Skip to main content

Selecting the Members of the Magento Open Source Task Force

In my previous article, I introduced the Magento Open Source Task Force. Today, I want to dig into the details of how the members of this task force were selected. After the initial call for volunteers ended, the Magento Association (MA) Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Committee, made up of non-MA Board members plus one Board representative, reviewed the list of all volunteers that replied to the open call.

The committee then evaluated each applicant based on their engagement in the community and involvement in Magento Open Source — for example, looking at things like contributions to the Open Source project on GitHub. They also looked at representation of different groups inside the community to make sure the task force represents the different views of our diverse community. Through that process, the committee recommended nine individuals to serve on the Magento Open Source Task Force alongside Danny Verkade, the Board representative.

As all of this was happening, Danny and Slava Kravchuk, also a Board member, attended Meet Magento Poland, where a number of people expressed interest in assisting the Magento Association as we map out the future of Magento Open Source. While the call for volunteers for the task force had closed and we were about to seat the task force, the Board decided to hold the call open longer in order to allow anyone who heard about this during Meet Magento Poland to apply. The Board referred the list of additional applicants to the committee, who met on October 5 to review the list and recommend additional members for the Magento Open Source Task Force.

In reviewing the individuals recommended by the committee, the Board identified additional potential geographies, or other groups, that were underrepresented due to a lack of applicants, and reached out to two additional individuals to invite them to serve on the task force alongside eight of the recommended individuals.

The Board then reviewed the committee's final recommendation to add three individuals who applied during the extended call, and approved those three individuals to serve on the task force. This final group brought the total number of members of the Magento Open Source Task force to 13, not including Danny. Without further ado, the members of the Magento Open Source Task Force are:

  • Vinai Kopp
  • Sukeshini Rathnayake
  • Elena Kulbich
  • Willem Wigman
  • Bartek Igielski
  • Yaroslav Rogoza
  • Navarr Barnier
  • Jason Reis
  • Damien Retzinger
  • Thomas Klein
  • Ihor Sviziev
  • Kristof Ringleff
  • Jisse Reitsma
  • Danny Verkade (Board Representative)

In addition to the official task force members from the community, Eric Erway, Adobe Liaison to the Board and Group Product Manager at Adobe, and other key members of Adobe Commerce product and engineering teams will join task force meetings.

Now that the task force has been selected, the group will start meeting in the next few weeks to begin working on a business plan and recommendations for the future of Magento Open Source. Check back on Commerce Co-op for updates from the task force as they work through this critical next step for the Magento ecosystem.