# John Jahnke

> John Jahnke is the Buffalo-based CEO of Tackle.io, an enterprise software operator and angel investor whose career moved from hands-on IT and sales engineering through EMC, Greenplum, Pivotal and Cognizant. He joined Tackle first as an investor and adviser, became CEO in 2018, and helped turn an early tool for AWS Marketplace listings into a broader cloud go-to-market platform. His public philosophy is practical and repeatable: begin with one useful problem, invest in customer success early, and let evidence - not ambition alone - earn the next stage of scale.

- **Role:** Chief Executive Officer at Tackle.io
- **Organizations:** Tackle.io, Cognizant, Pivotal, Greenplum, EMC, University at Buffalo
- **From:** Buffalo, United States
- **Education:** MBA, Management, University at Buffalo, Bachelor of Science in Business, State University of New York at Buffalo
- **Known for:** Helped grow Tackle from an early startup with roughly ten customers into a cloud go-to-market company serving hundreds of customers., Led Tackle through a $35 million Series B and a $100 million Series C, bringing disclosed total funding to about $148 million., Expanded Tackle's original AWS Marketplace listing focus into multi-cloud marketplace, transaction, co-sell, data and Salesforce workflows.

## Career timeline

- **circa 2000** — Began working in information technology at age 20 after briefly leaving college.
- **early 2000s** — Started his vendor-side career as a sales engineer at EMC, after first encountering EMC as a customer.
- **2010s** — Moved from EMC to Greenplum and later held leadership roles across Greenplum, Pivotal and Cognizant, spanning pre-sales, professional services, alliances and digital engineering.
- **2016-2018** — Invested in Tackle and advised founders Dillon Woods and Brian Denker on product, product-market fit and sales strategy.
- **2018** — Became chief executive officer of Tackle.io.
- **2021** — Led Tackle through Series B and Series C financing; the December Series C brought the company's disclosed total funding to about $148 million.
- **2023** — Participated in TextQL's $4.1 million seed round as an angel investor.
- **2025** — Announced a strategic collaboration agreement between Tackle and AWS; Tackle reported that its platform had powered more than $20 billion in marketplace transactions.

## Achievements

- Helped grow Tackle from an early startup with roughly ten customers into a cloud go-to-market company serving hundreds of customers.
- Led Tackle through a $35 million Series B and a $100 million Series C, bringing disclosed total funding to about $148 million.
- Expanded Tackle's original AWS Marketplace listing focus into multi-cloud marketplace, transaction, co-sell, data and Salesforce workflows.
- Built his enterprise technology career across EMC, Greenplum, Pivotal and Cognizant before becoming a first-time CEO.
- As of November 2025, Tackle reported more than $20 billion in cloud marketplace transactions powered by its platform.

## Latest updates

- **2025-11** — Tackle announced a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS focused on cloud go-to-market operations, partner selling and automation.
- **2025-05** — Tackle for Salesforce became generally available, bringing buyer signals, co-sell automation and private-offer workflows into Salesforce.
- **2024-12** — In a Category Visionaries interview, Jahnke discussed Tackle's path from marketplace listings to billions of dollars in transactions and reflected on his Buffalo upbringing and early technology career.
- **2024-06** — Appeared on the Ultimate Partner podcast to discuss AI, hyperscalers and the changing economics of cloud marketplace selling.

## Links

- Website: https://tackle.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjahnke
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/tackleio
- YouTube: https://youtu.be/hUV6uhbbUzE
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/tackle.io/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/john-jahnke
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-27