Derek Collison is founder and CEO of Apcera. An industry veteran and pioneer in large-scale distributed systems and enterprise computing, Derek has held executive positions at VMware, Google and TIBCO Software.

As CTO and chief architect of cloud application platforms at VMware, he co-founded the cloud computing group and designed and architected Cloud Foundry, the industry’s first open PaaS. During his time at Google, he co-founded the AJAX APIs group. Prior to Google, he spent more than a decade at TIBCO, where he designed and implemented a wide range of messaging products, including Rendezvous and EMS. As TIBCO’s senior vice president and chief architect, Derek led technical and strategic product direction and delivery.

Derek is a sought after speaker and collaborator. He holds more than 20 software patents and is a recognized leader in distributed systems design and architecture, as well as emerging cloud platforms. He earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.