Ambassadors

I am Platform Engineer and a Certified ISO 22301 Lead Implementer in Business Continuity, I bring a wealth of experience in Software Engineering, Enterprise Application Management, Server Infrastructure Management, Database Management, Incident Management, and Cloud Engineering. I holds a B.Sc in Computer Science from Babcock University and an M.Sc in Business Information Technology from Middlesex University. My technical proficiencies span various programming languages and tools including SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Docker, Kubernetes, and numerous scripting languages.

DevOps & Cloud Engineer, Public Speaker, Tech Mentor, Lead Organizer CNCG Jaipur, OpenSource & Community Contributor, AWS Community Builder, AWS Community Leader, 1 x (AWS, GCP, Azure), 6 x RedHat, CKA, KCNA certified.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: It’s been more than three years, I am being part of CNCF programs actively contributing via blogs, and public speaking on different open source DevOps/Cloud technologies at virtual and in-person events, I want to expand my learning and contribution with a wide area of peoples and uplift them with like-minded folks I can grow at the same time can share & help with my ideas to build better community bonding & culture.

Tech and Community lover with more than 10 years of experience playing with software professionally. Engaged in cloud native since 2017 when he began learning about Kubernetes, it served as his gateway to the world of tech meetups. Since then, he has actively participated in and collaborated with multiple tech communities in Guatemala and across Latin America Actively collaborating with: Cloud Native Latam – CNCF Group Kubernetes Guatemala – CNCF Group Cloud Native Guatemala – CNCF Group Kong Meetup Guatemala TensorFlow User Group Guatemala.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Since I first started learning about tech, the community has played a significant role, and being part of a Cloud Native meetup I’ve been able to see how it creates great opportunities to meet people, learn from their experiences, get inspired and inspire others! I strongly believe that the community movement can make a difference specially on my region, helping us not just to improve our technical skills but also in how we interact, create and learn together.

PNW local. Seasoned software product builder and technologist based in Seattle (WA). Expertise in large-scale distributed systems and cloud computing: AI, ML + Data, containers & virtualization, serverless compute, open-source. Diverse experience encompassing both people management and technical leadership, including cross-company collaborations. Community Lead of Cloud Native Seattle. Technical advisory board. Guest lecturer of University of Washington. Photographer, Music lover, have a taylor made in walnut, and I love Icewine. Homepage: https://pengandy.com/

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am thrilled to be joining the CNCF Ambassador program. As someone who is deeply passionate about building and promoting fundamental technologies, particularly in the realm of Cloud Native solutions, I feel grateful for the opportunity to deepen my connections with the community and share my knowledge and experience with open-source users around the globe. By being part of this program, I hope to make a broader impact and bring even more value to Linux Foundation and CNCF. Additionally, I am eager to learn more about the needs of users and help them understand how they can effectively use cloud native and container technology to solve their problems.

I’m a Principal Solutions Engineer at Solo.io. However, I came from the development side of the fence, then DevOps, and then Software Architect. Full cycle

I was lucky to start early with Docker and Kubernetes given that I was always related to Cloud Native (Heroku 12-Factor apps) as Developer and DevOps practices when DevOps Engineer.

That helped me to experience all of the benefits, but also the pain, myself. I really like to share what I’ve seen, but also to learn from what others have seen.

My biggest concern is efficiency in the development lifecycle.

One of my favourite quotes is: ‘Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.’ — Stewart Brand —

Ayrat (Archy) is a CNCF Ambassador, Cloud Native Tech Professor at Mcgill University and Cloud Native Architect at Google Cloud. As a CNCF Ambassador he has an opportunity to educate people and share knowledge about benefits of Cloud Native ecosystem via CNCF and Kubernetes Meetups, workshops or by helping customers to build modern cloud native applications that can run seamlessly on-prem or any cloud provider. Archy is passionate about community, he is a Founder and lead organizer of Canadian CNCF Meetups (Virtual, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Waterloo, Halifax) and frequent speaker GDG, CNCF Meetups and CNCF related conferences. He is an organizer of Canadian Kubernetes Community Days (KCDs), Cloud Native Days Canada 2019 and GDG Cloud & AI DevFest 2019.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: To be part of amazing team of Ambassadors provides you opportunity to learn from other experts and meet new friends across the world who is passionate about same technology. Being Ambassador also gives you a life time opportunity to meet and learn with Cloud Native Community at Kubecons. Give back to community by organizing K8s Meetups, KCDs and sharing the knowledge with wider community.

Transformation Architect, SECTION6 BMK is an inspiring and passionate DevOps Advocate and Value Stream Architect promoting DevOps, Lean and Value Stream Management principles & practices. He is also a New Zealand ambassador for the Cloud-Native Computing Foundation(CNCF), DevOps Institute and a Board Advisor for the Value Stream Management consortium(VSMC). He hosts the CNCF meetup in Wellington, New Zealand and is co-chair of Cloud-Native Summit A/NZ. He blogs about his experiences and learnings at https://bmk.nz/

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: 1. Promoting Open Source and Cloud-Native projects and ecosystem tools in our community. 2. Connecting with experts, maintainers, contributors and other Opensource and cloud-native thought leaders to amplify my learning 3. Use the ambassador program and help in bringing in the best to my community in terms of cloud-native learnings, education and training.

Chad is a Principal SRE at Akamai, and author of the book “Acing the Certified Kubernetes Administrator Exam”. Chad has been an instructor for over six years on platforms such as A Cloud Guru (now Pluralsight) and INE. Through KubeSkills, he helps people find fun and interactive ways to learn Kubernetes, Linux, and containers.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I really enjoy helping people get involved in open source software. I have realized the power of community, in lifting others up and succeeding together, and I love to share it with others. I believe it is my duty in life to share what I’ve learned in order to make intellectual progress as a human race.

Chamod Shehanka Perera serves as a Software Engineer and is a passionate advocate for open source and cloud-native technologies. He has a keen interest in delivering tech talks on subjects like open source and cloud technologies. Notably, he has taken on leadership roles for KCD Sri Lanka 2022 and KCD Sri Lanka 2023, alongside his dedicated team. Presently, he leads various communities, including Kubernetes Sri Lanka, GDG Sri Lanka, and GitHub Community Sri Lanka, while he’s also fully experienced on building cloud native CI/CD platform when worked at WSO2. He shares his insights and experiences related to software development on his blog, accessible at https://chamodshehanka.medium.com. Furthermore, he has successfully implemented a solution for Database Scaling on Kubernetes as part of his undergraduate research, which has been published as a paper (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9671185). In his leisure time, Chamod Shehanka Perera is an avid practitioner of karate, holding a 2nd-degree black belt, and enjoys spending time at the gym and surfing on weekends.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be an ambassador because it allows me to continue what I’m doing, giving back to the community and contributing to CNCF projects. Additionally, the role offers the opportunity to network with new people, fostering connections with like-minded individuals. As an ambassador, I look forward to sharing knowledge and ideas, enabling us all to stay updated on the latest developments in this rapidly-evolving field.

Daniel Oh is Java Champion and Senior Principal Developer Advocate at Red Hat. He works to evangelize building cloud-native microservices and serverless functions with cloud-native runtimes to developers. He also continues to contribute to various open-source cloud projects and ecosystems as a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) ambassador for accelerating DevOps adoption in enterprises. Daniel also speaks at technical seminars, workshops, and meetups to elaborate on new emerging technologies for enterprise developers, SREs, platform engineers, and DevOps teams.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: It will give me more opportunities to meet more technical folks who want to adopt/learn new cloud-native technologies and tools. Also, the ambassador makes me a more proactive person to evangelize non-tech people in terms of how/why they move forward to the cloud.

I am passionate about cloud-native technologies and all open-source technologies. I am very curious and I like to share everything I discover. I test some cloud-native technologies to help my city community expand its skills. If I discover and/or do not understand something, I do not hesitate to create issues on open-source technologies to improve the documentation or features. I co-organize a Cloud-Native community with partners to highlight cloud-native and surrounding technologies, such as generative AI.

Di Xu is passionate about open source projects and get involved in. He is a top-60 code contributor in Kubernetes community and founds CNCF Sandbox project Clusternet. He is also an avid speaker and has spoken many times at open source conferences and meetups, including KubeCon, Open Source Summit, etc. Nowadays he is specialized in cloud native, Kubernetes and infrastructure.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’ve been an active member of the Kubernetes community since 2016. I am eager to become a CNCF Ambassador to give back to the open source community and help drive cloud native adoption. My practical experience with CNCF technologies can provide valuable insights to users. As an ambassador, I look forward to mentoring new contributors, staying connected to the latest developments, speaking at events, creating tutorials, and connecting with the cloud native community. This role aligns well with my passion for open source software and interest in emerging cloud native technologies. I am excited by the opportunity to contribute meaningfully as an ambassador, share my knowledge with others and help advance the CNCF ecosystem.

Passionate about business, technology and sports. Teacher and eternal learner. With a background in multiple technologies, I decided to start my own business to provide the best technical advisor services possible. Currently leading multiple communities in Latin America and their events such as KCD Argentina.

Emin is working as a Solutions Architect and has undertaken tasks such as producing solutions related to Kubernetes, Cloud technologies and Cloud Native Transformation in general, and transferring best practices about these areas. He is also an AWS Container Hero and shares his experience with the community around these technologies. He is part of the organiser team of the official CNCF Istanbul Community Chapter (https://community.cncf.io/istanbul/). He is also part of the CNCF Glossary Turkish team and helps the local community to understand the Cloud Native terms in their native language. He publishes blog posts from his personal Medium page (https://medium.com/@eminalemdar) and also participates in Open Source and Cloud Native related conferences and delivers talks about these technologies. He is in the organiser team of KCD (Kubernetes Community Days) Istanbul conference.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Community activities have always been my biggest motivation throughout my career. Helping people and learning from the people by participating in community activities is extremely important for me. Cloud Native Community is really one of a kind and being part of this community is really like a dream coming true for me.

Committed to innovation and new technologies, strong believer in cloud native and container orchestration. Participating in main events, both as speaker and attendant, actively spreading the CNCF principles and project. My job is my favorite game.

Faseela is a cloud-native developer, maintainer and steering committee member at Istio Service Mesh. She has served as the Program Chair for the Istio Meetups in 2023 including the IstioDays co-located with KubeCon Europe and NorthAmerica. She regularly contributes to the Istio blogs, helping all the latest news about Istio reach users and contributors worldwide.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Having done the work of an ambassador for Istio for several years now, I look forward to continuing this work officially now, making use of the support CNCF provides. I would love to provide more support for the women in cloud native community with this new opportunity I am provided with.

As a Platform Engineer with over 15 years of experience, I specialize in Cloud Native technologies and Kubernetes, focusing on driving these innovations to the edge. In 2016, I founded Fullstaq, a consulting company dedicated to advancing Cloud Native solutions, and through its merger into TrueFullstaq, I now serve as Chief Evangelist. I’m passionate about sharing insights and best practices in the CNCF ecosystem, actively engaging in the community to promote Kubernetes and edge computing.

Harry is a DevOps Evangelist and CTO @ Melio AI. He specialises in helping organisations navigate the cloud native landscape and adopt cloud native technologies. Harry runs the Cloud Native Computing Johannesburg Meetup which is part of the CNCF community groups in South Africa. https://www.meetup.com/cloud-native-computing-johannesburg/ https://community.cncf.io/johannesburg/

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Harry is excited to be an ambassador as he is able to bring local cloud native enthusiasts together. This creates a platform where everyone can share their experiences embarking on their cloud native journeys. Through frequent knowledge sharing, this advances the entire cloud native community as a whole.

I am a distinguished Docker Captain based in India, recognized for my expertise in containerization and cloud technologies. As a Cloud Innovator Champion, I’m committed to driving innovation and best practices in cloud computing. Additionally, i am a Top Kubernetes answerer worldwide on StackOverflow, demonstrating my dedication to fostering knowledge sharing within the global tech community.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Becoming a CNCF ambassador is thrilling because it means actively shaping the future of cloud-native technologies, collaborating with industry leaders, and bridging gaps in the tech ecosystem. It’s an opportunity to contribute to a global community that’s driving innovation and setting standards for modern computing.

Henrik Rexed is a Cloud Native Advocate at Dynatrace with over 15 years of expertise as a Performance Engineer. Passionate about Observability and Performance, he actively contributes to the tech community as an organizer of the WOPR and KCD Austria conferences. Henrik is also the creator of the YouTube channel Is It Observable?, where he shares insights on Kubernetes security, observability, and runtime tools.

Hi, I’m Huabing Zhao, founder of the CNCF open-source project Aeraki Mesh(https://aeraki.net). I’m passionate about Cloud-Native technologies like Microservices, Kubernetes, and Service Mesh. I share my thoughts on Cloud-Native technologies through my blog(https://zhaohuabing.com https://medium.com/@zhaohuabing). When I’m not working, I enjoy watching movies, swimming, hiking, travelling, and skateboarding.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am thrilled to be a CNCF ambassador because it’s an opportunity for me to share my passion for Cloud-Native technologies with others who are interested in this space. In the meatime, I have the chance to connect with other experts in this field and learn from them.

Huan has more than 15 years of work experience, and his current focus is cloud-native edge computing, distributed cloud, and high-performance computing. He is currently working as a Senior Technical Director at HarmonyCloud, a company located in Hangzhou, China, providing leading cloud-native products and solutions for hundreds of enterprise customers, including Kubernetes, PaaS, edge computing, micro service visibility, DevOps, etc. In addition, Huan serves as a Technical Steering Committe member of the CNCF edge computing project KubeEdge. Huan is an open source technology enthusiast and is currently committed to building an open source technology ecosystem in China.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: The company I work for, HarmonyCloud, is an influential cloud native tehnology supplier in China and a long-term partner of CNCF. HarmonyCloud has helped many customers around the world complete the transformation of cloud-native technology. At the same time, I am currently working as a TSC member in the CNCF Project KubeEdge community, responsible for leading several SIG teams and working with other TSC members towards the graduation of the KubeEdge project. Over the years, I have also given speeches at conferences organized by CNCF. Therefore, I am familiar with the operation process of CNCF projects and understand the job responsibilities of CNCF ambassadors. If I become an ambassador, I will promote the maturity and promotion of Kubernetes, KubeEdge and more open source projects, and help users around the world to apply these advanced and open source cloud-native tenologies.

I am a cloud native believer and advocator with over 15 years of experience in cloud computing. I was an early contributor to Kubernetes and led its adoption at eBay for six years. I am currently working as a product and development owner of cloud native FinOps at Tencent Cloud, where I founded the open-source project Crane, which helps users optimize their cloud costs. I am also auther of “The Journey of Kubernetes Production Adoption Success”, translator of “Cloud FinOps”, and speaker on various cloud native topics including Cloud Native Campus in geektime.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am excited to be an ambassador because I love cloud native and I want to share my passion and knowledge with others. I think cloud native is the future of software development and it can bring many benefits to users, developers, and businesses. I want to help the cloud native community grow and thrive by contributing to open-source projects, writing books and articles, and organizing events. Being an ambassador will give me more opportunities to connect with other cloud native enthusiasts and learn from their experiences. I hope to inspire more people to join the cloud native journey and make a positive impact on the world.

I’m Jim Angel. I love solving problems and working with incredible people! I’m primarily involved with upstream Kubernetes (SIG-Release and SIG-Docs). Currently working on restarting our local Austin meetup and a Texas KCD. You can follow my latest projects at jimangel.io

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: It’s awesome to get to know so many great people and work with leading technology that’s responsible for changing multiple industries. The community that keeps Kubernetes open and welcome is a special thing, and I hope to maintain such standards myself. I also enjoy helping connect the folks using open source tooling with the resources they need to be successful, and being an ambassador keeps me connected.

Jimmy Song(宋净超) is a developer advocate at Tetrate and founder of Cloud Native Community(China). He is an outstanding blogger and author of cloud native technical books. You can know him better from his blog jimmysong.io

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I used to be the second Chinese to join the CNCF Ambassador program and then the CNCF Ambassador changed the rules of the game and I thought I should reapply.

Joe is a Staff Software Engineer. He’s a passionate technologist and loves solving complex problems. Joe leads the Kubernetes Atlanta Meetup and is a contributor to many CNCF projects (Kubernetes, Istio, Carvel, etc.). Outside of technology, Joe is an audiophile, a lego enthusiast, and a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I’m Joseph Sandoval, a Principal Product Manager at Adobe, where I lead product strategy for our internal developer platform. I’ve been in tech for over 25 years, working across large-scale infrastructure, DevOps, and site reliability engineering. I became an early Kubernetes end user back in 2013, before the 1.0 release, and I’ve been passionate ever since about helping others adopt and succeed with cloud native technologies.

I currently serve as co-chair of the CNCF Technical Advisory Board and as a KubeCon + CloudNativeCon co-chair for Atlanta 2025. Before that, I was part of the Kubernetes SIG Release team. These days, my focus is on AI and machine learning workloads and building agentic experiences both on our platform and for Adobe’s users. You’ll often find me at CNCF and AI/ML community events in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I love connecting with practitioners, sharing what I’ve learned, and supporting others in their cloud native journey.

Josh is passionate about enabling project builders and end users to succeed with cloud computing. He’s a solution architect for Red Hat and leader of CNCF’s TAG App Delivery and WG Platforms. He also leads the CNCF Chicago community group and other Chicago-area groups. Check out Josh’s blog at https://blog.joshgav.com/!

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m thrilled to continue enabling beginners and experts alike to make the most of cloud computing! As an ambassador I’ll be even more empowered to educate and support Chicago-area developers in our local communities. I’m looking forward to sharing knowledge myself, but most of all I’m looking forward to enabling people in my communities to share their knowledge with each other!

Juliano is a passionate Software Engineer/Developer Advocate with extensive experience in cloud-related technologies. He is specialized in OpenTelemetry and is always working with Kubernetes, Helm, Containers, Jenkins, and other related tools. As one of the maintainers of the CNCF project OpenTelemetry Demo, Juliano has helped to create a distributed system that demonstrates the implementation of OpenTelemetry in a near real-world environment. With a strong belief in the power of community, Juliano co-founded the Cloud Native Linz meetup. He actively participates in the tech community and is always willing to share his knowledge and insights with others. When not working, Juliano likes to spend his time with the family traveling around Austria and sightseeing new places.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I strongly believe in the power of the community and how it can help everyone grow, not just professionally, but as a whole. I’m extremely excited about being able to help growing the CNCF community and raising it awareness wherever I go. I love learning and sharing what I learn. The atmosphere and environment of openness created by CNCF is something that I take with me in every interaction I have. I’m super excited and thankful in becoming a CNCF Ambassador.

Kensei Nakada is a software engineer, passionate about CloudNative tech. He’s a long-time Kubernetes contributor, mainly focusing on the scheduler as a SIG-Scheduling approver, and has led many major enhancements.

Kohei Ota is a Senior Field Engineer at Apple. He is a CNCF Ambassador and contributes to Kubernetes SIG Docs as the Japanese localization owner in the CNCF communities. He also organizes Docker Meetup Tokyo and CloudNative Days Tokyo; some of the biggest “container/cloud native” communities and conferences in Japan.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’ve been involved with local cloud native community based in Japan. Unfortunately not many folks from Japan have tightened relationship with international community. I’m excited to be part of organizers of both sides and would love to help local experts become part of the international community!

I work as a SRE with SEKAI (swiss based startup) prior to joining SEKAI I worked as a Solution Architect with AWS where I worked with startups on several ways of building on AWS. I spend most of my time working across containers, but my philosophy revolves more about buidling cheaply and reliably. I have written several blogs which revolves around this in some way such as, https://thenewstack.io/how-to-run-databases-in-kubernetes/ https://medium.com/@kollzey69/balancing-innovation-and-cost-in-the-cloud-era-rethinking-best-practices-and-the-role-of-3264677ff726 https://techcabal.com/2024/07/29/strategic-tech-choices-a-cost-centric-philosophy-for-ctos/

Lee Calcote is the Founder of Layer5, where the community helps organizations harness and exploit the value of service meshes. Previously, Calcote stewarded technology strategy and innovation across SolarWinds. He led software-defined data center engineering at Seagate, delivering predictive analytics and modern systems management. Calcote held various leadership positions at Cisco, where he created Cisco’s cloud management platforms and pioneered new, automated, remote management services.

In addition to his role at Layer5, Calcote serves in various industry bodies, including as a SIG chair in Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), and formerly, participated in the delivery of Redfish 1.0 in the Distributed Management Task Foundation (DMTF), and Docker Benchmark 1.0 in Center for Internet Security (CIS). He is a startup advisor, Docker Captain, Cloud Native Ambassador, O’Reilly author, and speaker in the cloud native ecosystem.

Calcote is a maintainer of open source projects, including Meshery, Service Mesh Interface, and Service Mesh Performance. Calcote holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a master’s degree in Business Administration from California State University, Fresno and retains a list of industry certifications.

Meetup: Cloud Native Austin

I’m a technical support engineer, currently I mostly have varied interests ranging from Hardware to K8s and VM’s Blogs I’ve written are at https://dev.to/mediocreDevops

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: This is a quite new thing to me so I’m taking it all in, hoping I can get some guidance on how this whole thing works, but I’m excited to be a part of this and give back to the community

Hey, my name is Leonard Pahlke, and I am a software engineer with a focus on cloud, open source and sustainability. I like to build systems that tend to get big and complex. I post regularly on the CNCF blog and my own website lvsp.io. I am a CNCF Ambassador, Chair for the CNCF TAG Environmental Sustainability, lead the Kubernetes release team for v1.26 and organize meetups in Hamburg.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I love the cloud and the infinite variety and complexity of systems that can be built on it. The CNCF truly makes cloud-native applications accessible to anyone and any platform. The open source spirit fascinates and inspires me. Serving as a ambassador the community is a great honor.

Lin is the Head of Open Source at Solo.io, also serving as a CNCF TOC member and ambassador. She has been actively involved with the Istio service mesh since its inception in 2017, holding positions on both the Istio Steering Committee and Technical Oversight Committee. Prior to her current role, she was a Senior Technical Staff Member and Master Inventor at IBM for 15+ years. She is the author of the book “Istio Ambient Explained” and has more than 200 patents to her name.

Marino Wijay is a Canadian, Traveller, International Speaker, Open Source Advocate for Service Mesh, CNI, Kubernetes, and Networking. He is an Ambassador @ Civo Cloud, and Lead Organizer for KubeHuddle Toronto. He is passionate about technology and modern distributed systems. He will always fall back to the patterns of Networking and the ways of the OSI. Community building is his driving force; A modern Jedi Academy.

Matteo is a seasoned Software and Cloud Engineer but also a former startup CTO, DevRel and Solution Architect. Hacker and builder, advocating for Cloud Native technologies around the world as active member of the Cloud Native community. Matteo is a Kubernetes Release Team Member and active contributor who loves Platform Engineering. Co-organizer of KCD Netherlands and CNGC Netherlands meetups, helping out different KCDs and founding organizer of Cloud Native Days. @mbianchidev on (almost) every social media.

I’m a Plaform Engineer and help developers to focus on features delivery based on robust infrastrucure. I am passionate by Kubernetes and all the ecosystem around. I contribute to meshery, jaegertracing, score-spec, and more, and I am a Meshery maintainer.

Max is Co-Founder and Cloud Native Advocate at Liquid Reply. He is Co-Chair of the CNCF Environmental Sustainability Technical Advisory Group and served 3 years at the Kubernetes release team. His focus is on designing and building cloud-native solutions on/with Kubernetes anywhere and the platform engineering to simplify the current challenges of complex systems. He runs the Munich Kubernetes Meetup as well as the Munich and Ukraine Kubernetes Community Days.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Being an ambassador is a sign that working with the community and being part of the community is a high value, empowering anyone to join and be part of it. And as ambassadors, we are potentially the enabler to guide people but also motivate others to share their experiences to create a synergy. I’m also excited to meet other ambassadors in person and maybe create new ideas and events.

Michael Levan is a seasoned engineer and consultant in the Kubernetes and Platform Engineering space who spends his time working with startups and enterprises around the globe on consulting, training, and content creation. He is a trainer, 3x published author, podcast host, international public speaker, and was part of the Kubernetes v1.28 Release Team.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: The avenue that’s now opened to work with more people around the world. I’ve been giving back to the community, creating free content, and contributing to projects for 5+ years. I’m now excited to work with others who are passionate about doing the same.

I’m Michel Murabito, but everyone calls me Mich. I’m a Developer Advocate at Mia-Platform with over 18 years of experience in software development. Throughout my career, I’ve held various roles in tech companies, enhancing my skills and contributing to numerous projects that have shaped my expertise. My areas of interest include Sustainability, Platform Engineering and Cloud Native technologies in general, which have guided my career choices and contributions I actively contribute to the CNCF, participating in the Sustainability TAG and the Platform WG of the APP Delivery TAG, and I organize KCD Italy, a key event for the Kubernetes community in Italy. I founded DevelopersLife, an Italian community of 800 members dedicated to supporting developers, both new and experienced, by providing them with the resources and guidance needed to maximize their professional opportunities in the development sector.

I am a member of the technical oversight committee for Istio, where I have worked full time for four years. I regularly contribute to the Istio blog and lead conferences like IstioCon, helping new users and veterans alike to get connected.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I have been unofficially doing the work of an ambassador for Istio for several years now, and look forward to continuing this work officially now that Istio has joined the CNCF.

Mohammad Reza is a Senior Software Engineer at DoiT International with multiple years of experience in DevOps and Software Engineering. He actively contributes to the Kubernetes as part of the Release Team and has published multiple research papers and his PhD thesis on cloud-native technologies, particularly service meshes such as Istio and Cilium. He is writing about Cloud-Native technologies on his LinkedIn page and his personal blog. You can also find his previous talks in various venues on his Youtube channel.

I like hacking through software engineering problems. Over the past 3-4 years, I have been developing solutions for software reliability. I love everything around cloud-native, open source, and security. I have also founded Women in Cloud Native community for women who are interested in learning more about Cloud Native and those who are willing to learn, collaborate and support each other to grow Website – https://womenincloudnative.com/ Personal Blog – https://nancychauhan.in/

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I look forward to contributing to the CNCF community as an ambassador and keep doing things I was doing before. Meeting other like-minded ambassadors and motivating each other to contribute, support, and inspire others excites me

I am a seasoned cloud-native professional with over 20 years of experience in the industry, specializing in Kubernetes, containerization, and DevOps practices. As the founder and organizer of the Bari and Matera CNCF Cloud-Native Meetup, I have fostered a strong local community committed to sharing knowledge and best practices. My technical expertise spans across multiple CNCF projects, including Prometheus, Envoy, and Helm. I regularly share my insights and experiences on my blog at www.tanzu.eu, where I explore emerging trends and innovative solutions in the cloud-native ecosystem. Passionate about continuous learning and collaboration, I am excited to contribute to the community as a CNCF Ambassador.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am thrilled to be an Ambassador because it allows me to actively contribute to the growth and development of the cloud-native ecosystem, which I am truly passionate about. This role provides a unique platform to engage with a diverse and talented community, enabling the exchange of knowledge and ideas that drive innovation. Furthermore, being an Ambassador presents the opportunity to mentor and inspire others while learning from the collective experiences of fellow professionals. It is an honor to serve as a bridge between the CNCF and the broader community, fostering collaboration and mutual support.

Nina is a principal software engineer working on multi-cluster Istio solutions and API Gateways at Solo.io. She has been on the release team for Kubernetes v1.27-v1.31, in roles including the Enhancements team lead and the Release Notes lead. Previously Nina worked at Shape Security preventing malicious automation attacks 🤖.

I’m Ramesh Kumar, a dedicated advocate and mentor in the dynamic realm of cloud-native technologies. With a genuine passion for empowering others and a commitment to fostering meaningful connections, my journey is not just about the technology, but about the profound impact I make on the lives of those around me.

At the forefront of my endeavors are the CNCF/Kubernetes meetups I lead in Sacramento and Penang. These gatherings are not just about technical learning, they are about building a community where individuals find support, encouragement, and a strong sense of belonging. I aim to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing, especially caring for the newbies navigating the landscape. Through my patient guidance and steadfast support, I help over 500+ students and professionals navigate the complexities of Kubernetes certifications, empowering them to achieve their goals and pursue their passions.

My specialties lie in mentoring, teaching, training, and collaborating, and I take pride in my ability to inspire and guide others in their learning journey. I love encouraging and inspiring others to reach for their dreams and embrace new opportunities using CNCF Technologies. Whether guiding a career transition or championing initiatives using CNCF technologies, my compassionate approach has a lasting impact on all who encounter me.

Join me on my mission to build a more inclusive and supportive tech community with the help of CNCF. Let’s create a future where collaboration thrives, knowledge is freely shared, and everyone is supported and empowered on their journey to success.

I am a self-proclaimed “cloud automator”, and I work at Sopra Steria based out of Oslo, Norway. I have been granted the title of Microsoft MVP for my work with Azure, and I have been an active contributor in the CNCF for which I earned the title Cloud Native Ambassador. I initiated Cloud Native Norway, a non-profit that works to build up and enable Cloud Native adoption and development in Norway. I also co-founded the Azure Cloud Native User Group, and founded the Norwegian PowerShell User Group. In the CNCF, I have been active for years in TAG App Delivery, and currently serves as co-chair for the TAG, maintainer on the OpenGitOps project, and as co-chair of the Platforms Working Group.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: For many years, the CNCF has continued to impress me. The way that the foundation has supported the community and the projects is truly admirable. Even though I have other honorary titles, the CNCF Ambassador title is one that I value very much. While I don’t do community work for the titles, I am happy for the recognition. I have big plans for my work in the CNCF, and I look forward to seeing how the ambassador program will help me achieve more for the community.

Sessionize: https://sessionize.com/roberth-strand

Hello! I’m Robin Smorenburg, a passionate technologist with an eye for detail who turned his passion for technology into a career. Throughout my career, I’ve become a respected thought leader in the industry, sharing my knowledge and expertise with others, being recognized by Microsoft, and receiving the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional or MVP Award in the Azure category. With Kevin Evans, I run the StreamingClouds live stream, where we engage with inspiring individuals—our industry’s thought leaders—spreading positivity and sharing their knowledge and advice. And the StreamingClouds Community is a safe place where we’re helping each other, supported by a fantastic group of moderators we can call friends.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’m really excited about joining the CNCF on the mission of “making cloud native ubiquitous”. Enhancing my efforts of leading by example, inspiring and helping as many people as possible while being open and inclusive, and treating everyone with the utmost respect. Making a difference through community building and mentoring, impacting the lives of others, leveling the playing field, and fostering community collaboration and relationships. And last but not least, the technologist in me loves cloud-native!

Rohit Ghumare is a recognized Google Developer Expert in AI and Cloud, Docker Captain, Platform Ambassador, CNCF Marketing Chair 2025 a testament to his adeptness in contemporary cloud solutions. Contributed to Platform Engineer Associate exam and Certified Backstage Exam. He is the driving force behind several community-centric initiatives, orchestrating events as the organizer of KCD UK, Cloud Native Westminster London, DevOpsDays Bengaluru, KCD Mumbai, Google Cloud Mumbai, and the Cloud Native Thane community group. Through these platforms, he not only showcases his profound expertise but also fosters a collaborative ecosystem for knowledge exchange. A prolific writer, Rohit has authored a plethora of blogs and insightful pieces on CNCF projects, including, but not limited to, Backstage, Istio, Kubernetes, Cilium, Envoy, Prometheus, and Kiali. This extensive coverage underscores his profound understanding and engagement with cutting-edge cloud-native technologies. Besides penning down his knowledge, Rohit is dedicated to sharing his insights through the “Cloud Native Talks” podcast, which he hosts, and through global conferences and local meetups where he’s presented multiple talks. He has also been a program committee member for Kubecon co-located events. Links: devopsguys.in

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Being appointed as an ambassador presents a remarkable opportunity to further extend the outreach of my engagement within the tech community, particularly in the realms of DevOps and Cloud Native technologies. It will help me to give back to the community by sharing insights from experts located all over the world.

I am a cloud native developer and advocator with over 6 years of experience in cloud native community. I was a cloud native infrastructure SRE and early Kubernetes contributor. I am currently working as a Senior R&D Engineer in Machine Learning Platform team at Tencent. I have participated in multiple cloud native projects and now I am working on cloud native AI infrastructure. I am also a co-author of “Istio Handbook”, traslator of “Distributed Machine Learning Pattern” and speaker of KubeCon.

Sai is currently working as Senior Solutions Architecture Specialist, APJ at HashiCorp and is based out of Singapore. Sai started his career in Networking and had 17 years of experience in private/public cloud infrastructure solutions for highly regulated security-conscious industries such as Banking, Financial Services Industries, Aviation, ISPs and Public Sector organizations across APJ Region. Previously He was part of the Field Engineering team at solo.io, Professional Services Consultant (APJ) at chef.io. He focuses on modernizing infrastructure automation and microservices application networking from Edge to Service Mesh at scale, where the tech stacks are built on HashiCorp Vault, Consul, Boundary, Terraform, Chef, Istio, Envoy Proxy, eBPF, Cilium, GraphQL built for Kubernetes, VMs & Cloud.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Singapore and ASEAN Region need more active and organized meetups around cloud native community. The activities are behind compare to US, EMEA and ANZ Region. As an ambassador, I will continue to create more awareness and advocate CNCF projects in Singapore and ASEAN Region. I am also participating for the KubeDay Singapore as one of the event chairs, and continue to contribute. I’m very proud of being CNCF Ambassador and representing CNCF in Singapore and APAC Region.

Hello, my name is Saim Safdar, working as a Developer Relations Manager at Rafay Systems, host of the cloud-native podcast (https://www.youtube.com/@cloudnativefm), co-founder of Cloud Native Islamabad (https://community.cncf.io/islamabad/), Organizer of KCD Pakistan (https://www.cncf.io/blog/2023/03/10/from-community-group-to-event-a-kcd-pakistan-experience/). Maintainer of the cncf Sandbox project, Paralus (https://www.paralus.io/).

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I love sharing my Open Source jourey with others, currently there’s a desparate need of mentorship within the community, as cloud native eco-system constantly equipped with new tooling, students, tech pro, difficult to find and map existing knowledge to work with OS and communities, I’m hoping my time as an Ambassador, I’ll get on-board and shortened the loop for code to contribution to outreaching new OS tooling to the world.

I’ve been involved and passionated by the CNCF community for many years ! I’m co-organizing the Canadian CNCF & Kubernetes meetups for Canada (virtual) and Quebec City / Montreal meetups in person with other wonderful Organizers and Ambassadors ! I’m also a speaker in other meetups, at 2022 KubeCon US and at KubeCon’s Rejeks 2023. I love sharing my experience and documenting. I try to blog my projects and experiences. Check at https://medium.com/@prune998 I’m invested in some CNCF or OSS projects linked to K8s and I’m maintaining an official fork of KubeColor that was unmaintained for years: https://github.com/kubecolor/kubecolor I’ve been patching a lot of projects, OSS or CNCF, like ArgoCD, Cilium, Kafka tools…

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: My goal as an ambassador is to promote Kubernetes and the wonderful ecosystem under the CNCF banner. Being involved in the Ambassador community will help me grow my skills at communicating and hopefully inspire others to join the movement.

Dr. Shane Wang is an engineering director of Cloud Native China at Software and Advanced Technology Group in Intel. He and his team have been working on open source cloud software for many years since 2012, including Kubernetes, Istio, Envoy, containerd, serverless, edge, Ceph and OpenStack etc. He is an individual director of OIF foundation, alliance committee chair of SODA foundation, a TOC member of Mulan open source community, and one of the standing committee members of Open Source Development Committee in China Computer Federation (CCF), and one of Tencent Cloud Valuable Professionals. He organizes and runs cloud native meetups with China partners primarily in Shanghai and Beijing, focusing on Kubernetes, Istio and Envoy technologies.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Because with that I can organize regular meetups better in China with the local community including Tetrate, DaoCloud, Alauda, Alibaba and Tencent etc. bridging between CNCF and many China-based open source communities, I can drive more engineering contributions to CNCF projects and engagements with China customers for adoption. I’m also able to contribute more technical materials to CNCF Webinars and Blogs, etc. and pursue more presentation opportunities at CNCF conferences e.g. KubeCon China.

Tiago is a Principal Containers Specialist SA at AWS, where he helps startups optimize their container and cloud-native strategies. With experience in DevOps, GenAI, and SaaS architectures, he collaborates with businesses to design scalable and efficient cloud solutions. Tiago also actively contributes to the tech community as an organizer of KCD Brazil and meetups focused on promoting cloud-native technologies.

I am a software engineer with Adobe, where I am actively involved in managing a cross-cloud, multi-tenant Kubernetes-based platform. My expertise lies in designing and implementing excellent software systems, with over 15 years of experience in the development of large-scale platforms based on Linux and Kubernetes. When I am not coding, I enjoy helping the community by co-organizing OpenSource Bucharest Meetup and KCD Romania.

I’m focused in helping customers designing, building, and running their Kubernetes and Internal Developer Platforms. I wore many hats in the IT world, Engineering, Pre-Post sales, Product Owner and Consulting. from HPC, Storage and Distributed Systems. I also enjoy volunteering at the Dutch Cloud Native/Kubernetes Meetup and the NL KCD. I have lived in many European countries and now Netherlands is the place I call home.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: Being a CNCF Ambassador is the confirmation that my efforts towards the Open Source community are heading in the right direction. I’m excited to help the community and being supported and by the CNCF while doing it

Yoshiyuki Tabata is a Senior OSS Consultant at Hitachi, Ltd. As an expert in Identity and Access Management (IAM) and APIs, he has provided numerous consultations over the past decade, including designing API and Authentication/Authorization platforms. He has actively contributed to CNCF TAG Security by facilitating APAC region community calls and leading the IAM white paper project, and he has added significant functionalities to OSS projects such as Keycloak. As a CNCF Ambassador, he has delivered talks at events like KubeCon, Apidays, and Open Source Summit focusing on secure solutions for the CNCF ecosystem. Additionally, as a Cloud Native Community Japan organizer and a Cloud Native Security Japan founder, he has organized several CNCF meetups in Japan.

Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I aim to improve the adoption and security of CNCF technologies in Japan by sharing my expertise from numerous projects. As a CNCF ambassador, I want to disseminate solutions and best practices for a more secure CNCF ecosystem.