To lead its innovation unit Umpqua Holdings tapped two executives who have already worked together in two other companies Shawn Ahmed is now president and chief executive of Umpquas Pivotus Ventures while Troy Molander is its new chief technology officer the firm announced in press release on Thursday Ahmed takes over from Ray Davis the longtime CEO of Umpqua and founder of Pivotus After leaving the bank Davis stayed on as CEO of Pivotus until his retirement in December Oren Goldschmidt served as the president of Pivotus until March Ahmed and Molander come from Splunk a software developer specializing in big data analysis At Splunk Ahmed was senior director of business analytics internet of things and machine learning Shawn Ahmed is now president and chief executive of Umpquas Pivotus Ventures Shawn is an exceptional leader and strategist whose successful track record leading enterprise software companies will further advance Umpquas human digital banking strategy while helping us make it available to other like-minded banks around the US said Cort OHaver Umpquas president and CEO Molander was director of innovation engineering business analytics and internet of things The pair were part of an incubation team within Splunk The two were also colleagues at NarrativeWave a startup focused on analytics for industrial internet of things that Ahmed founded and headed as chief executive Molander was chief technology officer at the company Umpqua and Pivotus are at the forefront of a new collaborative approach to banking that will power institutions across the country to better connect and retain customers Ahmed said in the press release Im excited by the opportunity to collaborate with Troy again to advance Umpquas mission of using technology to make banking more personal consultative and scalable he added Umpqua Holdings is the parent company of Umpqua Bank which has locations across Oregon Washington California Idaho and Nevada