devopsdays Dallas - Contact

Katalon

Gokul Sridharan is a Master’s Degree holder in IT, an entrepreneur by nature and a successful presales management professional at CA Technologies. He has worked there for the past 3 years and successfully managing a business of $10m+ from a technical sales standpoint. Prior to joining CA and pursuing his master’s degree, Gokul started off his career at Accenture as a software developer.

During that time frame, he also started his own restaurant venture called ‘The Snack Shack’ in India. He loves DevOps concepts and likes to be a part of local meetups. He is also part of the organizing committee in DevOpsDays Dallas, and on in his spare time likes to work on new and innovative ideas.

Vizient, Inc.

Jack Teoh started his DevOps journey by actively volunteering for DevOpsDays Austin since 2015 and participates in multiple user group in the DevOps space. He also started volunteering for DevOpsDays Dallas when it was just starting in 2016, then become one of the core local organizer. He enjoys helping out both at DevOpsDays Austin and DevOpsDays Dallas, because he gets to meet and interact with people who are liked minded sharing a common interest which is DevOps.

Capital One

Jessica is a Technology Leader at Capital One where she is passionate about mentoring and coaching others to achieve their career goals. She currently serves at the Chief of Staff for Card Tech Foundations which drives the horizontal capabilities for the entire Card Tech organization. Prior to her current role, she led a Product Execution team focused on improving the internal developer experience through automation and standardization. She has also held roles in Cloud Governance, Tech Strategy, Process Improvement, and Software Development. Throughout her career, she has been actively been involved in various Women in Tech organizations and currently is a leader within the Allies community. Outside of work, Jessica enjoys spending time with her daughter, catching up on (bad) reality TV, or giving out high-fives on Peloton. Jessica has been a conference organizer since 2018.

Jessica is a passionate DevOps Engineer with a background in test automation and a strong commitment to the DevOps culture. Since 2019, she has been an active organizer of DevOpsDays Dallas, where she leverages her enthusiasm for community engagement and collaboration. Jessica thrives on continuous learning and enjoys exploring new technologies. She is an avid traveler and finds great joy in the DevOpsDays community, believing in the power of connection and teamwork to drive impactful change in the tech industry.

Slalom Consulting

Jim Baldwin has over 20 years in the IT field holding various positions from Systems Administration and Infrastructure Engineering to DevOps and Cloud Computing. After attending DevOpsDays in Austin in 2015 and becoming DevOps awakened, Jim has spent his time honing his DevOps and Agile skills.

Jim is currently a Senior Consultant at Slalom Consulting.

Southwest Airlines

John-Paul Herold is an Engineering Leader focused on continuous learning and building great teams that harness data to deliver high-value solutions to customers. Currently his Cloud Security org is focused on reducing risk in SWA’s AWS cloud environments, while supporting accelerated delivery, and all with a measurably excellent developer experience. John-Paul started as a Java developer, transitioned to “DevOps” Engineer when he found he could manage servers like cattle, then Cloud Engineer which brought him to Southwest Airlines where he later moved into leadership.

His path with DevOpsDays started in 2015 when he attended both Dallas and Austin, and has continued every year since. He volunteered for DevOpsDays DFW the first time in 2019, was an organizer for DevOpsDays Texas 2021, and has been an oragnizer for DevOpsDays Dallas since 2022.

John-Paul is based in Dallas and has a CSE degree from Southern Methodist University. In his off time he enjoys playing soccer, listening to music, running a homelab, reading tech books, and working on projects in his garage.

Dell EMC

Lee is an experienced technologist with a passion for solving problems. Whether technical, logistical, organizational - in every endeavor, Lee brings with him a high-level of integrity and an effective leadership style. His experience spans multiple disciplines including Employee Engagement, Distribution, IT Solutions Architecture, Virtual and Physical IT Infrastructure, and Cyber-security.

Lee is a volunteer for DevOpsDays DFW as a result of his passionate interest in DevOps (and DevSecOps) and the associated community of talented professionals.

Lee works with Ancilla LLC - As a Consultant and Project Director. Ancilla LLC provides consulting services for Cloud, CyberSecurity, Application Security and Organizational Excellence. Providing Organizations with Proven, Documented & Published Outcomes.

Lee also volunteers his time acting as Prayer Team Chair for the DFW Technology Prayer Breakfast - a local faith-based nonprofit.

Capital One

Mark loves DevOps and the cloud and has spent the last 2 years with Capital One going all in on DevOps and the Cloud. Mark leads DevOps for Capital One Auto Finance and is the Cloud Lead for public cloud accounts in Plano. Previously Mark has spent 14 years at Southwest Airlines in various software development and leadership roles.

JP Morgan Chase

Paula has had the opportunity to be a part of innovative organizations for over 10 years, and she enjoys continuously improving processes to increase long-term business value. Currently, Paula is a Product Agility Lead at JP Morgan Chase.

Also, Paula is a huge fan of the benefits and measurable impacts that are created using DevOps, Agile, and Lean practices. She volunteered at DevOpsDays DFW in 2022, and she is overjoyed to join the Organizer Team for DevOpsDays DFW in 2023.

Also, Paula holds a Professional Scrum Master Certification, Project Management Professional Certification, MBA with a concentration in Business Intelligence and Accounting, and a Bachelor of Science in Finance. In addition, Paula loves volunteering in the community, hiking, and surfing anytime she is close to the ocean.

Innovar Solutions

Roger is a 20+ year International IT Leader experienced with Software delivery for systems delivering multi billion dollar impacts to their Enterprises. Roger currently leads Verizon’s Engineering Practice Transformation Centers - DOJOs - Across the United States, where teams enter to learn new Agile Practices, DevOps Automantions and Cloud Technologies which speed time to value realization, drive efficiency and improve quality.

Focus Areas for Roger include: DevOps, Agile Development, Continuous Delivery, Lean Development, Software architecture and design, Pricing theory, Product Lifecycle Management, Onshore, Near Shore and Offshore project development (US, LATAM, EMEA, APAC) and Pricing Analytics.

Roger holds his Bachelors Degree from Southern Methodist University and is a continuous learner. A Practitioner of constraint management and evangelist for DevOps measurement, speaking at OS Con 2018 and GLUCON 2018 on DevOps Measurement and Enter-Sourcing with Hygieia. That which is measured, improves!.

Elevate

Russell currently serves as Manager of DevOps Engineering where his team encourages Dev Team autonomy for code and infrastructure pipelines. He has over 30 years of IT experience in a variety of technologies and industries. Starting as a Web Application Developer, then moving into IT Leadership Russell was introduced to DevOps in 2015 while managing platform and systems that supported the Verizon Global Website (www.verizon.com). He quickly adopted an agile / cloud-first methodology to improve feature speed and quality to the business.

Since 2008 Russell has led inclusive and empowered multi-cultural teams responsible for software development and delivery, production support, Operations, and DevOps.

Tech Mahindra

Scott Purgerson, was previously a Sr. Sales Executive with Automation Anywhere located in Dallas, Texas. Although born in San Jose, CA, he takes great pride in claiming he’s a Texan, as he’s resided there 97% of his life. Scott has over 16 years of professional experience, comprised of sales and management. He’s very passionate about helping and partnering with others in their digital transformation journey. Scott joined as an organizer for Dallas DevOps Days in 2019. In his downtime, Scott enjoys spending time with his wife, Michelle, and their corgi, Winnie, as well being in the woods, hunting.

SailPoint

Travis is the Site Reliability Engineering Manager at SailPoint and has previously led cloud engineering teams at Blackbaud, Accenture and Trimble Transportation. He earned his MBA at Texas State University and an undergrad in Computer Science from UT Austin. Travis is based in Dallas and enjoys volunteering with Boy Scouts and taking his 3 sons on outdoor adventures.

Travis started his journey with DevOps at DevOpsDays Austin in 2015 and has volunteered at DevOpsDays events in Austin, Denver and DFW. He loves meeting new people and hearing their DevOps journey stories at conferences.