Meet our Board of Directors

Uirá Ribeiro (Chair)

Prof. Uirá Ribeiro is a Senior C-Level Executive with solid Information Technology background, Software Developer and Internet Architect Engineer with a 23-year career. He stays on top of trends in Open Source technology. As an educator, Uirá has reached the top, serving as headmaster of a Brazilian University for more than 15 years.

He holds a Master in Informatics and Bachelor in Data Processing, among other fifteen IT certifications, such as “AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner”, “AWS Certified Architect”, “AWS Certified SysOps”, “CompTIA Linux+ce”, “Scrum Foundation Professional Certificate”, “Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator”, “Linux Foundation Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)”, “CompTIA Project+”, “CompTIA Linux+”, “LPIC-3”, “CompTIA Security+ce”, “RHCSA”, “RHCE” and “Red Hat Specialist in Containers and Kubernetes”.

He is the author of 11 books, recognized in the world IT market, published in English, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, as LPI Publishing Partner.

CEO and founder of Linux Certification Edutech, for 15 years he has taught Linux online classes, with more than 14,000 certified students.

Brian Clemens (Vice-Chair)

Brian Clemens is a founder and the Vice President of the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, and a founder and the Program Manager of Rocky Linux. His interest and experience with Linux and FOSS began with Fedora Core 4, since which he has championed FOSS across a wide range of organizations. Since co-founding Rocky Linux in 2020, he has worked exclusively on Open Source full-time.

Having worked a diverse range of IT careers, from running cable to supporting multinational telecom infrastructure deployments, he brings a wide breadth of experience and understanding to the organizations he participates in.

André Bermudes Casagrande

André Casagrande is a technology professional with extensive experience working with Linux, open technologies, and enterprise infrastructure. Throughout his career, André has been deeply involved in designing and implementing modern IT platforms based on open-source technologies across multiple industries, including financial services, manufacturing, and the public sector.

André currently works with hybrid cloud architectures, Linux-based enterprise environments, and cloud-native platforms such as Kubernetes and OpenShift. His work focuses on helping organizations modernize their infrastructure by adopting open technologies that enable flexibility, scalability, and innovation.

Linux and open-source software have always been central to André’s professional journey. He strongly believes that open ecosystems are critical to the future of technology because they promote collaboration, transparency, and shared innovation across organizations, communities, and countries.

André has also contributed to the global technical community as a co-author of the IBM Redbook Modernization Techniques for IBM Power, which provides guidance on modernizing enterprise workloads and integrating open technologies into IBM Power environments. The Redbook can be accessed here: https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248582.html

Beyond his technical work, André is actively engage in technical discussions, workshops, and collaborative initiatives that promote the adoption of Linux and open-source technologies in enterprise environments. His goal is to help strengthen the global Linux community, support the development of new professionals, and ensure that Linux skills remain aligned with the rapidly evolving landscape of cloud computing, automation, and modern infrastructure.

Simone Davide Bertulli

Simone Davide Bertulli is a cybersecurity professional with over 8 years of experience working in the Cyber Defence Center of a major Italian Oil & Gas company. For the past 3 years, Simone has also been involved in the telecommunications field.

Simone has written several articles for the LPI blog, including the “Security Essentials” and “LPI Membership Journey” series.
Additionally, Simone has experience as a tech reviewer for manuals and technical courses, covering both IT security topics and infrastructure-related areas such as networking and servers.

Since 2024, Simone has been an LPI Approved Trainer.

Sean Davis

Sean Davis has been contributing to Xubuntu, Xfce, and the broader Ubuntu ecosystem since 2012, becoming an Ubuntu Member in 2013, Xubuntu Technical Lead in 2014, and a founding member of the Xubuntu Council in 2017. Along the way, Sean authored and maintained applications that have shipped on millions of Linux desktops: Catfish, MenuLibre, Mugshot, LightDM GTK+ Greeter, Parole, Xfce Screensaver, and many others. Most people in this community know Sean as bluesabre.

The work Sean is most proud of is the Xfce GTK3 migration. He led the charge, starting with Catfish, moving through Parole, then tackling Exo and Xfce Settings, each of which presented its own challenges around deprecated libraries, technical constraints, and design continuity. It was deeply collaborative, drawing in contributors from across and beyond the Xfce community. This was at a time when contributions were at an all-time low. Had the Exo and Xfce Settings migrations not happened when they did, the rest of the stack would have followed much later. That sustained effort, combined with frequent public updates, renewed interest in a project that was struggling, and Xfce is significantly better maintained today as a result.

Professionally, Sean lead engineering at a 500+ person company, where his team builds the platforms and integrations that keep the business running securely and at scale. The same principles Sean learned in open source show up every day in how he leads: transparency, long-term stewardship, and building things designed to outlast their creators.

Networking with other FOSS leaders has always been a remote-first challenge. Sean is based in Louisville, Kentucky, which isn’t a Linux hub by any stretch. He’s always been deliberate about community involvement in ways that people in larger tech centers don’t always have to be. Welcoming conversation, asking the right questions, and always staying considerate of others’ needs has given Sean a small, diverse network within this global community.

Henrietta Dombrovskaya

Hettie Dombrovskaya is a database researcher and practitioner with over 40 years of experience. While databases have always been her passion, her encounter with PostgreSQL in 2011 opened a new page in her career. Having discovered the power and the driving force of Free and Open Source Software, she gradually transitioned from a user to an active supporter of FOSS, as an advocate, a donor and an educator.

At present, Hettie is a Database Architect at DRW Holdings in Chicago Il, responsible for everything Postgres-related in her organization. She is a Postgres Contributor, an organizer of the Chicago PostgreSQL Uset Group and one of the organizers of PG Day Chicago. She is a founder of Prairie Postgres NFP, a not-for-profit dedicated to Postgres education in the Midwest states of the USA, and a Communications Chair of the ACM Chicago Chapter.

You can often see Hettie presenting at different Open Source conferences and/or teaching database performance classes. Her book “PostgreSQL Query Optimization” summarizes her journey from proprietary systems to PostgreSQL.

Werner Fischer

Werner Fischer is an Austrian who has been a passionate Linux user for more than 20 years. In the early 2000s Werner studied Computer and Media Security at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg.

In 2003 Werner started his internship at the IBM Advanced Technical Support Lab in Mainz, Germany. Besides using Linux in the lab, Werner removed the former commercial operating system from his laptop and installed Fedora 1. After Werner’s thesis he stayed at IBM until 2005, working on Linux storage projects. During this time Werner had the opportunity to write the Linux chapters of two IBM Redbooks at IBM Almaden Research Center and IBM Raleigh.

After that Werner joined the German server company Thomas-Krenn, where over the past 20 years he has worked in various roles: developing virtualized Linux high availability clusters, managing the web operations and knowledge transfer team, building the publicly accessible Thomas-Krenn-Wiki where the company shares its server knowledge, and much more. 

Werner is passionate about sharing knowledge. He has published more than 1,000 articles in the Thomas-Krenn-Wiki. Werner also writes for magazines from time to time, e.g. Linux/ADMIN Magazine or the German c’t and iX magazines.

Recently, Werner became the first LPI Approved Trainer in Austria.

Werner cares about free and open source software and privacy. It is important to him that everyone is in control of their own data and that corporations are not the masters of private data of individuals and companies. So Werner encourages people not only to use FOSS on their computers, but also to use open source solutions like /e/OS on their smartphones.

Tiago Felipe Goncalves

Tiago Felipe Gonçalves is a Senior Network Engineer with a 24-year career deeply immersed in Linux and open source technologies. As an Italo-Brazilian professional currently based in the Netherlands, he brings a unique global perspective to the open source community, having worked across multiple regions and diverse technological environments.

Currently serving in dual roles as a Senior Network Engineer at Booking.com and a Senior Network Development Engineer at IX.br, Tiago specializes in complex infrastructure design, network automation, and security implementation. His technical expertise spans Linux, BSD, routing protocols, cloud architectures, containerization, and programming in Python, Shell, Perl, Rust, and Golang.

Tiago holds a portfolio of 44+ certifications, including the complete Linux Professional Institute certification track (LPIC-1, LPIC-2, LPIC-3 Virtualization and Containerization, and BSD Specialist). His education includes a post-graduate degree in Advanced Cisco Networks Management, a specialization in Computer Networks from the State University of Campinas, and a graduate degree in Technology in Computer Networks.

Tiago served as a MANRS (Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security) Ambassador, where he mentors fellows, promotes routing security awareness, and contributes to global internet stability. As a passionate advocate for open source, Tiago has designed and implemented numerous innovative solutions that demonstrate how open source technologies can solve complex challenges while promoting accessibility and knowledge sharing.

Fluent in Portuguese, English, and Italian, with elementary proficiency in Spanish and Dutch, Tiago brings a multicultural perspective to his work. A family man with one child, he embodies the qualities of persistence, resilience, commitment, and a self-taught approach to professional growth that align perfectly with the open source ethos.

Dorothy Gordon

Dorothy Gordon is a global leader in the field of technology and development with a special focus on Africa. She works to bring about greater engagement and action on policy, implementation and evaluation issues relating to the impact of technology on society. She is a Pan-Africanist and a feminist.

​​Dorothy is the current Chair of the Inter-Governmental Council for UNESCO’s Information for All Programme with a mandate to build a more inclusive Knowledge Society. She is a member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence expert working group on innovation and commercialisation. Previously she served on the Global Commission on Internet Governance and worked for many years as a manager with the United Nations Development Programme.

​​Her commitment to Open Source technologies stems from the fact that they build greater technology ownership, innovation and diversity. As the founding Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT she ensured that the backend systems were run exclusively on Open Source technology. During her tenure the Centre hosted FOSSFA (the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa) of which she was a Council member. Previously on the Board of Creative Commons, Dorothy currently serves on its Advisory Council. She is a strong advocate of the ROAM principles (internet universality) and all dimensions of the Open Movement.​

Klaus Knopper

Klaus Knopper is an Electrical Engineer with a history of three decades of Unix (different brands) and especially Linux system administration and developer of customized Linux-based operating systems, passionate hardware+software tinkerer.

As main job, regular professor for Software Engineering, IT Security and informatics in the programs of Business Informatics / Information Management (Bachelor + Master) in the faculty of Business Economics and Vice President for Digitalization at the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany. Also self-employed software developer and consultant.

Klaus is located in Europe and in the german-speaking corner thereof, was co-founder of the former LinuxTag expo and conference started in 1996, and speaker at various Linux-related events (USA, GB, India).

In 2000 he presented the Live GNU/Linux system Knoppix at the Atlanta Linux Showcase. While Knoppix was rather targeted at developers and for software evaluation and hardware compatibility tests at that time, than at beginners, it helped many to gain experience with a Linux-based Desktop, or rescue data from defective other operating systems without modifying disks.

The ADRIANE accessibility extension of Knoppix allows blind computer users to get an easy start with Linux on a talking text console, with no or few sighted help needed.

Michinori Nakahara

Michinori Nakahara spent over 33 years at IBM-Japan in various leadership positions, specializing in the Asia-Pacific region. He then served as Chief Training Officer for a Tokyo-based open source software start-up. In November 2022, he was made Japan General Manager for AutoGrid Systems.

Having worked in Japan, studied in both Japan and the United States and worked closely with US and European IT companies, he brings a unique and varied perspective to the Linux and Open Source community as a member of the LPI’s Board of Directors.

With a professional history with Linux and Open Source Software that goes back to 1999, as manager of Linux business development at IBM-Japan, and responsibility for working with IBM’s global partners, his experience with Linux/OSS based systems is extensive.

Such a familiarity with the technology and the major players both inside and outside the region, motivated him to contribute beyond his workplace, serving on various committees, forums and in organizations dedicated to Linux and Open Source education and policies in Japan.

Michinori Nakahara sees serving on the LPI Board of Directors with other seasoned Linux professionals as an opportunity to further expand his knowledge and put his decades of experience in Asia and the global Linux community to work for the furtherment of LPI, Open Source and the world.

Ricardo Prudenciato

Graduated in Information Technology and Post Graduated in Computer Networks, Ricardo Prudenciato’s career has always been totally focused on Linux and Open Source technologies, mainly working with support and administration of systems and their services.

In 20 years of experience, he has worked in most of the levels that a Linux professional will go through in his career, from intern to senior, leading and coordinating teams. He also had the opportunity to work in different types of companies, from small to large organizations such as IBM, Portugal Telecom and Vivo (Brazil).

In the last 5 years his focus has been on teaching and mentoring professionals in their journeys with Linux and Open Source, sharing the knowledge acquired over the years, through online training focused on Linux and especially on LPI Certifications.

He has published courses on Introduction to GNU/Linux, Shell Script Programming and Preparations for LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 Certifications, with more than 38,000 students.

Jill Ratkevic

As a New Jersey native who arrived in Silicon Valley with her developer-husband at the beginning of the dot-com era, Jill Ratkevic has witnessed a great deal. Her first “Silicon Valley job” came about when her printer repairman introduced her to a friend of a friend who was founding the very first open-source embedded Linux company. Although she did not yet understand the significance, they were better than Red Hat. She returned home from the interview with a Finnish developer’s green card and no salary, much to her husband’s horror since the company was not funded yet, but she embodied the spirit of Silicon Valley.

Sun’s Scott McNealy and Java’s James Gosling trusted her to go to Capitol Hill to advocate for Open Source’s presence in movement systems. She believed that spending millions upon millions of dollars repeatedly on software licenses when citizens contributed to the code was a waste of money. She acknowledged that Open Source code is not the best in every aspect of the software landscape, which is why benchmarks and comparisons are necessary. Often, Open Source prevails.

Her journey from advocacy in 1999 to being central to the SCO v. IBM lawsuit as the ZDNet reporter who had that scoop was truly circumstantial, though it gave her a career in software. This career has paralleled and brought her the fortune of being sought out by CEOs from Sun to Salesforce and many others now undergoing a revamp.

She is happy to support the community after 25 years, moving from foundation to enforcement. She calls for ethical mavericks to step up.

Jon “maddog” Hall (Chair Emeritus)

Jon “maddog” Hall is the Board Chair Emeritus of the Linux Professional Institute. Since 1969, Jon “maddog” Hall has been a programmer, systems designer, systems administrator, product manager, technical marketing manager, author and educator, currently working as an independent consultant.

While not a founding member of LPI, he helped formulate some of the concepts and donated personal money to allow the first 200 tests be tested for psychometrics.

Jon “maddog” Hall has concentrated on Unix systems since 1980 and Linux systems since 1994, when he first met Linus Torvalds and correctly recognized the commercial importance of Linux and Free and open source Software.

As the Executive Director of Linux International(TM) Jon “maddog” Hall has traveled the world speaking on the benefits of open source Software having received his BS in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University, and his MSCS from RPI in Troy, New York.