The right tech leadership speakers can shift how your team thinks, leads, and adapts. Whether you're planning a tech conference or an internal summit, the speaker you book sets the tone. I've pulled together the best voices in tech leadership—people with real experience driving digital transformation, building resilient teams, and navigating constant change. Use this list to find the speaker who'll actually move your audience.
Top 18 Tech Leadership Speakers
Below are the profiles of the top tech leadership speakers, covering who they are and the impact they've made in this space.
Gene Kim
DevOps Author & Technology Researcher
Portland, United States
Focus area:
#DevOps#Technology leadership#Organizational performance#Software delivery#High-performing teams
Gene Kim is the founder of IT Revolution and a technology executive, researcher, and author whose books include The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook, and Wiring the Winning Organization.
…
Charity Majors
Co-Founder & CTO at Honeycomb
San Francisco, United States
Focus area:
#Observability#Engineering leadership#Distributed systems#Developer experience#AI engineering
Charity Majors is co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb, an engineer and author whose career spans large distributed systems at Parse, Facebook, and Linden Lab, where she worked on Second Life.
Majors helped…
Werner Vogels
VP & CTO at Amazon
Seattle, United States
Focus area:
#Cloud computing#Distributed systems#Technology strategy#Scalable systems#Innovation
Werner Vogels is vice president and CTO of Amazon, where he drives its technology vision. A former distributed-systems researcher, he has helped shape Amazon's approach to cloud computing.
Vogels writes and speaks…
Patrick Kua
Technology Leadership Coach & Educator
Berlin, Germany
Focus area:
#Technical leadership#Engineering management#Systems thinking#Technology organizations#Leadership development
Patrick Kua founded Tech Lead Academy after holding senior roles at N26 and Thoughtworks, including CTO and chief scientist.
Through coaching, training, books, talks, and the Managing Managers podcast, Kua helps technology…
Camille Fournier
VP of Engineering at CoreWeave
New York, United States
Focus area:
#Engineering leadership#Engineering management#Distributed systems#AI engineering#Technical strategy
Camille Fournier is an experienced engineering executive and the author of The Manager's Path. Her leadership career has included senior technology roles at Rent the Runway and Two Sigma.
Now VP…
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Nicole Forsgren
Senior Director, GM, Developer Experience at Google
Focus area:
#Developer productivity#DevOps#Developer experience#Engineering performance#Technology research
Nicole Forsgren is a researcher known for co-founding DORA (acquired by Google) and co-authoring Accelerate, a landmark study of software delivery performance.
Forsgren gives evidence-based ways to think about software delivery,…
Connect with Nicole:
Lara Hogan
Engineering Leadership Coach & Author
Focus area:
#Engineering management#Leadership coaching#Organizational change#Management skills#Inclusive leadership
Lara Hogan is the founder of Wherewithall, a leadership coach, and an author. She previously led engineering teams at Kickstarter and Etsy, where she helped new leaders grow.
Through her workshops and…
Connect with Lara:
Rebecca Parsons
Technology Speaker & Author
Focus area:
#Technology strategy#Evolutionary architecture#Software architecture#Emerging technology#Technical leadership
Rebecca Parsons is a technologist, author, and former CTO of Thoughtworks, where she helped shape the firm's technology strategy and public thinking.
Parsons spent 16 years as Thoughtworks CTO and co-authored Building…
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Kelsey Hightower
Cloud & Open Source Technologist
Focus area:
#Cloud computing#Kubernetes#Open source#Developer education#Technical communication
Kelsey Hightower is a software engineer, developer advocate, and speaker. He's known for making cloud-native technologies accessible through live demos, teaching, and work across Kubernetes and open source.
Before retiring from Google,…
Connect with Kelsey:
Fiona Tan
CTO at Wayfair
Focus area:
#E-commerce technology#Engineering leadership#Technology strategy#Platform engineering#Digital experiences
Fiona Tan is chief technology officer at Wayfair, leading its global technology organization. Earlier, she held senior engineering leadership roles at Walmart, Ariba, and TIBCO Software.
Tan oversees technology behind Wayfair's e-commerce…
Connect with Fiona:
Bryan Cantrill
Co-Founder & CTO at Oxide Computer Company
San Francisco, United States
Focus area:
#Systems engineering#Cloud infrastructure#Operating systems#Observability#Technical leadership
Bryan Cantrill is co-founder and CTO of Oxide Computer Company. He is also a systems engineer and longtime technology leader known for work on DTrace, operating systems, infrastructure, and developer tooling.
Cantrill…
Michelle Brush
Engineering Director, SRE at Google
Greater Seattle Area, United States
Focus area:
#Site reliability engineering#Cloud infrastructure#Engineering leadership#Reliability#Distributed systems
Michelle Brush is an Engineering Director for Site Reliability Engineering at Google. She leads global SRE teams responsible for the reliability of Compute Engine and Persistent Disk services.
With experience spanning embedded…
Connect with Michelle:
Anjuan Simmons
Engineering Leadership Speaker & Author
Focus area:
#Engineering leadership#Psychological safety#Inclusive leadership#Burnout#Distributed teams
Anjuan Simmons is a technology leader, author, and speaker whose work include engineering leadership, agile management, burnout, psychological safety, and inclusion in technical organizations.
Simmons uses technology talks to examine the human…
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Elizabeth Stone
Chief Product & Technology Officer at Netflix
San Francisco, United States
Focus area:
#Product technology#Data science#Technology leadership#Consumer products#Engineering
Elizabeth Stone is chief product and technology officer at Netflix. She joined the company in 2020 after leadership roles in data, science, engineering, and operations at Lyft and Nuna.
Stone's path from…
Connect with Elizabeth:
Gergely Orosz
Software Engineering Author & Publisher
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Focus area:
#Software engineering#Engineering management#Technology organizations#Developer careers#AI engineering
Gergely Orosz writes and publishes The Pragmatic Engineer and authored The Software Engineer's Guidebook. He previously worked in engineering roles at Uber, Skype, Microsoft, and Skyscanner.
Orosz reports and writes about…
Susie Wee
Co-Founder & CEO at DevAI
Palo Alto, United States
Focus area:
#Enterprise AI#Developer ecosystems#Platform strategy#Developer experience#Technology leadership
Susie Wee is co-founder and CEO of DevAI, an enterprise AI startup. She previously spent years at Cisco, where she founded DevNet and held senior technology leadership roles including CTO.
Wee built…
Connect with Susie:
Christian McCarrick
Engineering Leader & Leadership Mentor
Focus area:
#Engineering management#Technical leadership#Leadership coaching#Team development#Engineering organizations
Christian McCarrick is an engineering leader, mentor, and host of the Simple Leadership Podcast. His career includes technology leadership roles and coaching engineering managers and founders.
McCarrick's leadership work centers on…
Connect with Christian:
John Allspaw
Resilience Engineering Researcher & Leader
Brooklyn, United States
Focus area:
#Resilience engineering#Incident analysis#Human factors#Complex systems#Software operations
John Allspaw is a principal at Adaptive Capacity Labs, former CTO of Etsy, author, and researcher. His work connects software operations with resilience engineering, incidents, and human factors.
Allspaw helped shape early…
Connect with John:
Selection Methodology
I selected the leaders on this list based on their relevance, demonstrated expertise and impact, professional credibility, and ongoing contributions to the field.
I look for evidence such as leading meaningful initiatives or delivering notable results within their organizations, developing influential ideas or practices, publishing research or educational resources, speaking or teaching, and other contributions that demonstrate impact within their work or the broader field.
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