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.

Melissa is Vice President of Marketing at the CNCF. The cloud native community is near and dear to her heart as she started her cloud native journey while head of marketing at CoreOS (acquired by Red Hat in 2017). Most recently, Melissa was Vice President of Corporate Marketing at GitLab and led the marketing efforts for taking GitLab public. Prior to Melissa’s cloud native days she worked at Chartio (acquired by Atlassian in 2022) and at Rackspace, where she led communications for Rackspace Cloud and was part of the team that launched OpenStack.

Amye brings over a decade of experience in open source program and project management to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Previously, she was at Red Hat as a Community Lead in their Open Source Program Office. She likes spreadsheets, budgets, and checklists.

She holds a Juris Doctor degree from Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

Ashley is a Senior Meeting & Event Coordinator, Sponsorship Management, 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.

A recovering breaking news journalist, Charley brings more than a decade of experience in developing and leading high-performance technical content strategies, to drive high growth and nurture passionate user communities.

She previously led content strategy for Camunda GmbH, and has consulted for technology organizations from tech think tanks and open source start-ups, to enterprise behemoths. Her passion is translating deeply technical concepts into clear, compelling content that enables individuals and organizations to engineer the best solution to their problem, and to learn from each other.

She holds a BA (hons) English Literature from the University of Reading and Grad.Dip Journalism from Ara Institute.

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 a Senior Event Planner 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 Meeting & 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. 

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.

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.

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

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 a Senior Meeting & Event Coordinator, Sponsorship Management, 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 has been an Event Manager at The Linux Foundation since 2014 working with numerous Foundation Collaborative Projects. She has over 10 years experience in producing and managing conferences, corporate meetings and trade shows for an arrange of startup and large IT companies. Katie is a lead producer in CNCF’s cornerstone events, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, and supports CNCF’s 3rd party event engagements.

Katie holds a BS in Hospitality, Tourism and Event Planning from Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado.

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.

Kristi is a Core Organizer of the Kubernetes Community Days program where she assists organizers at all stages in the process of these global community-led events. She also produces CNCF content including the Project Journey Reports and supports email marketing. Previously, she led social media strategy and marketing for various networking and automotive open source projects. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Oregon.

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.

Nate is a Developer Advocate with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, focusing primarily on the CNCF landscape’s documentation efforts.

Before joining the CNCF, Nate worked as a Creative Technologist at AKQA, helping build, install, and support interactive installations for retail spaces, conferences, and other events. He has also tried his hand at Technical Writing, Systems Administration and has spent several years as an Embedded Software Developer.

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.

Sue is the Korea Alliance Manager for CNCF and looks after all aspects of the members in Korea. She takes care of developing new members, supporting existing members, and building a strong ecosystem. Sue has ten years of experience in digital strategy, digital marketing, and cloud business, and worked as alliance manager for the last 4 years before joining the CNCF team.

Tally handles all aspects of the CNCF members in China.  Both development of new members and support of existing members.  With over 15 year’s experience with Fortune 500 and start-up high tech companies, Tally has shown her excellence in market development and customer relationship skills.  She has worked in the oil & gas industry and then in a wireless data transmission company.  Most recently, she served as country manager for Greater China for FreeWave Technologies for the last 8 years. Previously, she was chief representative of American Polywater Corporation in China.

I work on infrastructure tools that enable innovation. I specialize in Kubernetes, Terraform, public clouds, and distributed systems. You can also find me buried deep in a book, preparing a technical talk, or running with my partner, Hannabeth, and our two dogs.

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 an 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 a Meeting + 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.