What happened
Palantir Technologies(NYSE:PLTR)had a roller-coaster session on the stock market Wednesday. The data management tech company's shares popped nearly 6% higher in the morning following a key personnel announcement, but then cooled off significantly to end the day more than 2% lower.
So what
Wednesday morning, Palantir announced that it has tapped a new executive to head its efforts in the sprawling Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. This is Philippe Mathieu, who will serve as the regional president for the company. Palantir did not specify when he would formally begin this job.
While Palantir has made numerous inroads into the public sector in the U.S., it is still very much focused on its native country. The company quoted its COO Shyam Sankar as saying that Mathieu "is an experienced leader with demonstrated success at building and scaling sales teams across large markets."
Sankar added that the incoming EMEA president should help Palantir "fuel the fellowship across the region."
Mathieu appears to be quite a good fit for the job. Palantir was quick to point out that he has more than 25 years of experience as a tech industry executive, which includes a 15-year stint at Oracle, where he most recently served in a similar capacity as executive vice president of the EMEA and Japan and Asia-Pacific regions.
Now what
While Mathieu's hiring certainly feels opportunistic and is likely a big win for Palantir, the company is still dogged by investor skittishness around what are considered to be the more speculative tech stocks. But for those considering the company's shares as an investment, the price slump could provide a nice opening to load up on this very promising niche player at a relative discount.