What we do Management team
You might see a few familiar faces among the Canonical management team. That's because our employees are some of the open-source industry's leading figures. Their combined experience and passion help to drive Canonical's continuing success.
Jane Silber Chief Executive Officer
Jane has over 20 years of business development, operations and software management experience. Before becoming Chief Executive Officer in 2010, she ran several of Canonical's business units as Chief Operating Officer.
Jane's previous roles include Vice President of Interactive Television Company and Vice President of General Dynamics C4 Systems. She has also worked in Japan for Teijin Ltd conducting artificial intelligence research and product development, and in the US at General Health, a health risk-assessment firm.
She holds an MBA degree from Oxford University, an MSc degree in Management of Technology from Vanderbilt University, and a BSc degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Haverford College.
Jane says: "As Ubuntu becomes the open-source standard across consumer and enterprise markets, Canonical's service portfolio continues to flourish. I can't imagine a better place to be at this exciting time."
Mark Shuttleworth Founder
Mark founded the Ubuntu project in 2004 and continues to serve as an active member of the Technical Board and the Community Council. He works with product teams at Canonical on strategy and user experience.
Mark studied Finance and Information Technology at the University of Cape Town, and went on to found Thawte, a company specialising in digital certificates and Internet privacy. He sold Thawte to US company VeriSign in 1999, and founded HBD Venture Capital and The Shuttleworth Foundation.
He moved to London in 2001, and began preparing for the First African in Space mission, training in Star City and Kazakhstan. In April 2002, Mark flew to the International Space Station as a cosmonaut member of the crew of Soyuz mission TM34.
Mark believes that “Ubuntu’s success adds to the success of free software. So as much as it is fun, challenging, the opportunity of a lifetime, a profession for some and a passion for others, it’s also changing the world.”
Chris Kenyon Vice President, Sales and Business Development
Chris Kenyon joined Canonical in 2006. He leads the global team that handles Canonical's relationships with companies including Intel, Dell, HP and ARM.
His expertise lies in understanding the marketing, retail, business model and engineering challenges facing Linux-based devices in the consumer market. His leadership has been instrumental in driving Ubuntu adoption in the hardware and PC industry.
Based in London, Chris is a graduate of the United World College of the Atlantic and Edinburgh University.
Chris says: "We are here to give good counsel on when to use Ubuntu and to make it easy for industry partners to ship it. Ultimately, we want to make it faster, cheaper and more profitable to ship Ubuntu than any other platform in the world."
Cristian Parrino Vice President, Online Services
Cristian joined Canonical in March 2010 to lead the Online Services business – which includes search and affiliate partnerships as well as Ubuntu One - a suite of integrated personal cloud services that simplify Ubuntu users' digital lives.
With over 15 years' experience in tech startups, Cristian brings his management and entrepreneurial expertise in real-time web, digital and social media to lead Canonical in the exciting and developing personal cloud services space. As our resident multilingual “continent hopper”, he manages a team that spreads across three continents.
Prior to Canonical, Cristian advised a number of companies in developing and monetising their online businesses and launched a popular crowd-sourcing venture in the food and video space. He was also Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Marketing and Alliances at two British Telecom (BT) technology lab spin-outs in the mobile content and location services sectors, iO Global and Vidus. Earlier in his professional life, Cristian was one of the first employees of the mobile satellite venture Iridium and Vice President of Marketing at an early player in the wireless broadband space, Spike Broadband Systems.
Cristian says: “Being at Canonical allows you to work with an extremely talented team to develop a sector-defining product that can empower a passionate user community to gain choice and control over their digital lives – it's very exciting.”
Rick Spencer Vice President, Ubuntu Engineering
Rick joined Canonical in 2008, and leads Canonical's contributions to creating Ubuntu. Before joining Canonical, he was a Director for the Windermere web site in Seattle, and spent almost ten years in Developer Experience and management roles at Micrsoft. Rick has a Master's Degree in Applied Cognitive Psychology from George Mason University, where he specialized in the psychology of programming and dynamic task domains.
Currently based in Seattle, WA, Rick was born and raised on the East Coast of the US, where he started programming in Basic as a youngster. Rick is Ubuntu member, and contributes to Ubuntu in his spare time by diverse activities such as writing applications, tools for other developers, and documentation.
Rick says: "Through a unique combination of stellar people, engaged community, strong principles, and ever improving technology, I believe Ubuntu will make the world a better place. Leading the Ubuntu Engineering team is my dream job."
Steve George Vice President, Communications and Products
Since joining Canonical in 2006, Steve has helped the company build its commercial open-source strategy. Focusing on business development, product management and operations, he is responsible for leading initiatives and relationships that broaden the take-up of the Ubuntu platform among developers and users.
Prior to Canonical, Steve was responsible for hosting strategy and operations within Clara, one of the UK's leading Internet companies, overseeing sales, development and marketing. Previously, Steve held a variety of leadership roles in business operations, professional services and product management at VIA Networks. He was responsible for defining and executing the managed services strategy, helping business customers to take full advantage of emerging Internet technologies.
Steve started his career as a technologist in the legal sector - a role that sparked his early interest in the potential of innovative technologies to transform lives and businesses. He holds a BA in Asian History from SOAS, London University, and a postgraduate degree in Information Technology Management from the University of West England.
Steve believes that: "Canonical is one of a handful of software companies doing something genuinely ground-breaking and entrepreneurial. It can make a difference for millions of people."
Jon Melamut Vice President, Professional and Engineering Services
Jon leads the worldwide field engineering, business development and product management/marketing teams responsible for working with ODMs, OEMs, Operators and other commercial organizations that want to bring mobile computing devices, new computing platforms, and servers to the market pre-installed with Ubuntu, the world's leading Linux client OS and emerging leader in cloud computing.
Jon has an extensive software background including enterprise and consumer offerings. Prior to joining Canonical, Jon held executive and senior sales and business development positions at Pepper Computer, Adobe Systems, Glassbook, IBM and Lotus Development. Jon has a degree in Economics from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.
Robbie Williamson Vice President, Cloud Development and Operations
Robbie joined Canonical in 2008, and leads efforts focused on Cloud and DevOps engineering and service delivery. This includes the development and delivery of Ubuntu Server and projects like Juju and MAAS. In addition, he leads a world-class infrastructure team delivering global, 24x7 operations across multiple data centers to the company, customers, and the Ubuntu community.
During his time at Canonical, he's had leadership roles across Ubuntu engineering covering the core OS components, security, server technologies, release management, and assignment as acting CTO. Prior to joining Canonical, Robbie held several positions across engineering, project management, and management within IBM's Linux Technology Center, leading efforts that included driving IBM technology adoption into IBM's Linux distribution partners, maintaining the Linux Test Project, and leading Linux distribution enablement and validation across IBM's hardware brands.
Robbie believes that: "Canonical's success is firmly rooted in Ubuntu, and based on a belief in challenging accepted models of practice. Everything we do as a company reflects our ability to be progressive in thought, innovative in design, adroit in delivery, and disruptive in the markets we target."
