Update on the Board of Directors’ Adobe Leadership
The Magento Association would like to share an update with the membership regarding a change in leadership within the Magento Association’s board of directors. Eric Erway has stepped down from his role as Adobe board liaison as he is leaving Adobe to pursue a new opportunity. Eric will be greatly missed by the members and the board and we want to thank Eric for his ongoing dedication and leadership with the association. Although this change is a big loss for the community, the association is excited about Adobe’s renewed commitments to the partnership, which are explained in greater detail in the article below. In this article, Adobe and the Magento Association outline their plans to fill Eric’s role which will be to re-staff the two Adobe board seats that were held previously on the board by adding one Adobe board member (voting rights) and one Adobe board liaison (non-voting rights). Adobe has already identified two new Adobe representatives who will serve on the board in Eric’s place. Read below for more details on how both Adobe and Magento Association will manage this transition and who has been appointed from Adobe to serve on the board.
Adobe Appoints New Members to the Magento Association Board
Digital technologies continue to reshape the way consumers and businesses shop and conduct commerce across online and physical channels. As part of Adobe’s continued investments in Adobe Commerce, an agile B2B and B2C commerce platform which enables merchants and brands to grow their revenue through customer-centric commerce experiences, and Magento Open Source, we’d like to share that Ritesh Somani and Stanislav Idolov are being appointed to the Magento Association as board member and board liaison respectively.
Ritesh Somani is a principal product manager at Adobe and helps drive value-added services and features for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source. He has 15 years of experience in the commerce and payments technology space delivering high-value software solutions for SMB and enterprise customers.
Stanislav Idolov is an engineering manager at Adobe. He originally joined Magento, the company, in 2014 as a senior software engineer and has been instrumental in the development of key features of the Magento 2 project over the years, including checkout flow, inventory and asynchronous operations. Stanislav is a member of Adobe’s community engineering team whose primary goal is to collaborate with the community on Magento Open Source across different communication channels like GitHub, forums, meetups, conferences, etc.
Ritesh and Stanislav are transitioning the role of board liaison from Eric Erway who is stepping down as he leaves Adobe to pursue a new opportunity. We want to thank Eric for his contributions to Adobe Commerce, Magento Open Source and the community that embraces both.
Given the world-wide nature of the Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source community, Adobe’s Jerome Decaris, senior director of product marketing, will be an international liaison for the Magento Association and the community.
These three individuals represent the broader efforts at Adobe, which includes hundreds of people, to ensure the future is bright with Adobe Commerce for the midsize businesses and enterprises. Adobe, as shared at Meet Magento UK and Magento Association Connect earlier this year, is committed to our continued governance of the Magento Open Source code base as a secure, freely available platform for small businesses and independent developers.
About Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce is an agile B2B and B2C commerce platform which enables merchants and brands to accelerate revenue through customer-centric digital commerce experiences across online and physical spaces. It has become the leading choice for mid-size and enterprise organizations as it offers the most flexible deployment models from on-prem to managed cloud with guaranteed SLAs, enables API-first integrations and fully customizable extensions, and the richest set of enterprise-grade commerce experience capabilities from marketing to merchandizing and fulfillment. Adobe Commerce leverages the Magento Open Source codebase as part of its core and ensures a path for small merchants and developer experiments to grow to Adobe Commerce.
About Magento Open Source
Magento Open Source (“Magento 2”) is the code base that Adobe officially contributes to and ensures compatibility for transition to Adobe Commerce. This is part of Adobe’s “Commerce for All” initiative to empower individual developers and foster small businesses who aspire to grow fast. All other variations of Magento Open Source and associated claims are supported by third parties.
About Magento Association
The Magento Association (MA) is dedicated to fostering and supporting technology projects, community events, training and knowledge sharing. The Magento community has a rich history in building collaborative programs and successful events across geographies. The MA is building upon that to complete the vision: An open, healthy and powerful Magento ecosystem for continued success of future generations. Members fulfill the association’s mission by advancing and empowering the global Magento community and commerce ecosystem through open online collaboration, education and thought leadership.
About Adobe’s Magento Association Board Member, Board Liaison and International Liaison
Magento Association Board Member
Ritesh Somani, Principal Product Manager, Adobe Commerce
Ritesh Somani helps to drive value added services and features for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source within the product team. He has over 15 years of experience delivering software solutions for SMB and enterprise customers in the commerce and payments spaces for platforms. Having started his own business and having worked at startups and companies such as Intuit, Visa, and PayPal, Ritesh understands the needs of merchants and has successfully implemented easy to use and delightful solutions for millions of businesses worldwide.
Magento Association Board Liaison
Stanislav Idolov, Engineering Manager, Adobe Commerce
Stanislav Idolov is an engineering manager at Adobe, having joined Magento in 2014 as a senior software engineer. He has participated in the development of key features of the Magento 2 project over the years, such as checkout flow, inventory, asynchronous operations, etc. During the last couple of years, Idolov has been dedicated to the collaboration with the Magento Open-Source efforts, along with the community engineering team to foster community collaborations amongst Adobe and external developers to provide the ability to deliver valuable contributions to Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce.
Adobe’s International Liaison for Magento Association
Jerome Decaris, Senior Director Product Marketing, Adobe International
Jerome Decaris is based in Paris, France, and is leading product strategy for Adobe Digital Experience across EMEA and APAC. Decaris joined Adobe via the acquisition of Neolane (2013) and has had several international assignments (Singapore, Boston, Paris). During his 27+ years in technology companies, Decaris actively participated in the digitalization of CFOs then CMOs, bringing scale and value to CIOs/CTOs and — more recently — supporting CDOs in the “Digital awakening” of the full C-suite/Boardroom. Decaris is a multi-faceted leader inspiring and motivating partners, prospects, customers, and his own teams with a great passion for ecommerce.