An internationally known open source strategist and community engagement expert, Leslie Hawthorn has spent her career creating, cultivating, and enabling open source communities. She has driven open source strategy in Fortune 10 companies, pre-IPO startups, and Foundation Boards including senior roles at Red Hat, Google, the Open Source Initiative, and Elastic. She currently leads the team responsible for vertical community strategy within Red Hat’s Open Source Program Office in the Office of the CTO.

A frequent speaker on all topics open source and digital transformation, Leslie enjoys dreaming about how open source and open standards can create citizen-centric Smart Cities. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, Leslie has called Europe home since 2014 and resides in Bonn, Germany with her daughter, their two canaries, Elle and Nana, and a small cat named Fee. You can find her on LinkedIn or on Twitter.