MACH Alliance Appoints New Members to Executive Board, Focuses on Diversity of Expertise and Growth in North America

Big leadership changes are afoot at the MACH Alliance, the group of independent tech companies that advocate for open, best-of-breed technology ecosystems. The organization just announced changes to its Executive Board and leadership team, coming on the heels of its successful MACH Two Conference in early June. 

As composable technology adoption increases globally, the MACH Alliance provides vendor-neutral resources, education, and guidance through industry experts, helping to support companies on their journey to MACH (Microservices, API-First, Cloud-Native SaaS, Headless). As a movement, having transparent and democratic governance is vital, and the new board intends to fulfill the Alliance's commitment to diverse representation across member categories, geographies, genders, and areas of expertise.

According to the press release, the Alliance now touts more North American representatives than European. This reflects an accelerated adoption of MACH in markets like the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, the board has shifted its primary technology focus to concentrate more on business, marketing, and strategy. This transition will aid in advancing its mission, promoting the overall movement, and further supporting its expansion into North America within the next 12 months.

New Executive Board appointments

The MACH Alliance Executive Board comprises representatives from ISV, SI, and Enabler members within the Alliance, with an almost equal split between female and male members. Board elections take place every year, each term lasting two years, and Executive Board members are permitted to serve a maximum of two terms.

The new Executive Board appointments include:

• Kristin Naragon – Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Akeneo
• Brian Walker – Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Bloomreach
• Krithika Ganesamoorthi – Senior Manager, Solutions Architecture at Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Jen Jones – Chief Marketing Officer at commercetools
• Jasmin Guthmann – Head of Corporate Communication at Contentstack (re-elected)

This new crop of members will join the existing MACH Alliance Executive Board, which includes:

• Casper Rasmussen – President and Global SVP Technology at Valtech
• Jon Panella – Group Vice President at Publicis Sapient
• Chris Bach – Co-founder and CSO at Netlify
• Dom Selvon – Chief Technology Officer at Apply Digital

Outgoing members of the Executive Board 

As the new board appointees cycle in, the Alliance is parting with three very large pairs of shoes to fill:

• Kelly Goetsch – Chief Strategy Officer at commercetools
• John Williams – Chief Technology Officer at Amplience
• Gordana Vuckovic – Advisor, TAZI AI Systems

Goetsch has been – and remains – an important changemaker within the MACH Community. He has played a critical role in the development of the Alliance since its inception and served as its founding president. During his two-year board tenure, he significantly contributed to furthering the industry’s understanding of MACH and will continue to be a very active member.

Similarly, Williams and Vuckovic have left an indelible mark on the Alliance and bolstered the MACH movement during their time on the Executive Board.

2023 Elections introduce new Heads of Councils

The Alliance announced the appointment of several new Heads of Councils during its 2023 elections. Voting took place between June 28th and 30th. Candidates from member companies nominated themselves and campaigned for MACH Alliance member votes, which were cast as part of a transparent, democratic process.

The new appointments include: 

• Growth Council: Tal Ofer – Partnerships Director at Cloudinary
• Marketing Council: Andrew Wadsworth, Senior Director Business Development at Apply Digital, joined by Irina Boteo, VP Marketing at Uniform
• Tech Council: Stuart Guest-Smith, Lead Principal Architect at BigCommerce, and Roberto Carrera, Strategy Architect at Apply Digital

New Education Council focuses on business and technical foundations

This year, the Alliance also announced the establishment of a new Education Council. The initiative will be led by Tarek Nseir, SVP of Digital Engagement EMEA at EPAM Systems, who has been an active member of the Executive Board for the past year.

With this new council, the Alliance aims to turbocharge its efforts in the educational space, ensuring it remains at the top of the agenda. During the MACH Two Conference, Casper Rasmussen detailed some of the roadmap for the Alliance's ambitious education plans. The council will be critical in meeting that horizon, launching business and technical foundation tracks later this year.

Celebrating MACH Milestones

The board changes and election appointments come on the heels of several milestones for the MACH Alliance. Most notably: the celebration of its third anniversary. The organization recently attained 90 members, including PayPal and other global financial service providers – all while maintaining the purity of the MACH Alliance certification.

As previously noted, the MACH Two Conference – which was held from June 13-14 in Amsterdam – was a resounding success. The event brought together more than 600 leaders across the MACH community, providing a wealth of education workshops and sessions with real customer use cases and success stories.

“It has been an exciting and fun experience to strategically lead this organization for the last 12 months,” said Casper Rasmussen, President of the MACH Alliance. “We are looking forward to onboarding fresh thinking, new energy, and to welcome new individuals to our executive team. With this leadership team in place from August, we have the exclusive opportunity to really propel awareness, education and the advancement of MACH to the next level. My sincere thanks to our board for having been such an essential part of all our achievements to date.”

About the MACH Alliance

The MACH Alliance is a [501(c)(6)] non-profit organization, governed by an independent board and does not endorse specific vendors, members or otherwise. The Alliance was formed in June 2020 to help enterprise organizations navigate the complex modern technology landscape. It aims to guide and show the business advantage of open tech ecosystems that are Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS and Headless. All MACH Alliance members meet certification principles that are published on the website. The MACH Alliance welcomes technology companies and individual industry experts who share the same vision for the future.