Summary
In this episode of What’s in the SOSS, we sit down with the OpenSSF’s new General Manager, Steve Fernandez — a seasoned enterprise tech leader whose resumé spans giants like L’Oréal, Coca-Cola, AIG, and Ford. Steve shares his “origin story,” what drew him into the world of open source, and how his decades of experience as a consumer of open source software are shaping his vision for the Foundation.
Conversation Highlights
00:21 Welcome & Introductions
00:57 Steve’s Tech Journey
03:13 Why OpenSSF?
05:02 The Role of Security & Strategic Vision
08:17 Rapid Fire & Final Thoughts
Transcript
CRob (00:21)
Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is What’s in the SOSS, the OpenSSF’s podcast where we talk to developers, industry experts, and assorted amazing people within our open source ecosystem. I’m CRob, one of your co-hosts for this little event. I do security stuff on the internet, and today we have a new friend to introduce the world to, Steve Fernandez, who just recently joined the foundation.
And Steve, maybe you could talk a little bit about, introduce yourself and maybe talk about your technology origin story.
Steve Fernandez (00:57)
Thanks a lot and great introduction, by the way. So pleasure to meet everybody. My name is Steve Fernandez and as CRob mentioned, I’m the new general manager for the OpenSSF. And I come to this place through a long IT journey. For the last 30 years, I’ve been mainly on the enterprise side of the IT game.
I’ve done various roles as CIO and CTO in many different industries as well as many different companies. Most recently, before I came to the OpenSSF, I was the CIO for NCR Voyix, and previous to that, I was Chief Technology Officer for L’Oreal in Paris, Chief Technology Officer for AIG in the insurance industry.
I was chief technology officer at Coca-Cola and then I worked many years inside of GE and Ford Motor Company in different technology roles. So I really come to this job, I think, with a different and unique perspective than many who’ve been in the open source world for forever. I’m coming as a user of the open source and it’s been a user of the software and the technology inside of all the platforms that I’ve run and managed over the last 30 years. So I’m very excited to take a little different view of technology in this role and hoping a lot of my experience from running enterprise and running large scale platforms and running things day to day is going to translate into growth for the organization and further stability as we move forward.
CRob (02:43)
And, we’ve cited here and at other events, just the penetration of open source in normal operations and just how critical open source is to a lot of enterprises. So I’m very excited to kind of benefit from the experiences you’ve had in your long and successful career and trying to help bring that more business focus to us. But I’m curious, what drew you to the OpenSSF? Was it the goose?
Steve Fernandez (03:13)
I think it could have been the goose, which is quite the great icon. You know, it was a, it’s really interesting for me personally. I was getting to a point in my life where I’ve done many, many operational roles throughout my life and my career. And I was taking a little break and trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grow up and what I wanted to do next on the journey. And, you know, it’s one of those small things, a friend of a friend talked to me about this position and I said, hmm being general manager of a foundation. Well, I can at least take a look and see what it’s about. And, and, uh, I don’t know, it’s something I’ve never done before, but I think it might make sense. So I sat down with, uh, Jim Zemlin, uh, head of the Linux foundation. And we just had a great conversation and being an open source user throughout my career and knowing the importance of open source and security you know, to every company’s platform, to every company’s install base. It really was a job that I was looking for where I thought I could do some good for the community. I thought I could, like I said earlier, take a different perspective on things, add a little bit of my corporate background to the organization and merge the two together.
Steve Fernandez (04:31)
So for me, it was really about trying something new, experimenting – bring a little bit of your old experience into a new environment. And I have to say, in just the last month that I’ve been here, it’s been an exceptional experience and working with absolutely great people, working with a great community. So, so far it’s been a really, really positive experience and a bit different from my enterprise days, but at the same time, very exciting and it’s great to be involved in real technology.
CRob (05:02)
So it’s interesting you have a long history of kind of helping lead technology organizations. From your perspective, how have you seen security kind of help the business and how does security help developers and other consumers?
Steve Fernandez (05:18)
Yeah, so I’ve always called security kind of the hidden greatness. It’s one of those things that you don’t know you need security until you know you need security.
CRob (05:30) Yeah.
Steve Fernandez (05:31)
And on the enterprise side of the game, it’s your constant worry about security and risk. And you’re always worrying about your platforms. You’re always worried about your products. You’re always worried about making sure that things that you’re presenting to the consumer or to the employee or to, you know, the different install bases, you have an inherent need to make sure your products and your technology are secure. So I’ve always had a love hate with it because you hate to spend incredible amounts of time and investment in security, but you absolutely love it because it keeps you safe and, and, and makes sure that your products and your technology are going to…with it – you know, there are bad actors out there and people do want to get into your products. They do want to find out, you know, personal information. So security is that thing that makes us feel a little bit better. And it lowers your risk profile. And, you know, it’s really the glue that’s needed inside of a technology base.
CRob (06:37)
Mm-hmm.
And thinking about your experiences in your past roles, what do you see, kind of, the additional value and capabilities you’re going to bring to the foundation to help us further our mission?
Steve Fernandez (06:51)
Well, I’m thinking, you what I found in the foundation last month and working with people is we have an incredible set of people and we have an incredible set of technical sales and also have like a really unique community that works together in, you know, in a matrix like organization, but it really works and people are all, you know, moving forward to do what they think is the right thing.
I think what I’m going to try to bring to the foundation from my past is a little bit of strategic vision, a little bit of process, a little bit of thought process at a methodical level so that we best utilize the people that we have and the capabilities that we have. One of the great things I felt as I came into the organization and I’ve been doing my original first month assessment is, you know, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We just got to get efficient. We got to make sure our priorities are in line. We need to make sure we work with our enterprise partners. We need to make sure we work with our development community. And I think my job is going to be bringing those different pieces together and working a little bit more seamlessly.
So, that’s really, think, where I’ll add value and a little bit of my past will help out the organization.
CRob (08:17)
Excellent. Well, I can say personally, I’m very excited to be collaborating with you on this mission. And I know our community is very excited to be working with you. But let’s move on to the rapid fire part of our session. Are you ready for rapid, rapid, rapid fire? I got a couple of wacky questions I’m going to ask you just off the cuff answers. What’s your favorite vegetable?
Steve Fernandez (08:40)
Broccoli
CRob (08:42)
Okay, that is a perfectly fine vegetable. Thinking about the amazing open source ecosystem, what’s your favorite open source mascot?
Steve Fernandez (08:51)
The Goose.
CRob (08:53)
The goose, that’s an excellent answer. And mild or spicy food?
Steve Fernandez (08:59)
Spicy as it can get.
CRob (09:00)
Ohhhh, that’s spicy. Nice. And final and probably most important question. Star Trek or Star Wars?
Steve Fernandez (09:11)
Gotta go Trek.
CRob (09:12)
Excellent. Both answers are great, but that’s a fine, fine answer. Thank you, thank you. Well, Steve, as we wind down, do you have any kind of parting thoughts, any words of wisdom that you want to share with our community?
Steve Fernandez (09:29)
You know, I just say to the community, mostly keep the passion alive that you have for the work you’re doing. It’s very apparent when somebody new to the community sees it, you know, especially like myself. I see the passion. I see the intelligence. I see the hard work. And I think you should all feel very proud about that work that you’re doing. It really shows and it’s really transparent to everybody.
So, you know, I’m here to work with you. I’m here to collaborate. I’m here to help drive whatever I can do to better the community. So in that spirit, just please be open with everybody. Feel free to contact me at any time if you have ideas or thoughts about how we can improve the community or how we can move forward. That’s very important to me and I want to work in this know, great environment and, you know, and really help it grow and really foster that security community that we built and continue to do so. So I just say keep working hard and it’s going great.
CRob (10:35)
Thank you very much Steve Fernandez. Thank you for joining us and thank you for spending your time today with what’s in the SOSS and to our audience Happy open sourcing. We’ll talk to you soon
(10:47)
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