# Daniel Eduardo Acorda VP Southern Europe at Cognition (Devin); ex-Datadog, MongoDB, Acquia, Rackspace enterprise sales leader Cognition Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain ## At Cognition - Role: VP Southern Europe (Sales/GTM) - Joined: Mar 2026 - How they joined: Directly - Before Cognition: Enterprise Director for Iberia, Italy, Middle East, Israel & Africa , Datadog - Overlapped before Cognition with other Cognition people at: MongoDB; Datadog; Rackspace, the Open Cloud Company (https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/worked-together) ## Identity - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda ## Notes - Joined Cognition as VP Southern Europe in March 2026, based in Madrid, after five and a half years at Datadog; the move from observability sales to AI coding agents follows the enterprise-infrastructure thread of his whole career (Rackspace, IBM, Acquia, MongoDB, Datadog). (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - Posted about the launch of Devin Oncall, framing it through his observability background: 'Coming from the world of #observability and #monitoring this truly is a game changer.' Integration with Datadog, his former employer, makes this a natural bridge for his old customer base. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_introducing-devin-oncall-devin-automatically-activity-7517954609542361088-u5Ap?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Celebrated Cognition passing a $1bn run rate, tagging founders Scott Wu, Walden Yan, Steven Hao and President Russell Kaplan plus European colleagues (Claudia Hubert Zemanek, Izan Coomonte Suarez, Luis Blasco, Gael Lamarti Kekatos, Simone Agazzi, Ivan Sobina, Max Martin). (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_ai-cognition-agenticsdlc-activity-7509326846497275904-rVx2?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - At Datadog he was Enterprise Director for Iberia, Italy, Middle East, Israel & Africa (Sep 2022 - Mar 2026). (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - On the Sept 2026 $2B raise at a $48B valuation he wrote that the customer list matters more than the valuation: 'chip design at NVIDIA. Aviation at GE Aerospace. Financial services at Citi. Automotive at Mercedes-Benz AG.' (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_cognition-has-raised-over-2b-at-a-48b-valuation-activity-7503146322234023936-2zWD?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Reposted Cognition's launch of 'Devin Desktop: the next generation of Windsurf', the IDE Cognition acquired in 2025. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cognition-ai-labs_introducing-devin-desktop-the-next-generation-ugcPost-7467656058245718016-w_dZ?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Pitched the Devin ROI guarantee: 'Cognition is the company behind this, and we back oursleves so much that its $10m ROI or your money back'. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_not-just-a-tool-but-the-ability-to-multiply-activity-7496417568941928448-6l6q?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Promoted Mercedes-Benz AG adopting Cognition, saying the company reported a 25% speed-up in software engineering delivery. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_software-is-at-the-heart-of-our-entire-value-activity-7454821776544444416-FR_V?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Spoke at MEDDICON (Oct 2022) with Datadog colleague Lucy Williams-Jones, both Directors of Enterprise Sales, on why to join a MEDDIC organisation and how they use MEDDICC when hiring. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Z-JiEouzU) - Public headline says "VP Southern Europe @ Cognition". (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - Wrote about Anthropic's Fable 5.1 in Devin Cloud, Desktop and CLI and recommended Devin Fusion for frontier performance at lower cost. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_fable-51-in-devin-and-why-its-cheaper-than-activity-7501046043153723392-y5cV?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Shared Cognition's Mercedes-Benz result with the comment 'Numbers speak for themselves 8 months to 8 day!' (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_mercedes-benz-ag-one-of-the-worlds-most-activity-7457500237029429248-zchc?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Earlier at Datadog he was Regional Sales Director, UK&I (Dec 2020 - Sep 2022), London-based before relocating to Spain. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - At Acquia (the Drupal company) he rose from Director, Northern Europe, Nordics, Middle East & Africa (Mar 2017) to Senior Director, Northern Europe, Middle East & Africa (Nov 2018 - Feb 2020). (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - Spent most of 2009-2016 at Rackspace in London and New York: Enterprise Business Manager, New York & East Coast Regional Sales, Regional Sales Manager East Coast & Head of Digital Sales Americas, then Senior Director; an IBM stint (Information Management, Retail Sector Business Manager, 2011-2013) sat in between. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - Cognition AI is an applied AI company founded in November 2023 by Scott Wu, Walden Yan, and Steven Hao — a team that collectively holds 10 gold medals from the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) and brings experience from Google DeepMind, Scale AI, and other leading technology companies. The company's mission is to push the boundaries of AI reasoning, with a focus on building systems that can autonomously tackle complex, real-world software engineering challenges. Cognition's flagship ; this comes from the profile summary and preserves the person's own positioning. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - Regional Director at MongoDB from Apr 2020 to Dec 2020, a short stint before Datadog. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - Interviewed at DrupalCamp London 2019 while at Acquia, where he talked about working with many Drupal agencies and the inclusive open-source community. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPHZyZN5iO4) - Previous roles include Enterprise Director for Iberia, Italy, Middle East, Israel & Africa at Datadog; Regional Sales Director, UK&I at Datadog; Regional Director at MongoDB; Senior Director; Northern Europe, Middle East & Africa at Acquia; Director, Northern Europe, Nordics, Middle East, & Africa at Acquia; Business Development Director - Retail Sector at niu Solutions; Senior Director at Rackspace; Regional Sales Manager - East Coast & Head of Digital Sales - Americas at Rackspace, the Open Cloud Company. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - Reposted Cognition's Access Group case study (5x merged PRs across 2,000 engineers) and Hg's post on rebuilding Proclaim with Devin. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cognition-ai-labs_the-access-group-5xed-its-merged-prs-across-ugcPost-7515819418677989380-ZnU0?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Reposted Amadeus's GenAI Days in Sophia Antipolis, a Southern European enterprise in the AI ecosystem he works in. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amadeus_engineering-traveltech-ai-activity-7475458044470943744-nHkj?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y) - Business Development Director, Retail Sector at niu Solutions (2016-2017) and Corporate Business Manager at 1E (2007-2009), his first role after his MSc. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) - Location is Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda) ## Experience - VP Southern Europe at Cognition - Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain (Mar 2026 - Present) - Enterprise Director for Iberia, Italy, Middle East, Israel & Africa at Datadog - Spain (Sep 2022 - Mar 2026) - Regional Sales Director, UK&I at Datadog - Greater London, England, United Kingdom (Dec 2020 - Sep 2022): Datadog is designed to solve the challenges of monitoring at scale, best illustrated by the huge increase we see across the following 4 dimensions technologists are having to contend with: [1] # of platforms & associated tools (Heritage, APaaS & Multi Cloud) [2] # of infrastructure units (Micro Services, Containers & Functions as a Service) [3] Frequency of code and configuration changes (Correlated to the Business KPI) [4] Number of engineers interacting with infrastructure (Feature teams & BizDevOps) Due to the rapid change across each of these 4 dimensions, the magnitude of the monitoring problem has drastically changed for both web-scale and traditional enterprises alike. Datadog was built to scale across these very dimensions, providing observability through correlated infrastructure, APM and Log data. - Regional Director at MongoDB - Greater London, England, United Kingdom (Apr 2020 - Dec 2020): MongoDB's mission is to unleash the power of software and data for innovators everywhere. The most sophisticated organizations, from the largest global companies to cutting-edge startups, use MongoDB to drive their business. The company is recognised as the world's most popular next-generation database, with massive user adoption, thousands of customers and a large ecosystem of partners all over the world. - Senior Director; Northern Europe, Middle East & Africa at Acquia - London Area, United Kingdom (Nov 2018 - Feb 2020): Acquia helps some of the world's biggest brands to deliver an amazing, highly personalised digital experience. Our technology powers the web and mobile experiences for 4000 companies around the globe - sites you likely use every day - helping retain competitive advantage, return greater shareholder value and above all deliver an incredible customer journey. - Director, Northern Europe, Nordics, Middle East, & Africa at Acquia - Greater Reading Area (Mar 2017 - Nov 2018): Acquia helps some of the world's biggest brands to deliver an amazing, highly personalised digital experience. Our technology powers the web and mobile experiences for 4000 companies around the globe - sites you likely use every day - helping retain competitive advantage, return greater shareholder value and above all deliver an incredible customer journey. Named one of the world's fastest growing software companies in Deloitte's 2015 Technology Fast 500. Leader in Gartner's Web CMS Magic Quadrant. Founded by Dries Buytaert - the creator of Drupal. - Business Development Director - Retail Sector at niu Solutions - London Area, United Kingdom (Mar 2016 - Mar 2017): niu has been providing innovative and agile IT solutions to challenging businesses for over a decade. Using our trusted working process and methodologies we enable businesses to move faster, drive innovation and work more collaboratively; we give them the freedom to succeed. We believe that technology should help organisations to achieve their goals and find new opportunities by making complex and difficult tasks simple. Keeping our vision front of mind throughout everything we do for our clients enables us to build partnerships that grow and evolve over time. Delivering the solutions you need today and for the future, fostering your ambitions for growth by being your partner for success. - Senior Director at Rackspace - Austin, Texas Area (Feb 2015 - Jan 2016): Rackspace; a world leader in Technology hosting delivers enterprise-level managed hosting, cloud hosting, and e-mail hosting services to businesses of all types and sizes globally. All wrapped around 'Fanatical Support'. - Regional Sales Manager - East Coast & Head of Digital Sales - Americas at Rackspace, the Open Cloud Company - Austin, Texas Area (Apr 2014 - Nov 2015): Rackspace; a world leader in Technology hosting delivers enterprise-level managed hosting, cloud hosting, and e-mail hosting services to businesses of all types and sizes globally. All wrapped around 'Fanatical Support'. - New York & East Coast Regional Sales at Rackspace - Greater New York City Area (Feb 2013 - Apr 2014): Rackspace; a world leader in Technology hosting delivers enterprise-level managed hosting, cloud hosting, and e-mail hosting services to businesses of all types and sizes globally. All wrapped around 'Fanatical Support'. IBM's computer service arm is the world's largest, providing consulting, systems integration, application development, infrastructure management, and technical support. The company's products include mainframes and servers, storage systems, and peripherals; processors, memory chips, and other microelectronics; and a broad software portfolio with applications ranging from database management tools to operating systems. IBM UK was founded in 1951 and operates from about 20 offices and facilities. - Enterprise Business Manager at Rackspace Hosting (Oct 2009 - Aug 2011): Rackspace; a world leader in Technology hosting delivers enterprise-level managed hosting, cloud hosting, and e-mail hosting services to businesses of all types and sizes globally. All wrapped around 'Fanatical Support'. - Corporate Business Manager at 1e Ltd (Sep 2007 - Aug 2009): 1E helps its clients reduce IT operational costs. 1E's expertise in providing leading-edge automation solutions which significantly reduce complexity, management costs and power consumption, has earned the trust and confidence of over 15 million licensed users across 1,200 organizations in 42 countries worldwide. ## Education - University of Southampton - MSc, Risk Management - (Jan 2006 - Jan 2007): Masters in Risk - University of Surrey - BSc, Business Management - (Jan 2002 - Jan 2006): Honors in Business Administration ## Sources - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Z-JiEouzU - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPHZyZN5iO4 - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielacorda?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAALFz5EBXqFP_WmY-WqynkYAJkEYa6StdiI - https://www.linkedin.com/company/cognition-ai-labs/posts - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignacio-bernal-8b33683?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAACWNQcBkY5pVdl7DqjP_hcwRl5M2Ajrads - https://www.linkedin.com/company/amadeus/posts - https://www.linkedin.com/company/hgcapital/posts - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarefhilaly?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAAACA5YBjWhvC6r22wdql9muc_HdpHSkBsw - https://www.linkedin.com/company/founders-files/posts - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mihaelaacorda?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAARKzGkB1gIxNgHbUID_rrxXSv0UVJ7mbIw - https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-wu-8b94ab96?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAABRcyU0B3eVfSh_wWQgM7w3CZRywJOf28G8 - https://www.linkedin.com/company/ceosofbharat/posts - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaellamarti?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAATgC8IBo9MBX99_LCVx6EI4LUBZp7HcXrI - https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliansheinbaum?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAABKZT3cB_7UGOSvF6F3JJlOj67QeuUjU43k - https://meddicc.com/resources/joining-meddic-org - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_introducing-devin-oncall-devin-automatically-activity-7517954609542361088-u5Ap?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_ai-cognition-agenticsdlc-activity-7509326846497275904-rVx2?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_cognition-has-raised-over-2b-at-a-48b-valuation-activity-7503146322234023936-2zWD?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cognition-ai-labs_introducing-devin-desktop-the-next-generation-ugcPost-7467656058245718016-w_dZ?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_not-just-a-tool-but-the-ability-to-multiply-activity-7496417568941928448-6l6q?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_software-is-at-the-heart-of-our-entire-value-activity-7454821776544444416-FR_V?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_fable-51-in-devin-and-why-its-cheaper-than-activity-7501046043153723392-y5cV?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ignacio-bernal-8b33683_who-holds-ais-off-switch-fintech-brainfood-activity-7488952334513938432-b5DE?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielacorda_mercedes-benz-ag-one-of-the-worlds-most-activity-7457500237029429248-zchc?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cognition-ai-labs_the-access-group-5xed-its-merged-prs-across-ugcPost-7515819418677989380-ZnU0?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amadeus_engineering-traveltech-ai-activity-7475458044470943744-nHkj?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAHChknoBPS3_ET2jhYNHGZQZ_sbC82_Bn7Y Researched with Autumn (https://www.autumn.ai) from public sources. Updated 2026-11-04. Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/people/daniel-eduardo-acorda · Everyone at Cognition: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/people