Snowflake names Adrian De Luca APJ engineering chief

Snowflake has appointed Adrian De Luca vice president of APJ solution engineering. He joins from AWS after more than a decade at the cloud provider.

Based in Melbourne, De Luca will lead Snowflake's solution engineering teams across Asia Pacific and Japan, working with enterprise and public sector customers on data and artificial intelligence projects.

His appointment brings in a senior regional executive with a long track record in enterprise IT at a time when technology groups are competing for more work tied to data platforms and AI deployment. Snowflake said De Luca has more than 30 years of leadership experience in cloud, infrastructure and enterprise technology.

Before joining Snowflake, De Luca was director of cloud acceleration, Asia Pacific at AWS. Over the past three years, his work focused largely on enterprise AI and agentic systems, spanning document processing, personalised marketing and motorsports strategy.

Earlier in his career, he spent almost 15 years at Hitachi Data Systems, where he became chief technology officer for Asia Pacific. He later left to co-found fitness marketplace app AirActive.

Snowflake also pointed to his experience advising on security, risk and compliance in cloud computing, including work related to Australian federal government cloud policy. That background may prove relevant as organisations in the region weigh how to scale AI systems while managing governance and regulatory concerns.

Regional remit

The role covers Snowflake's solution engineering function in APJ, which works alongside customers as they implement data and AI programmes. De Luca will help shape deployment of Snowflake's products for application development, AI services and secure data sharing across the region.

The appointment reflects a wider push by major technology vendors to strengthen field engineering and advisory teams as customers move from early AI trials to operational systems. In many cases, those projects involve linking internal data, cloud infrastructure and governance controls to support production use.

Snowflake has positioned its platform around data sharing, analytics and AI workloads. It said it now has more than 13,900 customers globally, including large enterprises using its software to build and run data applications and AI services.

In APJ, hiring a senior executive with AWS experience also underscores how intense competition for cloud and AI talent remains. Companies selling data and AI software are increasingly recruiting leaders from hyperscale cloud providers, where many customers began their migration and modernisation programmes.

Snowflake accompanied De Luca's appointment with a brief statement.

"I'm thrilled to join Snowflake at such a pivotal moment, as it sits at the forefront of the agentic AI revolution and emerges as the control plane for the agentic enterprise," said Adrian De Luca, vice president of APJ solution engineering at Snowflake.

"Across APJ, I've helped many major brands navigate the last seismic shift: AI and cloud adoption. Now I'm looking forward to bringing that experience to Snowflake to help local organisations unlock more value from their data, deliver real business outcomes through agentic AI," De Luca said.

AI focus

Snowflake said De Luca's recent work has centred on enterprise use of AI systems rather than cloud migration alone. That shift reflects the kind of leadership many technology companies now want in regional customer-facing roles, as practical experience in moving AI tools from experiments to operational use becomes more valuable.

Snowflake also highlighted his experience supporting partners and building architectural practices, suggesting the role may involve not only direct customer work but also coordination across service providers and implementation ecosystems. In large transformation projects across APJ, partners often play a central role in deployment, integration and change management.

Jon Robertson, Snowflake's regional head for APJ, said the appointment is intended to support customers as they expand AI use within their organisations.

"Adrian is a stalwart of the cloud and IT industry in APJ and I'm delighted to have someone of his calibre lead our solution engineering team in the region. He is highly respected across APJ, and brings a strong track record of helping the largest local enterprises unlock value from the latest innovations," said Jon Robertson, vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan at Snowflake.

"As our customers seek to operationalise and scale their AI strategies, Adrian's experience will be invaluable in helping organisations across APJ turn data and AI into real business outcomes," Robertson said.