Staff

Priyanka is the Executive Director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) which serves as the vendor-neutral home for 100+ of the fastest-growing open source projects, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy. She is also a co-creator of the Inclusive Naming Initiative whose mission is to promote and facilitate replacing harmful and exclusionary language in information technology. She was a founding team member of the OpenTracing standard and has contributed to other open source projects such as Jaeger, Vitess, and GitLab. Priyanka is a long time champion of and advisor to startups in cutting-edge technology spaces and serves as an Advisor at HeavyBit Industries, an accelerator and fund for developer and enterprise companies.

Chris brings more than 15 years experience as The Linux Foundation’s vice president of Developer Programs. His work is focused on working with developer community to advance open source projects at scale. Previously Chris served as Twitter’s head of open source, where he led a team of developer advocates and was responsible for Twitter’s open source engineering, strategy and culture. He has also contributed to Gentoo Linux and served on the Eclipse Foundation’s Board of Directors and the Java Community Process Executive Committee. An engineer by trade, Chris brings a passion for both open source and community development to the organization.

Joanna Lee is the Vice President of Strategic Programs and Legal at CNCF and the Linux Foundation, where she manages strategic programs that are designed to support the health, growth, and sustainability of open source ecosystems. Joanna also oversees legal and policy initiatives, governance, and code of conduct incident response. Prior to joining the Linux Foundation and CNCF, Joanna served as a legal and strategic advisor to open source software foundations, tech standard setting organizations, and a broad range of technology companies.

Robert is the VP of Business Development for The Cloud Native Computing Foundation. An early DevOps adopter and evangelist, he founded two successful development tool startups. Phurnace, acquired by BMC Software, was an application release solution for Java Enterprise applications. Liquibase is an open-source DevOps solution for databases. Robert brings decades of experience in developer tooling and business operations to help deliver the best developer experience to project contributors, maintainers, and project leaders. Robert is as passionate about open-source developers as he is about comic books, punk rock, and backpacking. A US Army veteran, Robert holds an Economics degree from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS degree in Science and Technology Commercialization from the McCombs School of Business. He lives in Austin, Texas with his partner, Maia, and son, Rex.

Jeffrey (@jeefy) is Head of Projects at the CNCF, with a focus on improving community and project automation. Before that, he’s worked at Red Hat and the University of Michigan focusing on Cloud Native technologies and CICD patterns. Jeffrey has been a contributor to upstream Kubernetes, helping in SIG-Contribex, SIG-Release, and SIG-UI. He passionately advocates for open source development and recognizing and alleviating burnout.

Meetups: Board Member for Orchestructure

Nate is the CNCF’s Head of Mentorship and Documentation. He leads the TechDocs team, which includes a group of writers, designers, and web developers. Together, they deliver high-quality documentation that supports the cloud-native ecosystem. Nate and the TechDocs team help CNCF projects organize and write documentation, ensuring clarity, consistency, and accessibility.

Beyond his work in documentation, Nate also oversees the CNCF mentorship programs. Working with the TAG Contributor Strategy Mentoring Working Group, he helps CNCF projects prepare for mentorship programs such as LFX Mentorship, Google Summer of Code, and Outreachy. He also administers CNCF’s participation in the LFX Mentorship program, working with the Linux Foundation to foster the growth and development of new contributors.

Before joining CNCF, Nate worked as a Senior Creative Technologist at AKQA, where he helped build, install, and support interactive installations for retail spaces, conferences, and other events. His diverse background includes technical writing, systems administration, and embedded software development roles.

Navigating the cloud native universe with a knack for puns and a keen eye for psychology. Living in the heart of LA, I blend tech innovation with mental insights, one punny cloud at a time. Avid reader, thinker, and cloud whisperer.

Ashley is an Event Planner at The Linux Foundation, helping with the fulfillment of sponsorship benefits for Kubecon + CloudNativeCon events.

Ashley has been in the events industry producing and coordinating global meetings and conferences since 2011. She has worked in the private, public and non-profit sectors strongly focused on exhibits and sponsorships. Ashley received her BAA from Central Michigan University.

Bob Killen is a Senior Technical Program Manager focusing on improving CNCF project governance processes and finding engaging ways to bring end users and maintainers together. He serves the Kubernetes project as a Steering Committee member and is a recently retired Contributor Experience Special Interest Group chair. Before joining the CNCF, Bob was a program manager at Google’s Open Source Programs Office, where he guided and developed strategies for Google’s open source projects. Bob has a history of bringing cloud and HPC/AI/ML together and is passionate about Academic Outreach. He is also an outspoken advocate of Open Source, Open Science, and pets of the furry 4-legged variety.

Brienne is an Event Planner at The Linux Foundation, managing multiple facets of several events, including the Kubernetes Contributor Summit. Prior to joining The Linux Foundation, Brienne brings over 10 years experience in the events industry managing hundreds of corporate annual technical and educational conferences around the world as well as social events and weddings.

Celia is a Senior Event Manager at The Linux Foundation, bringing over 20 years of experience in the hospitality and events industry. With a proven track record of managing everything from high-profile social events to large-scale tech conferences, she plays a pivotal role in executing impactful events for The Linux Foundation’s collaborative projects. Celia holds a Bachelor of Science in International Hotel & Tourism Management from Johnson & Wales University and is passionate about delivering seamless event experiences that foster innovation and connection.

Chris is a PMP-certified technology leader with a consistent record leading high-performing software teams. He has managed projects for clients such as Samsung and MetLife in addition to distributed blockchain development teams like the Aragon DAC. Chris has been developing mobile and web applications for over 20 years and has been working with CNCF since May 2018. He holds a Systems Design Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo.

Christophe leads the training and certification programs for the CNCF.

In his role, he makes sure that the courses, training and certifications offered by the CNCF are following and reflecting the fast evolving Cloud Native ecosystem.

Christophe is a seasoned Open Source veteran with more than 20 years of experience acting both in the community (Ubuntu, OpenStack, Cloud Native…) and professional services.

He started and lead « Objectif Libre » a successful French company that was delivering services and trainings (35% of their activities) on Open Source technologies (mainly Cloud Native and OpenStack). He is also the co-creator of CloudKitty, the rating component of OpenStack. Following acquisitions, he then worked for Linkbynet and Accenture.

Living in Montreal but originally from France, he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids to discover their new region. He can also be found around basketball courts, his other great passion.

Cody is an Event Manager with a focus on Content at The Linux Foundation, and manages the speakers and content for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon events. Prior to joining The Linux Foundation, Cody brings over six years in the event industry and has assisted planners in over one hundred corporate events.

Daniel Krook recently joined the CNCF to better serve maintainers and contributors to the community of 150+ hosted projects. He has been involved in the use, creation, and advocacy of open source technology for over 20 years. He partnered with the LF to establish the “Call for Code with The Linux Foundation” umbrella and has guided 16 projects through the process of joining the LF and using LFX tools.

He has built software end-to-end for a wide array of industries and earned certifications in cloud architecture, application development, and system operations along the way. Most recently, he worked at IBM as a principal engineer developing first-of-a-kind solutions that integrate open source technologies with commercial products and services.

Daniel has spoken at many open source conferences (including main-stage presentations at the first CloudNativeDay and the inaugural KubeCon), hosted dozens of meetups (primarily OpenWhisk, Cloud Foundry, OpenStack, and PHP), and has contributed to many technical blogs, videos, podcasts, articles, and books.

David is an Inside Sales Manager at The Linux Foundation, where he leads a team of sales representatives who promote The Linux Foundation and its Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). He is a United States Navy veteran with 20 years of experience in Operations Management and Process Improvement. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and a Master of Arts degree from the Naval War College. He is passionate about tech sales and the role open source plays in cybersecurity, cloud native, and mobile technologies.

Donald is a Developer Evangelist for CNCF in the China region, helping companies and members to take part in the CNCF ecosystem, The Linux Foundation, and the bigger open source community.

Elna is a Senior Event Planner at The Linux Foundation, mainly working on CNCF events, and managing events with Chinese aspects.  

Elna has extensive track records leading cross-functional events globally. Prior to joining the Linux Foundation, Elna produced and managed corporate events for Fortune 500 investment banks in Hong Kong such as State Street, Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon. Fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, she works effortlessly across all regions, countries and cultures. 

Erin is an experienced Event Manager with a specific expertise in Tradeshows and Conferences. She has a passion for strategic event marketing, strong vendor relationships, and delivering exceptional experiences. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Communications and Business at the University of Utah, and began her career in sales and marketing. She managed 20+ tradeshows annually for a CPG company, before moving to the agency side where she mastered her Project Management and Customer Services skills managing experiential marketing campaigns for clients like Amazon Fresh and Kodiak Cakes. She recently received her Master’s degree in Strategic Communication and is excited to utilize this knowledge to bring more research, data and strategy into her projects and events.

Ihor is a Senior Developer Advocate at Cloud Native Computing Foundation, focused on Kubernetes-related efforts in the open source community.

He is a Product Manager for Kubernetes, co-leading the Product Management Special Interest Group, focused on enhancing Kubernetes as an open source product. Besides that, he is participating in Kubernetes release process as a features lead for multiple Kubernetes releases.

A Linux user since 2005 with a deep engineering background, Ihor has been responsible for projects tightly bound to the cloud computing space, containerized workloads and Linux systems.

His recent speaking appearances include talks at Kubernetes Leadership and Contributors Summits, OpenStack Summits NA and APAC, OpenSource Summit EU, ContainerDays EU, Google DevFests and other industry-leading events.

Jake is an Membership Sales Representative at The Linux Foundation, working with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. He brings experience in technology sales and cloud solutions, with an academic background that includes an Associate degree in Computer Science – Network Technology from Lehigh Carbon Community College, and ongoing studies for a Bachelor’s in Information Technology at Western Governors University. Jake is dedicated to enhancing open-source software solutions in cloud native computing and network security.

Janelle is a detail-oriented individual with a passionate focus on creative collaboration, flawless event execution and five star customer service. She attended Central Michigan University where she received my B.S. in Event Management and Hospitality Services Administration.

Prior to moving to the greater Chicago area in 2019, she spent nine years in Nashville, Tennessee planning and executing multi-day conferences, weddings, corporate outings and trade shows, and has a strong background in food and beverage management. Her last role in Nashville was at the five star Hermitage Hotel where she oversaw all aspects of wedding and conference planning / on-site management, while also playing an active role as the Event Chair on the Board for the Tennessee Wedding and Event Specialist Association (TWESA).

She spent the last 3 1/2 years with a 3rd Party Meeting Planning Company planning CME events for our client partners at Chicago area Hospitals and beyond, where she thrived creating meaningful relationships with clients and bringing their vision to life.

Over the years, Jerry Lee has run global IT businesses in cutting-edge technologies, including open source, cloud computing, big data, mobile, and deep-learning. Through the use of his skill sets and his extensive network, he has created synergy and contributed to business and social growth initiatives in not only the Korea market but also the entire Asia-Pacific region.

Jessie is a Public Relations Manager for CNCF.

Jorge (@castrojo) is a Developer Relations specialist at the CNCF, with a focus on improving developer experience and communities. Jorge graduated with a degree in Telecommunications from Michigan State University and rode with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment for four years. He has contributed to Kubernetes, Ubuntu, Kubeflow, and the Cloud Custodian open source projects. He now resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his lovely wife Jill, their son Rafael, and their beagle Oscar. Hobbies and interests include heavy metal, passport renewal, paleontology, gaming, technology, and scouting out the best beers in the world.

Kate is an Event Planner at The Linux Foundation, helping with the fulfillment of sponsorship benefits for Kubecon + CloudNativeCon events.

Prior to her role at LF, Kate worked as a Marketing Operations Assistant for China Telecom Americas where she was responsible for their industry conference and tradeshow planning and logistics.

Katie joined #teamcloudnative in 2015 as an Event Manager at The Linux Foundation. She was one of the lead producers for CNCF’s cornerstone events, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, and supported CNCF’s third-party event engagements. With over 15 years of experience in event and community management and ten years in open source, Katie made a career change in 2022, joining the CNCF team full-time to lead community programs and marketing initiatives within CNCF.

Katie is a Public Relations Manager for CNCF.

Keith (Chan Chak Fai) has been in IT industry for more than 20 years. He is born in HK and holds an MBA degree from UK. He started his IT journey from involving in IP stack network to focusing on IT security solution since 1997. He has been helping a lot of Enterprise in Asia Pacific to deploy security solution around the globe. Since 2009, he has also stepped into particularly Open Source Area. He has helped a lot of companies in Greater China for a better open source management and strategy, which covers Government, Banking and Finance, High Tech. He has successfully helped more than 40+ overseas companies to introduce their latest technology in Asia Pacific, as being the General Manager in Greater China. He is now the Director of Strategic Planning of The Linux Foundation APAC, helping The Linux Foundation to promote open source in Greater China.

Libby is a Marketing Programs Manager at CNCF overseeing Online Programs, KubeWeekly, and other marketing initiatives. Her experience spans over 15 years in the tech industry including event planning and marketing. She holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Texas and currently resides in San Antonio. When not at work, Libby enjoys spending time with her family and going to the beach.

Lindsay works collaboratively with the CNCF community to support, manage and execute events that build capacity within the ecosystem. Lindsay has 20+ years of experience in executing, leading, and designing global event experiences in corporate, nonprofit, and educational settings.  Within that time, Lindsay supported The Linux Foundation events team for 3 years working on Open Sources Summits, Embedded Linux Conferences, Leadership Summits, etc. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Event & Hospitality Management from the University of Central Florida.

Lukasz has been a Senior Developer at the CNCF since 2017 and has been working for The Linux Foundation since 2018. He is the creator and maintainer of the DevStats reporting tool. Prior to joining the CNCF, Lukasz worked remotely for companies based in the US, including Cleverstep, Jamis and Spreemo Health.

He loves to travel in polar areas, such as polar Norway, Finland and Russia. From 2011 to 2012, he was a scientist for a Polish polar expedition to the Hornsund fjord on the island of Spitsbergen, in northern Norway. Lukasz graduated from Warsaw University of Technology with a Master of Science in Engineering. He lives in a small town in Poland with his wife and two kids.

Mary is a Meeting & Event Coordinator, Sponsorship Management, at The Linux Foundation, helping with the fulfillment of sponsorship benefits for Kubecon + CloudNativeCon events. Mary has worked as a Marketing Coordinator where she has assisted in planning trade shows, conferences, and webinars. She holds a BS in Marketing and Hospitality, from Georgia State University of Atlanta, Georgia.

Paige is the Executive Administrator at Cloud Native Computing Foundation. She supports Priyanka Sharma, ED, and is the organizational backbone to the entire team. Her experience spans over 7 years in operations and administration. As a recent transplant to San Francisco from the mid-west, she enjoys traveling, wine tasting and trying new restaurants in the Bay Area.

Shellea is a Projects Coordinator for the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. She is responsible for membership operations.

Taylor is a Program Manager for CNCF. She is responsible for membership operations and program management.

With more than 10 years of operations experience, she comes to CNCF from Jive Software, where she managed the professional services partner program and various internal projects. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the University of Oregon.

Tin is a Senior Meeting and Event Coordinator at The Linux Foundation, and manages the Project Pavilion at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon events. Prior to joining The Linux Foundation, Tin brings over seven years in the event industry and has planned and executed over one hundred corporate events, ranging from large scale meetings to intimate educational seminars.

As a Senior Event Manager at The Linux Foundation, Tina works closely with event sponsors and manages the sponsorship fulfillment team. She has over 9 years of work experience in the events industry producing conferences and tradeshows for non-profit organizations. Prior to joining The Linux Foundation, Tina worked for the Drupal Association and helped produce events for the project’s global open source community.

Tina holds an MA degree in Cultural Management and Cultural Tourism Management and a BA degree in Social and Cultural Sciences from the European University Viadrina.

Uche is a developer advocate at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Uche has contributed to a wide range of open source projects including Grafana, Pyroscope, and the Thanos project. He’s the co-organizer of the kubernetes Community Days (KCD) Africa. He is really passionate about creating a safe space for newbie contributors to contribute, learn, and collaborate within the CNCF community.

Vanessa is the Director of CNCF Events, managing global events for The Linux Foundation’s Collaborative Projects. She has 20+ years experience producing conferences, corporate meetings, trade shows and consumer events for Fortune 500 Companies in both the IT and golf industries. Vanessa holds a BS in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Wendi has been working as an Event Planner for The Linux Foundation since 2014 with her primary focus being CNCF’s KubeCon+CloudNativeCon events (since late 2016) where she manages the scholarship program and DEI activities, and acts as a liaison between the PR and Events team for Media + Analyst engagement at events. Wendi has produced corporate and non-profit events for over 15 years. She holds a BA from California State University, Fullerton and a certification in grant writing from the Center of NonProfit Management.