Kong Accelerates Growth in Asia Pacific with New Executive Sales Leadership

David Carless joins as Vice President for Asia Pacific, India and Japan; Mark West named Regional Vice President for Australia and New Zealand

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Kong Inc., a leading developer of cloud API and AI technologies, today announced the appointments of David Carless as Vice President of APJ and Mark West as Regional Vice President for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). These new hires will help Kong scale the company's regional presence and support its mission to accelerate API and AI adoption across APJ.

"We're in the middle of one of the biggest technology cycles in the history of the industry, with AI and APIs reshaping how every company builds, scales, and services their customers," said Carless. "Kong is uniquely positioned at the center of this shift. I'm excited to build on the company's strong foundation and momentum to help more customers accelerate growth, reduce complexity, and power the next generation of connected applications with Kong's unified API Platform."

While Carless will be responsible for growth across APJ, West will focus on leading the ANZ region's sales strategy and business development, concentrating on market expansion and strengthening customer success. He has more than 25 years of experience in enterprise software sales and go-to-market leadership and was most recently the Regional Vice President of ANZ at Apptio, which was acquired by IBM in 2023. He has also held key sales leadership roles at leading enterprise tech companies such as UiPath, Cisco's AppDynamics, SAP Concur, and NetSuite.

"As our CEO often says, there is 'no AI without APIs.' That's true, and this is a critical moment for organizations to leverage AI to modernize and scale," said West. "I'm excited to help Kong expand its regional footprint, strengthen customer success, and empower businesses to harness APIs and AI for faster innovation."

"David and Mark bring more than 50 years of proven expertise in scaling teams and driving sales growth across the eAPJ region," said Augusto Marietti, CEO and Co-Founder, Kong Inc. "Their leadership is a major milestone in our global expansion and will be instrumental in helping us meet the ambitious growth targets we've set for this critical market."

This announcement comes on the heels of Kong's recent office expansion in Bengaluru, India, which will serve as a key hub for research, development, and innovation, expanding Kong's engineering resources and allowing the team to tap into the local pool of technical talent.

Kong also has offices in Singapore and Shanghai and has more than doubled the region's headcount over the last year.

As a part of its expansion, Kong is actively hiring across many departments in APJ, including sales, engineering, product, customer experience, and more. For more information on open roles and to apply, please visit https://konghq.com/company/careers.

About Kong Inc.
Kong Inc., a leading developer of cloud API and AI technologies, is on a mission to empower companies to become "API-first" to advance and enable the AI era. They help organizations worldwide — from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises — unleash developer productivity, build securely, and accelerate time to market. For more information about Kong, please visit www.konghq.com or follow us on X @thekonginc.

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SOURCE Kong Inc.