How have you been involved in the Magento ecosystem?

"I've been part of the Magento community for quite some time now, I believe my first proper jump into the community side of things would have been when I became one of the main Ops (Mods) on the Magento IRC under my pseudonym ""tKaizen"" back in 2013/2014. I have always had a passion for helping people learn our ecosystem or improve their security. Since then I have also joined both the open slack channel and ""MageChat"" (Long ago when it was free but invite only) and would help people there too, along with attending conferences and the usual networking.

Professionally I have been building Magento sites since M1 1.7 was released and building Magento sites has been my main career ever since. Every role I have had has been specialised to Magento. I have worked in Agencies, In-House for retailers, In a massive multi-tenant SaaS built off the back of Magento, and now I work in hosting that is geared only towards Magento/Adobe Commerce.  My current role is to be the highest escalation point for our clients and Magento Dev teams and to help them overcome their issues (Blockers; hard to track bugs; security;bor even just optimisations to improve site speed, reliability, or lower cost) "

In what ways have you contributed to the Magento Association and/or other non-profit communities?

"I can't say I have had much interactions with the Association honestly short of being a member and the odd conversations with people in it from time to time. Akoova did partner with you for MMUK which I was a part of but I would hate to try an oversell anyone in my active involvement in that - I would have loved to have been part of the chats that lead up to it but it was very much a business side conversation that I learned about after the cogs mostly stopped spinning.

I have over the years helped out 100s of people from my time on the IRC (tKaizen), on the open slack channel, tried to help out Mage-OS at some critical points, and recently on twitter and in closed chats have helped companies out who were building open tools and solutions for the community when APSB24-40 came out.

I've been a contributing part of the PHPScotland community but mainly as sideline support and never as part of the committee or event organisers."

What value would you add to the Board to help us advance our mission?

"I have no control of any companies, nor am I a massive voice in the community so I can't say I can bring with me any preexisting audiences to bootstrap the MAs reach any further or specialised networking connections, which may work against me but what I do have is an immaculate record of taking my roles seriously and always exceeding expectations. Honestly writing that feels cheesy - I like to tell people ""I'm okay"" at what I do, but I would be lying if I was to sell myself so short. I have always been mindful as not coming across as Icarian or setting myself up to purely build an ego. Granted most of my roles have been as technical IC or IC/Managerial Mix so that may not fully mesh with the MA's need as you see fit but I believe I can bring great value to my role.

Too put it honestly I strive to always do the best I can, I am incredibly approachable, can balance when to be polite and when a firmer hand may be required to reach an agreeable outcome, and I act for the community. If you could see my engagements through the years you would see I very much do not like to present myself as a centre point and my actions always are usually always for our community, though of course from time to time I have aimed purely to fix something that has annoyed me personally,  but I have no a self-centred agenda - although I am no saint who is purely selfless, if the communities life is improved, so is mine.

I have no tangible personal gains to get from this role, no ulterior motives, no company to profit from - I love my job as is and am not looking for a fancy title to jump ship, so what I am trying to say is that I think I can bring another genuine person to the table - I hope. I would bring you a friendly face and calm mind who is willing to have the hard conversations to have our goals meet. I have great passion for solving problems and improving already existing solutions (My pseudonom is Kaizen afterall), so I am willing to dedicate time to seeing my goals through be it for small incremental steps or those larger goals. I cannot get enough of the Magento community, even on my weekends and evening you will find me just chatting with other members or helping someone somewhere overcome an issue they have. And lastly, I genuinely get great joy from helping people, Id not be doing the job I have today if not - I want to see the Magento community strive and I would love to do anything I can to help it reach higher levels than it has already reached.

I -hate- selling myself with a passion, when I say I tell people I am okay I am not lying even in my interviews it's what I tell people. Because I don't want to sell people on a dream, I am not a savant genius, or business prodigy. I am a hardworking individual who truly takes pride in his work and always works to better his teams life'd and I'd love to expand on that if the MA would have me."

What are the top 3 initiatives you want to see the Board accomplish in the next 6 months?

"Personally I would love the following things for the MA if possible, none of them are novel ideas so please don't yawn at my answers.

1: Community outreach: The MA is already making strides in this field and MMUK was an excellent example of that were they partnered with the headline sponsor (Akoova - the company I work for) and they have some good engagement when they do announcements. I am sure there is much more behind the scenes that I and others do not see and I'd like if possible to see more of a show of that. I have never been involved in what support the MA may give or could give when it comes to setting up community meet ups - and I don't just mean being the tip of the spear at a Meet Magento but even just the small conversation MA board members may have with folk who wish for advice or help to set up even small events or to talk about how better to improve diversity within them. I would like to see the MA mentioned more during community events in a positive note even if it is just from passing a long well wishes or expanding an events reach so the attendees may have a better time.

2:  Diversity & Inclusion - I understand that there may be a better candidate out there that fits this goal better, and please if that is the case do pick them. I am an incredibly open person happy to talk about my own self, my background, and welcome others with open arms. But that isn't the case the world over and I would like to strive to make the Magento community a place where truly anyone can join and feel like it is home - where they can tell someone of their problems and not get waved away because something being ""the norm"". Although its not just reactionary either, helping others see what may be invisible to them but a roadblocker to others can be the difference between another great new addition, or a missed opportunity. I wont lie to you and say I have all the answers, and know every problem, I am not perfect, I may even have my own unknown bias's but I will strive to do my best for those who don't get the opportunity to do it and if I cant find the answers, find someone who can. It was one of the things I spearheaded as the chairman of my student council when in school, as part of the board in my anime society in university, and thought out my years with helping my wife (teacher) with the Women in STEM movements they have in education (Appearing at job fare days or discussing how to enter the field)

3. Better awareness heightening for our community when it comes to updates & security. Now I know this is an Adobe thing through and through but being on the heartbeat of these things from my own clients through the years I know how unaware some teams can be of releases even if they are in a calendar and booked in a year in advance. People forget, it slips there mind or they have big stressful events on that steal their focus, the MA could help to increase the noise around these and possibly try influence creations of better ways for people to keep these in mind - something as simple as link to add to calendar could help the most lax of teams. Also from experience I know even if you tell a team something is incredibly serious - if adobe have a metric that says otherwise, the team will choice ""source of truth"" over the real impact guidance so something as simple as adding another voice or possibly being/pointing to a guiding light could help. "

What initiatives do you want to see the Magento Association focus on in the coming years?

"Honestly I would love to see a stronger cadence on MA updates to further impress on the community that the MA is alive and bustling. As that's already improving I wont say much more than that.

I would like to bring you back to the diversity and inclusion point I made - that is a never ending endeavour and I would love to see if get stronger and stronger over the coming years so that when people think of the MA they think of what they have done to expand the community to anyone and everyone. If possible to even go as far to say not just to welcome anyone who comes to us and ensure they feel at home, but to reach out and be a beckoning light for others. I want others to come learn why I love this community and have no blockers to gaining their own successes like I have. I want to hear others have successes that we enabled them to have that have pushed them to be the best that they can be.

Now that started to sound soppy, I do apologise but I get quite passionate when I think about what this community gave me, and I want to empower people in it to do as well as I have.

Of course to finish this off I'd be silly not to add in being a greater part of the community - the bars always rising and being on the heartbeat of Magento is no easy undertaking but seeing the MA strive to be a bigger part of the community, in helping plan events, sound boarding events for outreach, showing off new an interesting news, MA advancements, too even appearing at smaller events to ensure that important conversations are not just had at the top of the food chain, but connections at all levels across the board. An important point worth making - because its always worth talking to the big names, or companies, but if they are all we talk to, we'll only ever see one side of the story. "

What are the biggest challenges that you think the Association has faced and how would you approach them?

"I am sad to say that I do not have that strong a connection with the MA that I know of its struggles internally so I will not speak of things I do not truly know about, whispers of, and rumours here and there are nothing to base an answer one. So I will speak more on an outward in look.

I believe that in the past, but getting better recently has been how the MA has been looked at from large parts of the community as ""inactive"" and in some smaller but vocal circles seen to actively work ""against"" the communities needs - I am not saying this is what I believe but it would be hard to ignore the biggest points of frustration that I have seen from within the community.

The next biggest challenge would have been most likely getting the right people from Adobe at the table and putting smaller achievable action points on the table to start building momentum and report success too build traction and positive relationships both towards Adobe and the community so it appeared more of an always moving traction vs the very begging of long stints of silence and small updates that didn't inspire the feelings of empowerment.

As for how I would approach these - I would love to open a more transparent look at into the MA, it could be that I just am blind to the right locations to look for these but even if I go to the blog section of the MA site I only have to go back 1 back to hit 2022. Blogs do not have to be large works of art, and important news articles could be added there - or in a new easy to reach section. Speaking of which even right now on the MA homepage none of the CTAs you would expect to click through to somewhere actually lead to anything.  ""Join our community"" , ""Listen to our new Podcast"", etc. If they don't lead anywhere hows the average person meant to find where and how. The LinkedIn is active but the other socials leave a bit more to be desired, the twitter is less communicative than you would hope for a platform that's meant to be about being on the bleeding edge of events and news as it happens, and the instagram page is uninspiring  - Please do not take offence to that I do not mean it as an attack on someone but it is pointing out a problem and is something that could be solved with putting the right person in place - I am not a social guru in any way and am not the right person but could help find them.

However my main point would be to be a friendly and welcoming face to the MA that can speak often and transparently to the community and importantly spearhead for the community and its needs - not necessarily as needing to be up on stage being the face of the MA but in any way that's deemed necessary even in small chunk ways that shows the MA is healthy, very much alive and always working to the betterment of our community. "

What else would you like to share to either the Election Committee or the membership of the Magento Association as they review your application? What makes you a great candidate to join the Board of Directors?

First off, thank you for taking the time to read that - I am dyslexic so I appreciate at points my answers may be harder to read than the average applicants but I have tried my best. If you want me to expand on anything please reach out to me.

But as extra I would like to give a little of my personality as one of biggest factors in a team working together is that we naturally don't grate on each others nerves - one or two of you may know me or know of me but I assume most wont. So this might help?

I am a very relaxed person, under stress I do not break or snap at people, and you will find me quite approachable - I don't want to know who made the problem, I want to fix it an ensure it doesn't happen again. I do like to make light of situation as I find it better for a team to laugh together and face a problem with a smile than as an arduous chore we hate (Not every journey can be smooth, but that doesn't mean you have to be in bad company while you go through it). I always like to help but I hope I already made that part clear already. However my teams do known me as ""the attack dog"" for a reason - I may be friendly, but I will always champion for whats needed even if that means having a hard conversation, I will iterate am not aggressive and am always polite, but I am not scared to stand up and speak when others don't want to cause any ripples even if it would make their teams life worse to say nothing.

I will give you an example as I would hate for it to come across like I just kick doors in and demand changes as fun as that may sound to some, it doesn't fix problems. In one job a CTO unilaterally on a Friday at 5pm told all 7 tech teams they now have never before mentioned On-call rota's starting that evening effectively immediately, 24/7, no additional pay or time in leiu would be given for being on call or having your on call activated. I spoke (with our engineering managers & engineering director's blessing) directly for all 7 teams to delay the rota start and to negotiate acceptable terms for each team so that the teams where happy to take on these new responsibilities with their agreed upon accommodations.  Was my CTO and the C-level unhappy at first? Of course, but they were never insulted, or shouted at, they were spoken with respectfully with quick responses and the right needed resources put in place and at the end of the process the C level got an On-call rota they could personally rely on and knew would work while the ICs and managers knew their teams had the right processes in place and the right benefits to ensure members did not get burnt out or feel dejected and taken advantage of. I was firm, but polite.

I wont bore you any more, I just wanted to give an example of why I am known for being the person who send over to a problem that isnt just a technical problem.

I would love to be part of the MA to help out where I can and to put what skills I have to use, even the ones I don't know are applicable yet. But if there are better options than me then please feel no guilt in pushing this application to the side. I do think I would be a great asset for the MA, even if I may not have done the best at explaining why but I will hold no grudges, and wish you all the best in choosing an excellent member for the board.