by consistently reducing bug counts and improving Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR).
  • Directed the core multi-cloud compute platform for the SAS Viya ecosystem, collaborating with Product and Security leaders to deliver a consistent, secure, and performant engine across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OpenShift.

Advisory Board Member

Cloudvidia, San Francisco, CA Jan 2021 - Jan 2024
  • Advised and influenced the implementation of a new data model and strategy that was implemented to support a lambda architecture.
  • Consulted on their adoption of AI and LLMs to accelerate the development of their solution as well as bring greater value to the product.
  • Identified as founding member for investor pitch decks.

Senior Director, Data & Infrastructure Engineering

Fitch Group, New York, NY Jul 2021 - Dec 2021
  • Partnered directly with the Chief Data Officer to define and champion the enterprise data modernization strategy, moving the firm away from legacy processes toward a scalable, centralized platform.
  • Architected a new enterprise data platform on AWS, designing a Lambda architecture to integrate batch (S3, Glue, Redshift) and real-time streaming (Kafka) data into a single source of truth.
  • Lead the technical evaluation and secured a multi-million dollar enterprise agreement for Starburst to serve as the core data query and access layer for the new platform.
  • Positioned this new platform to unlock future data monetization opportunities and serve as the foundation for all external data products and internal analytics.

Director, Data Engineering

Pendo, Raleigh, NC Apr 2021 - Jun 2021
  • Responsible for the Data Engineering team focused on developing data pipelines utilizing technologies like Looker, dbt, and Fivetran.

Director, Business Intelligence

Red Hat, Raleigh, NC Sep 2018 - Apr 2021
  • Lead a global analytics organization of ~26, including a direct-reporting team of 5 platform architects and engineers and a 20-person SRE team in India, establishing a "manager of managers" leadership structure.
  • Architected and secured a multi-year, multi-million dollar investment from the CIO to modernize the analytics stack on AWS, delivering an end-to-end platform (Data Lake, Redshift, Domino Data Labs).
  • Scaled the enterprise analytics platform (Tableau) to over 5,000 active users (1,000+ creators), enabling data democratization and providing the KPI reporting framework for all C-suite and business unit leaders.
  • Architected and deployed the first-of-its-kind Data Science platform (Domino Data Labs) and lead the effort to establish the processes and technology for 50+ Data Scientists to develop domain specific models.
  • Established a 'Path to Production' governance framework that brought operational excellence to a self-service culture, standardizing key business metrics and organizing a community of hundreds of data analysts and scientists.

Senior Manager, People Analytics

Red Hat, Raleigh, NC Feb 2015 - Sep 2018
  • Grew the People Analytics function by 200%, scaling the team from 2 analysts to a 6-person international organization of analysts, data scientists, and data engineers.
  • Pioneered the use of Tableau, driving its adoption from a single-team proof-of-concept to an enterprise-wide platform, culminating in being featured as a customer success story at Tableau's annual conference.
  • Launched a self-service analytics platform (SAS Visual Analytics) that eliminated the need for ad-hoc reporting for 1,000+ managers, enabling my team to refocus on high-impact executive analysis for senior leaders.
  • Architected the modernization of the HR data warehouse, transforming a manual, file-based process into a scalable data layer using materialized SQL views, which improved performance, governance, and development speed.
  • Introduced advanced analytics to the function, delivering turnover predictions and sentiment analysis (e.g., random forest, regression) that informed global talent strategy for stakeholders across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Manager, Team Member Systems & Analytics

Family Dollar, Charlotte, NC Jan 2011 - Jan 2015
  • Managed and developed a team of 5 analysts and engineers responsible for the company's entire HR data, reporting, and systems infrastructure.
  • Lead the HR data workstream for a major Oracle system re-implementation and architected the foundational framework for the first-ever Oracle BI rollout at the company.
  • Lead the data-driven redesign of the company's annual merit and performance review process used across 8,000+ stores.
  • Delivered critical analysis on employee turnover that directly influenced hiring and store growth strategies for District Manager and VP-level leadership.

Additional Experience

Analytics & Data Engineer

State of North Carolina, Charlotte, NC Dec 2007 - Jan 2011

Loan Agent

Wells Fargo, Manassas, VA May 2007 - Dec 2007

Co-founder - R&W Books

Ferrum, VA Aug 2004 - Dec 2006

Publications

Philanthropy

Chapter Board President

Breakthrough T1D Triangle/Eastern NC Chapter Board Jun 2023 - Jun 2025

Chapter Board Member

Breakthrough T1D Triangle/Eastern NC Chapter Board Jun 2019 - Jun 2023

Technical Tools & Platforms

Cloud Platforms & Infrastructure

AWS Azure GCP OpenShift Terraform

Architected and directed multi-cloud compute platforms across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OpenShift at SAS Institute, and built enterprise data platforms on AWS at Red Hat and Fitch Group.

Data Engineering & Analytics

Tableau SAS Visual Analytics Domino Data Labs Starburst Redshift S3 Glue Kafka

Scaled Tableau to 5,000+ active users at Red Hat, architected data lakes and Lambda architectures using S3, Glue, Redshift, and Kafka at Fitch Group, secured enterprise agreement for Starburst, and deployed Domino Data Labs platform for 50+ data scientists.

Databases & Storage

Postgres Redshift Oracle

Lead Oracle BI implementation and system re-architecture at Family Dollar, architected HR data warehouse modernization using materialized SQL views at Red Hat, and built data warehousing solutions on Redshift and Postgres.

Container Orchestration & DevOps

Kubernetes Docker

Directed core Kubernetes-based compute platform for SAS Viya ecosystem, securing a patent for novel method of predictive Kubernetes node sizing, and containerized applications using Docker across multi-cloud environments.

Programming & Scripting

Python SQL

Leveraged Python for data engineering, automation, and analytics workflows, and extensively used SQL for data warehouse development, query optimization, and building scalable data layers across multiple database platforms.

Data Science & ML

Random Forest Regression Analysis

Delivered predictive models for employee turnover using random forest algorithms and performed regression analysis for sentiment analysis at Red Hat, informing global talent strategy across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Speaking & Public Engagements

  • SAS Innovate (2024) - Mainstage and Super Demo highlighting new technology
  • SAS Explore (2022) - Workload Management on SAS Viya: Orchestrate Your Viya Processing
  • Data Legends Podcast (Aug 2022) - Part 2: The Data Management Triangle
  • Data Legends Podcast (Aug 2022) - Part 1: The Untapped Potential of Kubernetes
  • Red Hat Video Production (May 2020) - Tableau Online & Tableau Blueprint
  • Tableau Conference (Oct 2019) - Tableau Data Leaders Speaker
  • Domino Video Production (Oct 2019) - Scaling Data Science

Patents & Education

Patent

Systems and Methods for Dynamic Allocation of Compute Resources

Patent No: US 12,147,838 B1

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration & Technology

Ferrum College, Ferrum, VA