Who are you? (biography/background)

I am Alexander Varwijk (Kingdutch on Drupal.org), born north of Amsterdam and currently living in the Dutch city of Enschede, near the German border. My programming journey began at a young age after seeing how an au-pair used Perl to maintain a Drum & Bass fan website. My first creation was a simple terminal calculator in Perl, but I quickly discovered the magic of building websites, starting with Dreamweaver before adding interactivity using PHP 4.4.

My path with Drupal began in 2012: for the new website of a local sports association I was looking for a tool that allowed me to build overviews for club members, teams, and matches. After building the first features of the website using Drupal 7 I was eager to learn more about the framework and its community, which led me to DrupalCon Prague in 2013. There, by chance, I was connected to other people from Enschede: my future colleagues at Open Social.

At the same time as getting to know Drupal I started my study of Electrical Engineering. I ended up spending more time with various committees for my study association as well as a two year board membership as president of the Vestingbar – a student run bar open 364 days of the year.

In 2016 I dropped out of my Electrical Engineering study to make room for my entrepreneurial interests: I started a craft-beer subscription service called Ontdekbier (using Drupal Commerce for the website); I started a study of Business Administration, and I joined GoalGorilla during their transition from Drupal agency to the product company now known as Open Social.

My craft-beer subscription service is no longer around. After meeting the marketing manager from Heineken at a beer sommelier course and learning of their many millions of euros of funding for BeerWulf in a bid to capture the craft-beer e-commerce market, I decided that that was not a market player I could compete with.

I'm still with Open Social, where as Technical Architect at Open Social, I help power some of the world's most impactful organizations through Drupal-based collaborative platforms, including the European Commission, World Bank, United Nations, and Greenpeace International.

In my time off I still enjoy programming, such as introducing async capabilities to Drupal. Besides that I love airplanes, poker – a source of global friendships, reading, speaking at conferences, and travelling. Interests that complement each other well. When I'm back at home I enjoy cycling with friends and I volunteer my time to help organize a local music festival every year.

Why are you running for a board seat at the Drupal Association? (mission/motivation)

Drupal is an amazing framework for modern day connected applications. Its community is vibrant and chooses the direction of the project through choosing where it decides to contribute. The Drupal Association as I understand it plays a vital role in ensuring Drupal's longevity and ensuring a healthy community by supporting the community and its contributors.

Three main aspects that excite me and motivate me to join the Drupal Association board are: Developer Advocacy and promoting Drupal outside our community; increasing attractiveness of Drupal Association sponsorship for organizations using Drupal as a tool; and the forming of a federated system of Drupal Associations to coordinate global and local tasks in supporting and growing our community.

While talking with developers at conferences outside of the Drupal community, their image of Drupal often does not seem to reflect the current state our framework offers. At the same time, developers working with Drupal seem to underestimate their options of sharing our message with people outside of our community.

As a Drupal Association board member I would like to initiate or boost a developer advocacy program that connects the amazing speakers that we have within the Drupal community to great non-Drupal conferences. Expanding our outreach efforts promotes Drupal as a technical tool and helps modernise its image while simultaneously allowing our community to learn from other technologies and tools.

The Drupal Association pitch for sponsorship is currently focused in large part around visibility within the Drupal community as a Drupal service provider. As a Drupal Association board member I want to help expand the pitch with one that appeals to companies that use Drupal as a development framework but do not resell Drupal itself, thereby growing the funding for the Drupal Association and the Drupal project.

The International Drupal Federation Initiative provides exciting opportunities. Many local associations already exist that know how to engage their local communities and grow usage and contributions within those spaces. There are also tasks that transcend national borders and can benefit from global cooperation. Developer advocacy, as well as crafting a clear and compelling story of why the individual associations and an overarching international association are important to any organization using Drupal, are prime examples.

Why should members vote for you? (qualifications)

My 13 years of experience in the Drupal ecosystem have shown me both the community's incredible strengths and the areas where we can improve. My contribution would be a combination of open source development experience – inside and outside of Drupal, a business administration background and my drive and energy to promote Drupal. I am able to evaluate the work of the Drupal Association through a strategic lens and translate the community's needs into actionable plans. My journey from building a local sports club

website to architecting platforms for organizations like the UN and European Commission has given me perspective on the broad spectrum of Drupal users and their diverse needs.

As a conference speaker and (co-)maintainer of multiple Drupal projects, I try to give back to the community that has given me so much. As a member of the board of the Drupal Association I can use my experience of turning ideas into workable solutions to further contribute to the community's growth and longevity.

I believe I can contribute meaningfully to the challenges facing Drupal and the Drupal Association. As our framework competes in an increasingly complex landscape, we need thoughtful approaches to marketing, funding and community growth. My entrepreneurial and product experience, combined with deep community involvement, gives me tools to help navigate the balance between innovation and stability, between open-source values and practical sustainability, that the Drupal Association must maintain.

Who are you? (biography/background)

In 2009, I co-founded Zoocha, which has grown to become a global digital agency specialising in Drupal and working with clients including United Nations, University of Cambridge, Alzheimer’s Society and British Tourist Authority. With a team of over 90 incredible people, Zoocha is headquartered in the UK and has offices in Spain and Brazil.

Prior to Zoocha, I worked in digital product management and digital marketing, specialising in e-commerce.

I have been involved in the Drupal community for about 15 years and have been a regular speaker at Drupal events internationally. I have been a session reviewer for DrupalCons in Europe and North America for the last 5 years, more recently leading the Agency & Business track for DrupalCon Europe. I also lead the Drupal Swag Shop Working Group, am a director of Drupal England & Wales and DrupalCamp England and am active in the Network of European Drupal Agencies (NEDA), an initiative that is now collaborating with the DA on the plans for a ‘Drupal International Federation’.

I live in Cambridge (UK) with my wife, Anabel and our dog, Daisy. In my spare time, I play tennis and bridge.

https://www.drupal.org/u/zoocha-will

Why are you running for a board seat at the Drupal Association? (mission/motivation)

Growing the ‘Maker’ Community:
A significant contributor to Drupal’s success is the symbiotic relationship it has with digital agencies, and the Drupal Certified Partner (DCP) framework is a powerful enabler for future growth and success. With the launch of Drupal CMS and the initiative to scope a ‘marketplace’ platform, the maker community poised to enter a new era of growth and diversity. I am motivated by the desire to help answer 2 important questions:

1. How can we extend the reach of the Drupal brand and proposition to drive growth for DCP’s and generate sustainable revenues for Drupal?
2. What needs to happen to ensure ‘commercialization’ of Drupal does not negatively affect the community or the quality of the product?

Improving Transparency:
I count myself among the most passionate Drupal evangelists and believe the Drupal community to be a healthy, diverse and inclusive one. As the community grows and the governance of Drupal evolves, there will be new challenges to overcome and I am motivated by helping to overcome them. The challenges include:

• How can we improve collaboration and transparency of decision making as responsibilities are increasingly split between paid team members at the DA and community volunteers?
• Sharing the workload fairly. This is from two perspective:
  • not over burdening a small group of highly committed community members
  • not concentrating decision making and control in the hands of a few

Why should members vote for you? (qualifications)

The qualifications I want to highlight are centred around my industry and community insights. My experience in both client side (end user) and agency side roles gives me a rounded perspective of the CMS market, how it is navigated by buyers and how it is sold by agencies. Furthermore, with the UK (and Europe more widely) a significant market for Drupal, with strong growth prospects, I feel that representation on the board is important.

I also bring a community perspective, not only as one of the leaders of the Drupal community in England, but also through my leadership of teams in Spain and Brazil who are increasingly participating in their local Drupal communities.

File attachments:  willhuggins.jpg

Who are you? (biography/background)

My name is Vladimir Roudakov. I'm from Brisbane, Australia, which has been home for over two decades. I'm a teacher, business owner, and software engineer.

I've been a strong advocate for open source for more than a decade, and I'm a co-organiser for local industry events like the WordPress meetup, Drupal code sprints, and DrupalSouth conferences. I'm an active contributor to Drupal's code, documentation, and community-building initiatives. You can see a list of my contributions on my  profile: https://www.drupal.org/u/vladimiraus.

I've also been working with local colleges to introduce the new generation to Drupal development and open source, leveraging the latest trends such as generative intelligence. I have a few insights on how we can better support open source newcomers.

I'm actively involved in other open source communities including Linux Australia, Gitlab, and WordPress, and I'm keen to share their ideas and approaches with the Drupal community.

Why are you running for a board seat at the Drupal Association? (mission/motivation)

My main motivation for running is to improve Drupal's educational impact and documentation. I'd love to have more resources at my disposal to bridge the gap between Drupal and academia, and I believe a board seat would provide the necessary access to those resources. This means building stronger awareness of the Drupal platform and its potential applications in educational settings, and of course, continuously improving Drupal's help resources.

Specifically, I'm passionate about:

• Promoting Drupal as the technology of choice in academia: I've seen firsthand, as a teacher, the challenges and opportunities of bringing Drupal into colleges and universities. I want to make it easier for students and educators to get started and continue with Drupal.

• Improving Drupal help and learning material: New students and teachers often struggle to find up-to-date Drupal tutorials, which is a major hurdle. I'm keen to tackle this head-on.

• Researching how to improve documentation for generative intelligence tools: With  AI tools becoming more prevalent, we need to ensure Drupal documentation is not only compatible but also leveraged effectively to stay current and helpful.

Why should members vote for you? (qualifications)

I'm actively working on the above initiatives. Here's why I reckon members should vote for me:

• Hands-on experience with documentation and education: I'm co-organising regular documentation and help sprints where teams are actively working to improve user guides, developer tutorials, and API documentation. I'm also working closely with local colleges to identify and address challenges in Drupal adoption within the academic environment.

• Cross-community insights: Being an active contributor to other open-source communities like Gitlab and WordPress has given me a fresh perspective on different approaches to community building and contributor recognition. As a Gitlab Hero, I've seen various initiatives to recognise contributors, including special events and MVP announcements. I'm eager to explore how we can apply similar successful strategies to the Drupal community.

• Understanding Drupal user needs: As an IT teacher, I get direct feedback from both teachers and students on what works and what doesn't when using Drupal and other CMS platforms. I use this insight to identify gaps in documentation and training materials, which I then work to improve.

• Commitment to the community: I've been contributing to Drupal.org for many years as both developer, teacher and organiser, curating regular training sessions, local meetups, and code sprints.

File attachments:  VladimirRoudakov.jpg

Who are you? (biography/background)

Maya Schaeffer

Why are you running for a board seat at the Drupal Association? (mission/motivation)

I’m running for a seat on the board because I believe the Drupal community is in a powerful moment of transition—and opportunity. My mission is to contribute to a more inclusive and outward-facing Drupal ecosystem, where marketing, design, communications, and non-technical contributors feel a stronger sense of belonging.

As lead organizer of EvolveDrupal, I’ve helped rebuild the in-person side of the community post-pandemic, connecting over 1,000 attendees (40% from outside the traditional Drupal space) across eight events in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Atlanta, NYC, and Boston (upcoming June 2025). These summits have demonstrated the demand for cross-functional community spaces that showcase Drupal’s relevance across sectors.

I also want to actively contribute to the Promote Drupal initiative and help shape a Drupal Association that prioritizes clear storytelling, accessible entry points, and a strong pipeline for the next generation of users and contributors.

Why should members vote for you? (qualifications)

While I am relatively new to the Drupal community, I believe that’s part of the strength I bring. I offer a fresh, user-focused perspective—one that reflects the experience of many organizations and individuals just beginning their Drupal journey. And in practice, I’ve worked closely with longtime community leaders to make this perspective actionable.

• I’ve collaborated with Suzanne Dergacheva, a former DA board member and co-founder of Evolving Web, as well as partnered on community initiatives with Lynne Capozzi, Mike Herschel, and Nikhil Deshpande, among others.

• I serve as the lead organizer of EvolveDrupal, a summit series supported by Pantheon, Acquia, and the Drupal Association, designed to grow Drupal’s visibility and invite new contributors into the fold.

• At Evolving Web, a Drupal Certified Partner (Diamond Tier), I’ve represented the community at major industry events like Digital Collegium, while contributing to the broader mission of advancing multilingual, accessible, and open-source digital experiences.

If elected, I will bring community energy, strategic event leadership, and a deep commitment to building bridges—between disciplines, regions, and generations.

File attachments:  mayaheadshot.jpeg

Matthew Saunders

Drupal.org username: MatthewS

Introduction

I’m Matthew Saunders, a technologist, storyteller, and Drupal evangelist. I’ve been a part of the Drupal community since 2006, attending my first DrupalCon in 2007. Atlanta 2025 was my 26th. I’m a former Board Member of the Drupal Association, Chair of Drupal Colorado, and a founder of Drupalcamp Colorado — the longest-running DrupalCamp in North America. My leadership spans community governance, digital strategy, and accessible technology, with a growing focus on AI and neurodiversity advocacy.

Vision and Impact

I’ve led significant work in the AI space through my role as AI Ambassador for amazee.io. I’ve been building demos, writing policy, and evangelizing data-sovereign, enterprise-grade AI tools for Drupal. I’m also organizing the first Drupal AI hackathon at Drupal GovCon and leading sessions at multiple camps to make AI practical and approachable for site builders.

Parallel to this, I’ve continued my public advocacy for neurodiverse inclusion in tech. My session “The Neurodivergency Superpower: How Diverse Teams Function Better” has been featured at DrupalCon and regional camps. I’ve created a YouTube series (“My Neurodivergent Brain”) and lead Pfizer’s internal podcast on neurodiversity, offering a lived-experience lens to build inclusive cultures in open-source.

Community Contributions

• Co-founder and Chair of Drupalcamp Colorado (2007–present)
• Volunteer for Drupal GovCon 2025
• Founding member, Drupal Event Organizers Working Group (2019-2024)
• Spoken at over 30 world-wide events including 10 Drupalcons and numerous camps
• Former Director, Drupal Association Board (2013–2016)
• Organizer of the first DrupalAI Hackathon (2025, Drupal GovCon)
• Admin, Drupal Facebook group
• CoC contact 
• Contributor to community health initiatives

Current Roles

I currently work for amazee.io as their AI Ambassador on the Product Team. I’m Chair of Drupal Colorado. I’m a volunteer with Drupal GovCon. I’m an advisor to the Bluefly Collective. I’m a maintainer for 8 projects. You can see my LinkedIn profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmsaunders/ 

Why I’m Running Again

Drupal is at an inflection point. With the rapid adoption of AI and an urgent need for inclusive governance, the Drupal Association Board needs leaders with both technical insight and a strong community ethos. I bring both. I want to help shape our strategy around emerging technologies while reinforcing Drupal’s values of openness, accessibility, and shared growth.

Why Vote for Me?

I bring depth and breadth, from technical leadership to community-building, from nonprofit governance to enterprise-scale Drupal strategy. I’ve worked across agencies, startups, global corporations, and grassroots orgs. I’ve served on nonprofit boards, built digital teams, and shown up consistently for the Drupal community for nearly two decades. If elected, I’ll continue to be a connector, a challenger, and a champion for both innovation and inclusion.

File attachments:  MatthewSaunders.jpeg

Who are you? (biography/background)

I am Carlos Ospina,

I've been working with Drupal for over a decade, spending nearly ten years as a Technical Account Manager at Acquia where I helped organizations solve complex implementation challenges.

Drupal.org username: camoa

Why are you running for a board seat at the Drupal Association? (mission/motivation)

I'm running because I believe Drupal needs board leadership that understands how to build sustainable communities globally, especially in regions that haven't had representation before.

I've spent years working within the Drupal community in both Latin America and the United States. I helped organize DrupalCon Latin America back in 2015, and honestly, I want to bring more opportunities like that to LATAM and other regions that get overlooked.

The thing I'm most proud of is co-creating the IXP Initiative. We saw this fundamental problem - new developers couldn't get hired without experience, but couldn't get experience without being hired. So we built something to fix it. Working with other community members and the Drupal Association, we turned this idea into a real program. Now we have companies actually participating, offering structured pathways for new developers, and getting 250 contribution credits for each successful engagement.

What drives me is seeing how regional economic differences create both challenges and huge opportunities for Drupal. At the recent board meeting, I brought up how a $1,000 partnership fee that works in the US becomes impossible in countries where monthly minimum wage is $200-300. These aren't just numbers - they represent talented developers who want to contribute but need different pathways.

I also understand we need a sustainable Drupal Association that balances community needs with business realities. For example, when I proposed bringing back DrupalCon Latin America, I suggested adapting the fair-style event model common in our region - where organizations pay for exhibition spots and actively invite end users, creating genuine business opportunities alongside community building.

I've been writing about ways to help make contribution more economically sustainable. I have some ideas about how Drupal.org could better connect businesses with service providers and how we might adapt programs to work better across different economic regions.

Why should members vote for you? (qualifications)

I've learned through my TAM experience that sustainable growth happens when you understand these realities and build systems that work across different contexts. The IXP Initiative proves we can create programs that strengthen the entire ecosystem while addressing real problems people face.

My qualifications include:

- Nearly a decade as Technical Account Manager at Acquia

- Co-creator and leader of the IXP Initiative (now a functional DA program)

- Community organizer (DrupalCon Latin America 2015, ongoing LATAM community work)

- Active contributor across multiple community initiatives

My focus as a board member would be supporting community development globally, expanding talent pipeline programs like IXP, and ensuring board decisions balance community sustainability with business needs. I want to help build the infrastructure that lets communities everywhere contribute and grow while keeping the association financially sustainable.

Who are you? (biography/background)

Matt Glaman @mglaman

Mission/motivation 

My mission for joining the Drupal Association Board is to catalyze the growth and sustainability of the ecosystem by championing initiatives that empower open-source developers to build viable businesses, thereby ensuring Drupal's continued innovation and market relevance. A key, transformative driver for this is the successful implementation of a marketplace for Drupal site templates, as recently explored by Dries. This aligns perfectly with my long-held conviction that strong financial models for contributors are beneficial and essential for Drupal's future.

My motivation stems from a deep conviction that a robust financial model for contributors is critical for Drupal's future. This marketplace concept offers a powerful solution by:

• Generating sustainable revenue for open-source developers: This addresses the long-standing challenge of funding open-source work, providing a clear path for developers to be compensated for their valuable contributions.
• Attracting and retaining talent: When developers can build sustainable businesses around Drupal, the platform becomes a far more attractive choice for new and existing talent, fostering a vibrant and innovative community.

Qualifications/why

My 12 years of experience with Drupal, including six dedicated to Drupal Commerce and building a business directly funded by open-source development, gives me a unique perspective on the intersection of open source and commercial viability. I've personally experienced the challenges and opportunities in this space. Furthermore, my own exploration into solving open-source funding through gated releases, as documented on my blog, demonstrates my commitment to finding innovative solutions for the sustainability of our community.

I am eager to bring my practical experience and passionate advocacy for developer empowerment to the Drupal Association Board, working collaboratively to make the marketplace a reality and secure a prosperous future for Drupal.

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