Meet your Cloud Native Ambassadors (CNAs)!
Ambassadors are an extension of CNCF, furthering the mission of “making cloud native ubiquitous” through community leadership and mentorship.
Get the latest news on the program by following CNCF Ambassadors on Twitter!
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Recent Ambassador News

Cloud Native Telco Culminating in London the Week of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025
March 20, 2025CNCF Ambassadors
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Showing 11 of 272 Ambassadors
(He)
Dynatrace

Adam Gardner
(He)
Dynatrace
- Location: Brisbane, Australia
- Languages: English
- Project Experience: CloudEvents, Keptn, OpenFeature
(He/Him)
Dynatrace

Andreas Grabner
(He/Him)
Dynatrace
- Location: Linz, Austria
- Languages: English, German
- Project Experience: Argo, CloudEvents, Helm, Jaeger, Keptn, Kubernetes, OpenFeature, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
Been working in software since 1998 and from the early days was drawn to performance engineering, observability and more recently on DevOps, SRE, Platform Engineering. I am an active contributor to the CNCF project Keptn, I am a podcaster, I create YouTube tutorials and occasionally blog as well! Besides IT I am passionate about salsa dancing 🙂
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: The success of any community depends on the people that actively drive community activities (bringing people together, educating, making them feel comfortable ..) and the members of the community that then want to join, grow and eventually contribute back to that community. I am excited to get the chance to help grow the community with my goal to inspire many others to do the same
(He/Him)
Accenture

David Auffray
(He/Him)
Accenture
- Location: Calan, France
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Backstage, cert-manager, Cilium, Confidential Containers, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, CRI-O, Crossplane, Dex, Envoy, etcd, external-secrets, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, Harbor, Helm, k3s, KEDA, Krustlet, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Kubescape, KubeVirt, Kyverno, Longhorn, Notary Project, OpenFeature, OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Thanos, Virtual Kubelet, zot
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.
(He/Him)
Dynatrace

Henrik Rexed
(He/Him)
Dynatrace
- Location: Toulon, France
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, Chaos Mesh, Cilium, CloudEvents, CoreDNS, Crossplane, Dapr, Emissary-ingress, Envoy, external-secrets, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, KEDA, Keptn, KubeArmor, Kubernetes, Kubescape, Kuma, Kyverno, Linkerd, Litmus, Meshery, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenFeature, OpenMetrics, OpenTelemetry, OpenTracing, Pixie, Prometheus, Service Mesh Performance, Thanos
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.
(He/Him)
Liquid Reply

Leonard Pahlke
(He/Him)
Liquid Reply
- Location: Hamburg, Germany
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, Buildpacks, CloudEvents, CoreDNS, Crossplane, Dapr, Envoy, gRPC, Helm, Kubernetes, Lima, NATS, OpenFeature, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus
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.
(He/They)
GitHub

Matteo Bianchi
(He/They)
GitHub
- Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Container Network Interface (CNI), containerd, Crossplane, Dapr, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Fluentd, Flux, gRPC, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, k3s, Karmada, KEDA, Keptn, Knative, KubeArmor, KubeEdge, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, KubeVirt, Kuma, Kyverno, Linkerd, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenFeature, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Rook, SPIFFE, SPIRE, Thanos, The Update Framework (TUF), Vitess
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.
(He/Him)

Mauricio Salatino
(He/Him)
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, Buildpacks, CloudEvents, Crossplane, Dapr, Helm, Istio, KEDA, Keptn, Knative, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, KubeVela, OpenFeature, OpenFunction, Operator Framework
I am an Open Source Software Engineer at @Diagrid, contributing to and driving initiatives for the Dapr OSS project. I also serve as a Steering Committee member for the Knative Project, and I am Co-Leading the Knative Functions initiative. I’ve been writing on my blog, salaboy.com for over 15 years and I just published a book titled Platform Engineering on Kubernetes for Manning. I previously worked at VMware and Red Hat, building tools to help developers be more productive.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I’ve been working on Cloud Native and CNCF communities for over seven years now, and I’ve been constantly trying to give back and connect people who share the same interests around open source projects. Being an ambassador allows me to expand my network to keep connecting, mentoring, and guiding community members to grow.
(He/Him)
Liquid Reply

Max Körbächer
(He/Him)
Liquid Reply
- Location: Munich, Germany
- Project Experience: Argo, cert-manager, Cilium, Cloud Custodian, Confidential Containers, Container Network Interface (CNI), Crossplane, Dapr, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Helm, Keptn, KubeEdge, Kubernetes, Kyverno, Linkerd, Longhorn, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenCost, OpenFeature, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Service Mesh Interface (SMI), wasmCloud, WasmEdge Runtime
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.
(He/Him)
Gradle / CDF / Jenkins

Oleg Nenashev
(He/Him)
Gradle / CDF / Jenkins
- Location: Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- Languages: English, French, Russian
- Project Experience: Argo, Artifact Hub, Backstage, Buildpacks, Cilium, CloudEvents, Crossplane, Falco, Fluentd, gRPC, Helm, Istio, Jaeger, Keptn, Knative, Kubernetes, KubeVirt, Open Policy Agent (OPA), OpenFeature, OpenFunction, OpenGitOps, Operator Framework, Prometheus
Oleg is a developer tools hacker, community builder and DevRel consultant. He’s passionate open source software, open ecosystems and open hardware advocate. Oleg is a core maintainer Jenkins project where he writes code, mentors contributors and organizes community events. He is a CNCF and CDF ambassador, Testcontainers Champion and a former Jenkins Board member and CDF TOC Chair. Oleg has a PhD degree in electronics design and volunteers in the Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation, and in a number of Ukrainian support and Russian anti-war organizations.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: CNCF is a driver behind many open source initiatives and industry-wide projects in the areas of observability, software delivery and virtualization. For years I’ve been a user and contributor of many projects, and also advocated for CNCF projects and best practices in my talks. It is an honor to join the CNCF Ambassadors. There are many great folks there, and I am happy to join the team. Looking forward to participating more!
Sessionize profile: https://sessionize.com/onenashev/
(He/Him/They/Them)
Rafay Systems

Saim Safdar
(He/Him/They/Them)
Rafay Systems
- Location: Rawalpindi, Pakistan
- Project Experience: Argo, Backstage, CDK for Kubernetes (CDK8s), cert-manager, Cilium, containerd, Crossplane, Envoy, etcd, Falco, Fluentd, Helm, Istio, KEDA, Kubernetes, Kubescape, Kyverno, Linkerd, Open Policy Agent (OPA), Open Service Mesh, OpenFeature, OpenTelemetry, Paralus
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.
(He/Him)
karriere.at

Thomas Schuetz
(He/Him)
karriere.at
- Location: St. Pölten, Austria
- Project Experience: Argo, Carvel, cert-manager, Crossplane, Flux, Harbor, Helm, Istio, k3s, K8sGPT, Keptn, Kubernetes, KubeVela, OpenFeature, OpenGitOps, OpenTelemetry, Operator Framework, Prometheus
Thomas is a Enterprise Architect, Advocate and Educator enthusiastic about making cloud-native more comfortable. As a CNCF/CDF Ambassador and Open Source Contributor, he is always eager to find ways to deliver software and troubleshoot issues more efficiently.
Why I am excited to be an ambassador: I am very passionate about cloud-native technologies and working with them is cool. In the last few years, I got more and more involved in the cloud-native community and learned that it’s not only about technical things, it’s also about the people and the community. I am excited to be an ambassador because I like to bring people into the cloud-native world but also educate and teach them how to use products and technologies.