Event Overview
As cloud costs and performance become board-level priorities, organizations face significant pressure to maximize their cloud investments. FinOps Forward, a 2-hour virtual conference, will explore how implementing an effective FinOps strategy, one that goes beyond focusing just on cost savings, can address this challenge.
Attend keynote sessions from IDC and the FinOps Foundation and hear directly from your peers about their FinOps processes and journeys. Learn how your organization can use FinOps strategies to control costs, optimize cloud infrastructure for performance, reliability and cost efficiency,and foster a culture of accountability that ultimately delivers better business outcomes.
Join us and discover how to maximize the efficiency and impact of every dollar spent in the cloud – without creating friction, overburdening teams, sacrificing flexibility, reliability or risking financial lock in.
As a FinOps stakeholder, you won’t want to miss this valuable event.
Speakers
Ricky Ibarra
Cloud FinOps Manager, Tealium
READ BIORicky Ibarra
Cloud FinOps Manager, Tealium
Ricky is a Cloud FinOps Manager with 8+ years of finance experience, specializing in cost optimization, financial governance, and operational improvement. Currently leads cloud infrastructure cost and usage management, software vendor financials, product pricing support, and R&D FP&A. Previously held roles in risk management at Goldman Sachs and various other financial institutions
Cody McDaniels
Sr Director, Cloud Operations, Barracuda
READ BIOCody McDaniels
Sr Director, Cloud Operations, Barracuda
As Senior Director of Cloud Operations at Barracuda, Cody McDaniels is responsible for ensuring the reliability, efficiency, and scalability of Barracuda’s cloud-based products. In this role, he leads the Site Reliability Engineering, Governance, and Internal Services teams, driving operational excellence across the organization.
Since joining Barracuda in 2017, Cody has held a variety of leadership positions, including establishing and leading a Program Management Office and advancing the company’s infrastructure operations. He is deeply committed to data-driven decision-making and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
Based in Michigan, Cody enjoys spending time with his family. Outside of work, he is actively involved in athletics—whether it’s coaching his children, officiating, or honing his golf game (with varying degrees of success).
Jay Litkey
SVP Cloud and FinOps, Flexera
READ BIOJay Litkey
SVP Cloud and FinOps, Flexera
Jay sits on the Governing Board of the FinOps Foundation and is a serial entrepreneur with 25+ years in executive leadership roles. He has extensive experience starting, financing, growing and exiting companies as a pioneer in high growth markets that include FinOps, cloud computing, virtualization, autonomics, systems mgmt automation & Internet video.
Steve Evans
Senior Vice President, Engineering, Chegg
READ BIOSteve Evans
Senior Vice President, Engineering, Chegg
Steve Evans is a seasoned technology executive with a track record of transforming engineering organizations into high-performing, business-aligned teams. As Senior Vice President of Engineering at Chegg, Steve leads globally distributed teams across Software, Data, and Infrastructure. While his teams remind him he doesn’t do “real work” anymore; they still come to him when they need help with Excel.
Steve Trask
Chief Operating Officer, FinOps Foundation
READ BIOSteve Trask
Chief Operating Officer, FinOps Foundation
Steve has been involved in the FinOps Foundation since the creation in 2019. He has a deep knowledge of FinOps industry data and trends across the years as he has managed the State of FinOps Report since it started in 2020. He stays connected with the community, with interests in cloud sustainability and evolving FinOps team structures, you can always find him at FinOps X and regional events in the UK where he is based.
Patrick Gartlan
VP Product, MSP & Partners, Flexera
READ BIOPatrick Gartlan
VP Product, MSP & Partners, Flexera
Patrick Gartlan is the VP of Product, MSO & Partners at Flexera. His previous roles include VP of Cloud Services at Spot.io, CTO at CloudCheckr, and Founder/CEO of Stratcloud, which is now Spot Eco. Patrick holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Virginia Tech.
Archana Venkatraman
Senior Director, Research, IDC
READ BIOArchana Venkatraman
Senior Director, Research, IDC
Archana Venkatraman leads IDC's European CloudOps and Governance research as well as Cloud Data Management research.
As part of the CloudOps focus, Archana analyses the multicloud management and operations market, Cloud economics and FinOps, observability, cloud consolidation, as well as cloud governance and control. A big focus of her research is on cloud value realization, cloud-native success, and operational excellence.
As part of Archana's Cloud Data Management research, she focuses on multicloud data management, data protection and availability, archiving, regulatory compliance, software-defined and object storage, modern data management, container data services, cloud data mobility, and SaaS data governance. Before joining IDC, Venkatraman was the datacenter editor at Computer Weekly, the digital magazine and website for IT professionals based in London. Archana is based in IDC's London office.
Agenda
All Sessions
20
May
10:00The Evolution of FinOps
Archana Venkatraman, Senior Research Director, Cloud Data Management at IDC Europe will open the FinOps Forward event with a keynote address on the evolution of FinOps. With insights from IDC’s research, this session will focus on how the trifecta of people, process and technology should work together to achieve FinOps success in the ever-changing world of cloud.
This session will discuss:
- Building and broadening the teams involved in FinOps while catering to the specific needs of DevOps
- Recommendations for how to progress the FinOps journey in the time of AI
- The need for a full stack platform approach to FinOps, as well as intersecting with other technology disciplines
Archana Venkatraman
Senior Director, Research, IDC
Archana Venkatraman
Senior Director, Research, IDC
Archana Venkatraman leads IDC's European CloudOps and Governance research as well as Cloud Data Management research.
As part of the CloudOps focus, Archana analyses the multicloud management and operations market, Cloud economics and FinOps, observability, cloud consolidation, as well as cloud governance and control. A big focus of her research is on cloud value realization, cloud-native success, and operational excellence.
As part of Archana's Cloud Data Management research, she focuses on multicloud data management, data protection and availability, archiving, regulatory compliance, software-defined and object storage, modern data management, container data services, cloud data mobility, and SaaS data governance. Before joining IDC, Venkatraman was the datacenter editor at Computer Weekly, the digital magazine and website for IT professionals based in London. Archana is based in IDC's London office.
20
May
10:30Maximize the business value of your cloud: The Future of FinOps
As organizations increase their cloud investments, the complexity of managing spend, compliance, and performance across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments grows exponentially. This session explores how modern FinOps extends beyond basic cost-cutting—delivering actionable visibility across all IT environments, aligning stakeholders, and uncovering optimization opportunities that span infrastructure, licensing, and operations.
This session provides well rounded FinOps strategy that can:
• Address visibility challenges to go beyond provisioned resources to address actual usage
• Identify overlooked cost drivers like SaaS sprawl and licensing inefficiencies
• Enable smarter decisions across procurement, project management, and operations
• Drive greater ROI by reallocating spend, reducing compliance risks, and optimizing top workloads
Backed by real-world feedback from FinOps stakeholders and lessons from successful implementations, this session will help you rethink what’s possible with cloud financial management—and where to focus next.
Patrick Gartlan
VP Product, MSP & Partners, Flexera
Patrick Gartlan
VP Product, MSP & Partners, Flexera
Patrick Gartlan is the VP of Product, MSO & Partners at Flexera. His previous roles include VP of Cloud Services at Spot.io, CTO at CloudCheckr, and Founder/CEO of Stratcloud, which is now Spot Eco. Patrick holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Virginia Tech.
20
May
11:00Embarking on the FinOps Journey: A Panel discussion
Creating a successful FinOps strategy goes beyond finding ways to reduce cloud spend. It means aligning cloud operating costs with cloud performance requirements to achieve the best outcome for the business.In this session we’ll turn theory into practice. Hear directly from customers about why and how they embarked on their FinOps journeys, the challenges they faced, and how they overcame them.
We’ll discuss:
We’ll discuss:
- The business and technology benefits and ROI these organizations realized from their FinOps processes
- The impact of FinOps on product development, DevOps and other business processes
- Who’s involved in FinOps in their organizations, and why
- Insightful tips, lessons learned and best practices to help others on similar paths
- And a look into the future on where they are going next, including AI
Steve Evans
Senior Vice President, Engineering, Chegg
Steve Evans
Senior Vice President, Engineering, Chegg
Steve Evans is a seasoned technology executive with a track record of transforming engineering organizations into high-performing, business-aligned teams. As Senior Vice President of Engineering at Chegg, Steve leads globally distributed teams across Software, Data, and Infrastructure. While his teams remind him he doesn’t do “real work” anymore; they still come to him when they need help with Excel.
Jay Litkey
SVP Cloud and FinOps, Flexera
Jay Litkey
SVP Cloud and FinOps, Flexera
Jay sits on the Governing Board of the FinOps Foundation and is a serial entrepreneur with 25+ years in executive leadership roles. He has extensive experience starting, financing, growing and exiting companies as a pioneer in high growth markets that include FinOps, cloud computing, virtualization, autonomics, systems mgmt automation & Internet video.
Cody McDaniels
Sr Director, Cloud Operations, Barracuda
Cody McDaniels
Sr Director, Cloud Operations, Barracuda
As Senior Director of Cloud Operations at Barracuda, Cody McDaniels is responsible for ensuring the reliability, efficiency, and scalability of Barracuda’s cloud-based products. In this role, he leads the Site Reliability Engineering, Governance, and Internal Services teams, driving operational excellence across the organization.
Since joining Barracuda in 2017, Cody has held a variety of leadership positions, including establishing and leading a Program Management Office and advancing the company’s infrastructure operations. He is deeply committed to data-driven decision-making and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
Based in Michigan, Cody enjoys spending time with his family. Outside of work, he is actively involved in athletics—whether it’s coaching his children, officiating, or honing his golf game (with varying degrees of success).
Ricky Ibarra
Cloud FinOps Manager, Tealium
Ricky Ibarra
Cloud FinOps Manager, Tealium
Ricky is a Cloud FinOps Manager with 8+ years of finance experience, specializing in cost optimization, financial governance, and operational improvement. Currently leads cloud infrastructure cost and usage management, software vendor financials, product pricing support, and R&D FP&A. Previously held roles in risk management at Goldman Sachs and various other financial institutions
20
May
11:35Evolving FinOps priorities and trends: Key insights from the State of FinOps 2025 survey
This session will present key findings from the recently resleased FinOps Foundation’s 2025 State of FinOps survey. Presented by Steve Trask, Chief Operating Officer of the FinOps Foundation, the session will discuss how FinOps practitioners view the evolving priorities and trends in FinOps based on the survey findings, including:
- Shifting left - bringing FinOps earlier into product planning and development processes
- The role of FinOps in value management
- The need for cross organizational collaboration to drive FinOps success
- FinOps and AI and what's next for FinOps
Steve Trask
Chief Operating Officer, FinOps Foundation
Steve Trask
Chief Operating Officer, FinOps Foundation
Steve has been involved in the FinOps Foundation since the creation in 2019. He has a deep knowledge of FinOps industry data and trends across the years as he has managed the State of FinOps Report since it started in 2020. He stays connected with the community, with interests in cloud sustainability and evolving FinOps team structures, you can always find him at FinOps X and regional events in the UK where he is based.
WHY ATTEND
GROW
Hear from FinOps and industry leaders
Get exclusive insights into FinOps Foundation’s recently completed State of FinOps 2025 Survey
CONNECT
Network with a global community of FinOps practitioners and speak with technology experts
GET INSPIRED
Get shared insights around FinOps challenges and opportunities
Leave better prepared to get started on your FinOps journey
