Roman Staněk is a Czech technology entrepreneur and software executive. He founded GoodData, a data analytics software company, and serves as its chief executive officer. Earlier in his career, he started the company behind NetBeans and founded Systinet. Sun Microsystems acquired NetBeans in 1999. Mercury Interactive bought Systinet for $105 million in 2006.
Early career Staněk studied electrical engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague. After graduating, he established a software company that distributed products from Informix. He joined Powersoft in 1994. After the company was acquired by Sybase, Staněk became responsible for its business in Central and Eastern Europe.
NetBeans In 1997, Staněk established a company around Xelfi, a Java integrated development environment created by a group of Czech university students. The software was renamed NetBeans.
The company developed NetBeans as a commercial Java development environment. Sun Microsystems acquired NetBeans in 1999 and later released it as an open-source project. Staněk then worked at Sun before moving on to his next software company.
Systinet Staněk also founded Systinet, which developed software for web services and service-oriented architecture. It was based in the US, while much of its development work was carried out in Prague. He was Systinet's first chief executive. In 2004, Thomas Erickson became CEO, while Staněk moved to the position of chief strategy officer.
In 2006, Mercury Interactive agreed to acquire Systinet for $105 million in cash. Mercury Interactive was acquired by Hewlett-Packard later that year.
GoodData Staněk founded GoodData in 2007. The company develops cloud-based business intelligence and analytics software, with operations in the United States and the Czech Republic.
GoodData received venture capital from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst. In 2020, Visa made a strategic investment in the company.
References