Wido as the new VP (#419)

Co-authored-by: Daan Hoogland <dahn@apache.org>

Author: DaanHoogland

blog/2026-04-01-widodh-new-vp/Banner.png

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+---
+layout: post
+title: 'Meet the New VP of CloudStack: Wido den Hollander'
+tags: [community, news]
+authors: [jamie]
+slug: new-vp-wido-den-hollander
+---
+
+# Meet the New VP of CloudStack: Wido den Hollander
+
+![](Banner.png "Blog Header Image")
+
+## Wido den Hollander Voted as VP of Apache CloudStack
+
+The Apache Software Foundation community has voted [Wido den
+Hollander](https://www.linkedin.com/in/widodh/) as the new Vice
+President of Apache CloudStack. A long-time PMC member and
+contributor, Wido has been working on CloudStack for over 15 years,
+bringing deep technical experience and real-world operational insight
+from the cloud industry.  This blog shares key snippets from Wido’s
+first interview since being voted CloudStack VP for 2026.
+
+<!-- truncate -->
+
+## Getting started with CloudStack
+
+![](WidoInPanel.jpg "Wido discussing ACS in a Panel")
+
+Wido’s journey into CloudStack is rooted in practical experience. He
+has been active in the hosting industry since 2004, building and
+operating infrastructure for over two decades.
+
+“I've been in the hosting and IT industry since 2004, so it's about 23
+years now. My background is hosting and I've been a user, a
+contributor, and PMC member, and actually a VP member before of the
+Apache CloudStack project.”
+
+His introduction to CloudStack came from a need to move beyond custom-built infrastructure:
+
+“I always ran a web hosting company... during that journey we had our
+KVM environment built with bash scripts, and we looked for something
+else. This is when I stumbled upon what was cloud.com from citrix,
+which was about to be donated to the Apache Software Foundation. So,
+through that journey we started adopting Apache CloudStack in my
+hosting company and we have been using it ever since.”
+
+Wido’s first contribution dates back to 2011, focusing on improving packaging:
+
+“My first contribution to the project was actually an improvement in
+the Debian and Ubuntu packaging... I sent my first patches to improve
+the packaging for Ubuntu.”
+
+## Perspective on the CloudStack project
+
+![](Panel.jpg "People discussing ACS in a Panel")
+
+Over the years, he has remained deeply involved in both development
+and governance. His appointment as VP reflects this long-standing
+commitment.
+
+“I would say the VP is somebody who keeps everybody together, talks
+with the ASF, is the face of the project for a year.”
+
+A key theme in Wido’s perspective is reliability:
+
+“CloudStack is a reliable foundation to build your company upon. There
+have been many great features, bugs have been resolved, enhancements
+in CloudStack. But the main thing is it is reliable”.
+
+He also highlights governance as a critical differentiator:
+
+“The governance of the ASF - that's a truly reliable foundation to run
+your company upon.”
+
+## Evolution for the technology
+
+Looking ahead, Wido sees CloudStack continuing to evolve:
+
+“I think it's going to be evolutions within CloudStack. We are quite
+feature-ready If you look at IaaS, there are a few upcoming features I
+am looking forward to. For example, the DNS provider where you can
+manage DNS from CloudStack. So, you have a single environment where
+you can manage VMs, object storage, and then also DNS connected to
+different providers. And I would like to personally investigate a
+possibility where we can get some telemetry back to the project on an
+opt-in basis.”
+
+Importantly, Wido wants to challenge the perception that CloudStack is
+only for large-scale deployments:
+
+“CloudStack still seems like this giant monster for some
+people. That's a myth I would like to bust, because even with just a
+few servers, you could have a great Apache CloudStack deployment.”
+
+He reinforces this with a real-world example of a compact deployment
+that still delivers enterprise-grade features.
+
+## Community
+
+Wido is also passionate about community:
+
+“The culture should be that everybody is welcome and we should respect
+everybody and be grateful for anything somebody contributes.”
+
+He encourages new contributors to get involved:
+
+“We should be open to anybody submitting a pull request in
+GitHub. What I heard from feedback from some developers is that it
+sometimes feels very scary to send your first pull request to a GitHub
+project which has been around for 15 years and then you come along
+from somewhere on this planet and you send your first pull
+request. You're like, oh, what's going to happen? Are they going to be
+angry with me if I make a mistake? No, everybody should be welcome to
+open their first PR.”
+
+![](WidoOnStage.jpg "Wido addressing the community")
+
+## Growth
+
+Despite often operating behind the scenes, CloudStack continues to grow:
+
+“It is still growing, yes. And I think that is a misconception which
+sometimes exists because CloudStack just is there as an IaaS, powering
+these enormous environments, but also many smaller environments. But
+it's taken for granted by so many people. So, it's no longer in the
+really big hype cycle. As I said, there's evolutions, no longer
+revolutions.”
+
+Wido concludes with a message to the community:
+
+“I want to thank everybody for contributing, for being part of the
+project. I would like to encourage everybody to contribute more and
+new users to step into the community, be active, stand up, and you are
+more than welcome to send in contributions which can be documentation,
+pull requests for code. But be at events, be vocal, or just help
+somebody on the mailing lists.”