Meet Our 2023 OpenJS Foundation Board of Directors

As of April 2023, we’re happy to welcome four new members on the OpenJS Foundation Board of Directors, and three that were re-elected. They are filling positions on the Platinum, Gold, Silver and Community level. We are excited to have their expertise at the OpenJS Foundation! 

The board sets technical policy, including “mission and vision statements, describing the overarching scope of foundation initiatives, technical vision, and direction.”

How Board Directors Are Chosen

According to our bylaws, each Platinum member is entitled to appoint one Director to the board, and the Platinum Directors are eligible to serve as chairperson and vice-chairperson. Gold and Silver members vote among themselves to select their representatives. The Board also includes community representation, with two Community Directors nominated by the Cross Project Council (CPC) and its chartered committees with staggered elections.

New Board Directors

Michael “Max” Maximillien, Platinum Director, IBM

Max (aka Dr. Max) is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and leader for the OSS teams contributing to all things Open Quantum and Open Serverless. Max has over 25 years of experience in open source software development, noted highlights include: (1) contributing to the initial USB HID code and Linux driver; (2) creating the JavaPOS open source device loader — used in point of sale terminals across the world; (3) doing pioneering research work on cloud computing and platform-as-a-service; (4) contributing to all aspects of Cloud Foundry and leading the community advisory board for 3 years; and (5) leading the IBM Knative development team, after pioneering its CLI. Max’s main expertise is in software engineering and distributed systems. Max published 80+ refereed papers with citations of 7000+ on GoogleScholar, 100s of blogs, and holds 22 issued patents. Max is an avid amateur photographer and triathlete; bragging rights: 2 award winning photos with Leica Society, 10 half Ironman, one full Ironman, and 20+ marathons. Max holds a masters and Ph.D. in computer science.

Sarah Drasner, Platinum Director, Google

Sarah Drasner is an award-winning Speaker, Director of Engineering, Core Developer Web at Google, where she runs the web infrastructure teams that power Google’s web apps, including the JavaScript and TypeScript languages at Google, multiple frameworks including Angular and Wiz, Build/Serve, CSS/Sass, Karma, and other web testing. Sarah is formerly VP of Developer Experience at Netlify, Principal Lead, at Microsoft Azure, Vue core team member. She’s an O’Reilly author and has given Frontend Masters workshops. Sarah is a co-organizer of ConcatenateConf, a free conference for Nigerian and Kenyan developers.

Fiona Krakenbürger, Platinum Director, Sovereign Tech Fund

Fiona is Co-Founder of the Sovereign Tech Fund, an initiative funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action, to support Open Source Infrastructure in the Public Interest. Fiona has a background in Open Source Funding and has helped build up, bootstrap and develop pioneering Open Source Programs in Germany and the US. Prior to the Sovereign Tech Fund, she supported Internet Freedom technologies worldwide as Senior Program Manager at the Open Technology Fund in Washington D.C. Before that, Fiona helped set up the Prototype Fund, the first public Open Source Funding program in Germany. Previously, her work as Project Lead and Community Organizer at the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany focused on Open Source, Freedom of Information, Transparency and Open Data. Besides her career in Open Source Funding and Open Knowledge, Fiona supported and founded various initiatives for more diversity in tech communities. She’s also a committee member of the RIPE Community Projects Fund and consults various funding and open source programs in their strategic directions and development.  

Adrian Estrada, End User Director, NodeSource

Adrian is a seasoned developer, team leader, and community organizer currently serving as the VP of Engineering at NodeSource. He is deeply passionate about Node.js and the JavaScript ecosystem and has contributed to the Node.js core and other open-source JavaScript projects. Adrian is also the co-creator of the official Node.js certification exam and has invested much time in training the community. As a community organizer, he has co-organized major events like MedellinJS, one of the biggest JavaScript communities in South America, and the conferences NodeConf Colombia and JSConf Colombia. Adrian is also an international speaker who participated in multiple events around the globe.

Re-Elected Board Directors

Abigail Cabunoc Mayes, Silver Director, GitHub

Abby leads GitHub’s open source maintainer programs where she works to help maintainers – and the open source ecosystem – thrive. Before joining GitHub, Abby led Mozilla’s open source engagement strategy for MozFest and trustworthy AI. She founded and led Mozilla Open Leaders, a program that has worked with over 600 open projects globally. She is active in the open source ecosystem as a current or past member of a variety of committees and editorial boards including the Journal of Open Source Software, the Mozilla Open Source Support Awards, and SustainOSS.

Paula Paul, Silver Director, Nearform

Paula has a rich career in software engineering, from mainframe product development at IBM to championing innovative open source and developer experience efforts in her current role as a Field CTO with NearForm. She is a distinguished engineer, author, speaker, angel investor, and mentor who is passionate about diversity and inclusion in engineering. Paula also serves on the Grace Hopper Open Source Day committee for AnitaB.org.

Sara Chipps, Cross Project Council Director, LinkedIn

As co-founder of the non-profit Girl Develop It and co-founder of Jewelbots, JavaScript developer Sara Chipps is actively working to increase the number of women and girls becoming web and software developers and entering STEM fields. A software developer for 20 years, Sara is a member of the OpenJS Foundation’s Cross Project council, a former  Microsoft MVP for Developer Outreach and is a Senior Engineering Manager at LinkedIn.