Nanci Lancaster

Note: I was asked on November 4 to relocate to Seattle by February 9, which I am unable to do. This is why I am seeking a new opportunity elsewhere.

During my short time at Amazon I achieved the following:

• Created the 2025 budget proposal requesting a significant increase to execute on big idea initiatives for 2025.
• Wrote monthly business review docs outlining risks, opportunities, challenges, goals, and progress towards those goals which were presented to high level leadership.
• Lead weekly team meetings, assigned tasks with deadlines that came out of discussions in those meetings.
• Provided creative ideas to support the Cloud Development Kit's (CDK) customer engagement plan for 2025.
• Worked with cross-functional teams and leadership to contribute to writing administrative docs for the governance of CDK.
• Pulled data from external and internal resources and presented findings to leadership to drive decisions in ways that had not been considered before.

Note: VMware was acquired by Broadcom in November 2023

• Coordinated and planned engagement opportunities for the open source projects, Carvel and Buildpacks, to spread awareness of the software, increasing the number of active contributors by 40% and new users by an estimated 60%.
• Created processes, timelines, and deadlines associated with tasks to keep project engineers on track to complete assignments, this included forming yearly project roadmaps with significant input from our users and product management.
• Built community and awareness through public channels of influence including community meetings, written articles, and contributions to open source projects.
• Identified areas of improvement and created action plans to fix issues, which included minor things like crafting Service-level Agreements and major documentation and process changes like governance and product roadmap development.
• Partnered with engineering managers, product managers, and engineers to work on projects associated with Carvel and Cloud Native Buildpacks, like working with the United States Software Factory to modernize their software.
• Communicated with engineers at different companies that worked on the open source projects I managed, such as Google, Bloomberg, Red Hat, and Salesforce, to ensure everyone is working together effectively through streamlined processes.
• Managed the relationship between the open source projects and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
• Provided feedback based on open source learnings to product management and engineering to improve Tanzu solutions’ user experience and highlight new areas of need, like bringing Signature and SLSA attestation for all Carvel artifacts.
• Formulated leadership level messaging and communications.
• Worked with marketing and PR on public messaging for important releases and project initiatives.
• Managed social media presence of open source projects through Twitter/X, Reddit, YouTube, Hacker News, etc.

• Strategic event content manager for KubeCon + CloudNativeCons, Kubernetes Forums and other CNCF project events (CFP-planning, schedule-building, speaker management, keynote logistics, etc.).
• Created all Call for Proposals (CFP) timelines and deadlines for KubeCon + CloudNativeCons and Kubernetes Forums (and other CNCF events as they arise, i.e. gRPC Conf and Helm Summit).
• Built CFP applications in SM Apply and managed all application-related requests, with total applications ranging from 125 to 1,800+.
• Managed program committee communications, timelines, and deadlines for all KubeCon + CloudNativeCons, Kubernetes Forums, and other CNCF project-related events, with number of external committee members ranging from 30 to 115+.
• Slotted all breakout and maintainer track sessions within an agenda grid.
• Managed speaker communications and logistics, with # of speakers ranging from 50 to 510.
• Worked with event leads, i.e. co-chairs, to assist with Call For Papers content creation, ie what topics would be included in the CFP, and proposal decisions (what talks were accepted or rejected).
• Developed all CFP-related and speaker guide WordPress pages, viewed by 10,000+ unique visitors.
• Managed all keynote logistics and communications, with number of keynote sessions ranging from 4 to 25 per event.
• On-site: Managed rehearsals and stage-managed keynote stage with an attendee size ranging from 300 to 12,000.

• Simultaneously managed the Call For Papers (CFP), scheduling, program committees, speakers, and other content related needs for Cloud Foundry Summits, KubeCon + CloudNativeCons, and other conferences under The Linux Foundation umbrella, ranging from 50–2,000 submissions, 10–125 program committee members, and 20–300 speakers.

• Created the annual event strategy to grow the brand, support company objectives and engage with the developer community, totaling over 40 conferences and 120 events worldwide.
• Innovated on event experiences to create a meaningful impact with the community, such as community brunches and pop-up co-working spaces.
• Collaborated with internal stakeholders to determine strategy.
• Collected feedback, reported on event metrics to optimize strategy.
• Responsible for managing the annual events budget.
• Managed all aspects of event sponsorship including timeline of deliverables and logistics.
• Collaborated with designers for assets needed at conferences and events.
• Negotiated contracts with vendors; worked with on-site A/V and venue staff.
• Managed staff assignments for events; created event training materials for each team.
• Innovated on company swag with designers and production vendors to bring ideas to fruition.
• Managed sales, inventory, and promotion of the online store: store.digitalocean.com ◊Increased sales by 300% from 2016 to 2017.
• Coordinated marketing email campaigns to leads gained after events.
• Incorporated best practices, creative and fresh thinking to enhance branded experiences.
• Built and nurtured relationships within the tech community.

• Held the same responsibilities as Production Coordinator role in addition to the work listed below.
• Managed logistics and design for DigitalOcean's presence at international events and conferences, bringing DigitalOcean to new countries like India and Portugal.
• Worked cross-functionally between marketing, design, social, recruiting, executives, and engineering for a multitude of projects, such as founder interviews, new hire swag, and product release events.

• Negotiated all conference and event sponsorship contracts.
• Managed logistics and creative design for DigitalOcean's presence at events and conferences.
• Worked with our creative team on new swag ideas, from concept to completion. This included stickers, water bottles, t-shirts, hoodies, bags, toys, and even shoes.
• Produced and managed all events held at DigitalOcean's NYC office (upwards of 3 events/week, 30–300 attendees per event).
• Supported all 250+ employees on their speaking requests and conference attendance, deciding on how involved DigitalOcean should be based on the individual's choice of event and our resource allocation.
• Responsible for all conference/event sponsorships, production, and swag budget management for a budget of over $10MM

• Built SXSW Conference Workshop program from concept to execution, making it one of the most popular facets of the SXSW conference with over 125 workshops happening across four days.
• Handled all speaker and company outreach, content curation, scheduling, promotion, and production of the workshop program at SXSW Interactive and SXSW V2V, SXSW's Las Vegas event that occurred 2013–2015.
• Simultaneously developed new pieces of SXSW, i.e. The Robot Petting Zoo.