Red Hat Summit 2023 Keynote: Optimize to innovate at scale
Every organization wants to be able to operate at cloud-scale—being able to meet growing or shrinking demand at a moment’s notice, add and expand new services in days if not hours, and to extend to new regions or operating centers with little to no downtime. Not everyone has the resources, headcount, or budget of a hyperscaler, however; more than likely, there is a mix of traditional IT investments, services across multiple clouds, and a mix of IT skills. This doesn’t mean that scaling can’t be done—it can be, it just has to be done smartly. Optimization and focusing on what has to scale right now is key to transformation, even in leaner times, and open hybrid cloud can help you do it. Red Hat leaders, along with customers and partners, will highlight the challenges of scale facing the IT industry, from a shifting global environment to never-ending security and compliance roadblocks, and how open innovation and hybrid cloud can help overcome these issues for meaningful, maintainable operations at cloud-scale.
Speakers
Matt Hicks | President and CEO, Red Hat
Matt Hicks was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Hat in July 2022. In his previous role, he was Executive Vice President of Products and Technologies where he was responsible for product engineering for much of the company’s portfolio, including Red Hat® OpenShift® and Red Hat Enterprise Linux®. He is one of the founding members of the OpenShift team and has been at the forefront of cloud computing ever since. Prior to joining Red Hat 16 years ago, Hicks served in various roles spanning computer engineering, IT, and consulting. He has worked with Linux and open source for more than 25 years, and his breadth of experience has helped him solve customer and business problems across all areas of IT.
Chris Wright | Chief Technology Officer and SVP Global Engineering, Red Hat
Chris Wright is Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Global Engineering at Red Hat. He leads a team that guides Red Hat’s technology vision, co-creates technologies, and collaboratively implements change to ensure the success of Red Hat’s ecosystem of associates, customers, communities, and partners. Wright’s organization includes: Office of the CTO, Ecosystem Engineering, Product Security, PnT Experience, Product Engineering, Customer Experience & Engagement, and Technology Strategy & Incubation. During his 25+ years as a software engineer, Wright has worked in the telecommunications industry and beyond on high-availability and distributed systems. He also has experience in the Linux® industry on security, virtualization, and networking. Wright has been a Linux developer for more than 15 years, with most of this time spent working deep in the Linux kernel. He is passionate about open source software serving as the foundation for next-generation IT systems.
Ashesh Badani | Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Red Hat
Ashesh Badani is Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Red Hat, where he leads the company’s broad hybrid cloud portfolio. This includes product development and go-to-market strategies for Red Hat® OpenShift®, Red Hat OpenStack® Platform, Red Hat Virtualization, and Red Hat developer tools. Under Badani’s leadership, the company expanded Red Hat OpenShift from an award-winning Platform-as-a-Service solution to the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, with 1,000+ customers spanning all regions and industries. Previously, Badani served as Director of Product Management and Product Marketing of Integration and Application Platform Products at Sun Microsystems. He has more than 20 years of experience in the technology and finance industries at both established and emerging companies.
Stefanie Chiras | Senior Vice President, Partner Ecosystem Success, Red Hat
Stefanie Chiras is Senior Vice President of Partner Ecosystem Success at Red Hat, leading Red Hat’s global partner ecosystem engagement, and she plays a critical role in articulating the value of Red Hat's product portfolio within the ecosystem, defining the strategy for partnering with Red Hat for customer success. Prior to Red Hat, Chiras served as Vice President of Offering Management at IBM Cognitive Systems. As part of the Cognitive Systems brand team, she led worldwide business for the systems and software portfolios, AIX, IBM i, Linux®, and the cloud stack. She has extensive experience in both business and technology, including technical roles that range from silicon technology to system architecture.