Speaker Details

For over 20 years, Nicole Huesman has applied her aptitude in storytelling to the technology industry—helping shine a light on the importance and impact of the incredible feats of her engineering colleagues. She dove into the world of open source six years ago, and quickly became a strong advocate—from the embedded market (Yocto Project) to the cloud (OpenStack, KVM, Xen).

She is particularly passionate about cultivating inclusive communities that welcome diverse perspectives and invite intelligent, thoughtful debate to create the foundation for a better world for all of us. She has been an active member of the Women of OpenStack, helping to showcase amazing individuals across its diverse community, bringing together mentors and mentees through Speed Mentoring activities, and participating in OpenStack Summit panel discussions focused on diversity- and mentor-related efforts. She is also an active member of the Women in Open Source.

Prior to her work as an open source advocate, Nicole held senior marketing positions in both software and hardware at companies such as Intel, Tektronix and hawkeye, translating business objectives into global, strategic marketing plans that achieved exceptional results. She graduated from the University of Oregon's School of Journalism, and holds a Master's degree in Marketing from Marylhurst University. She resides in the Pacific Northwest, where she is a proud mother of a young son who keeps her on her toes.