Our DevOps Leaders help shape the future of development on the Salesforce platform. As pillars of the ecosystem, this group of experts have each made a unique impact in the Salesforce community. The mission of the DevOps Leaders is to continue to educate and advocate for DevOps best practices on Salesforce, and inspire release teams to build better.
Carla Wishart
Director of Client Operations at Subsplash
Carla is based in Austin, Texas, and proud to be part of the mission-driven team at Subsplash. As a business applications professional, she’s passionate about creating scalable, efficient processes through digital solutions and automation. With a proven track record in driving operational excellence, Carla delivers solutions that align with company goals and promote growth. Outside of work, she loves exploring her creative side — whether it’s making jewelry, crafting bath and beauty products, or spending time with her family and pets. Carla also has a quirky passion for seeking out places to hold alligators!
Conlan Morton-O’Rourke
Application Engineer 2 at Amazon
Conlan is the Amazon Global Realty Tech Engineering owner for custom-built applications on a Salesforce instance with ~2,500 active users, supported by a team of 14 developers and admins who push 50–60 releases per 2 week sprint. In his free time, Conlan does yoga, takes Bachata classes, or just spends time with his family and friends in Brooklyn, NYC. For vacation, he likes to spend time at his property in Costa Rica.
Jessica Riffe
Salesforce Manager at American Fidelity
Jessica has a 15+ year career in Salesforce, starting as a Developer, progressing to an Architect, and recently transitioning to become a Salesforce Manager. Since 2015, she has worked at American Fidelity, contributing to innovative solutions, efficient platform management, and training new developers. She has experience with Sales, Service, and Experience Clouds and enjoys the challenge of staying current with the Salesforce Platform’s many facets. A triple-star Ranger and 4x Salesforce-certified professional, Jessica also serves as the Oklahoma City Developer User Group Leader.
Jonathan Flatt
Principal Platform Engineer at Aflac
Jonathan is a seasoned platform engineer with a decade of experience in the Salesforce ecosystem. He’s passionate about automation and implementing robust CI/CD practices that streamline development workflows. His expertise in DevOps has helped teams deliver high-quality solutions more efficiently. Outside of work, Jonathan enjoys gaming and exploring new culinary adventures in the kitchen. As a lifelong learner, he’s constantly seeking opportunities to expand his technical knowledge and share his expertise with others in the Salesforce community.
Jonathan Ward
VP of Global Services at MTX Group
Jonathan is a seasoned IT leader with over 25 years of experience in enterprise architecture, cloud transformation, and DevOps strategy. As Vice President of Global Services, he oversees delivery across multiple regions, leading a team of 200+ professionals and managing complex, high-impact projects. Jonathan is dedicated to implementing streamlined DevOps practices that drive efficient, high-quality deployments while fostering collaboration and operational excellence. With expertise in continuous delivery, automation, and process optimization, he is a trusted advisor in solving technical challenges, mentoring teams, and delivering solutions that create measurable value for organizations and their stakeholders.
Kerry Proksel
Senior Director, Engineering at National Debt Relief
Kerry is a seasoned engineering and business leader with over 20 years of experience specializing in enterprise and systems architecture. As Senior Director of Engineering at National Debt Relief, Kerry utilized Gearset pipelines to transform the deployment lifecycle, optimizing software development processes while driving team growth and strategic initiatives. Passionate about the developer experience, Kerry has consistently led successful Salesforce transformations, operational efficiency improvements, and technical integration strategies across multiple organizations.
Kyle Bentsen
Principal Salesforce Engineer
Kyle is a Salesforce platform enthusiast having worn effectively every hat a Salesforce professional can have, and more recently spent more time focusing on DevOps tooling & process. Outside of work, Kyle can be found in his garage workshop woodworking, catching a game of his favorite SF Bay Area sports team, or wrestling with his cat Oscar.
Matt Bevins
Principal Salesforce Engineer at Payroc
Matt has been a Salesforce Developer since 2015, and has seen/heard some horror stories during his time of when deployments have gone wrong. He’s a big advocate for everyone to get involved in their local Salesforce Trailblazer user groups, as you never stop learning something new when attending them. Since completing a Salesforce DevOps Bake-Off back in April 2022, Gearset has allowed the Payroc team to continually evolve and improve their DevOps process. Matt and his team have now successfully implemented a high velocity model where their feature branches’ lifespan are kept as short as possible. Outside of work, you can usually find Matt going for walks with his energetic beagle.
Maya Bengtson
Salesforce DevOps Engineer at Farm Credit Services of America
Maya would say her route to Salesforce DevOps is not exactly common. Maya comes from having a fine arts degree (getting a masters in CIS later). She has been blessed to do several things outside of that in her professional life, including teaching, making learning tools and games, dealing with software and platforms, integrations, architecture and now Salesforce DevOps. While not being settled down in one path yet, for now Maya’s joy is the Salesforce ecosystem and helping teams with challenges like DevOps and what is effectively the developer (and admin) experience in their day to day lives.
Mohammad Nadeem
Senior Release Engineer, Salesforce at Qlik
Nadeem is a Salesforce DevOps expert and Senior Release Engineer at Qlik, known for his expertise in streamlining deployment pipelines using Gearset and GitHub. Nadeem is dedicated to advancing best practices in DevOps. His experience spans environment management, deployment automation, and release management, enabling teams to drive continuous improvement and deliver successful, high-quality releases.
Stirling Smith
Senior Manager, Business Systems at Granicus
Stirling enjoys building integrations and automations for all things. He has strong knowledge in quote to cash processes, particularly in the SaaS space. Stirling has spent the last couple of years building out Salesforce ecosystems and helping Sales & Marketing teams achieve their goals.
Varun Kavoori
Principal - Salesforce DevSecOps at Okta
Varun is a certified Salesforce application architect with 12 years of Salesforce implementation experience. He’s spent the last 5 years on Salesforce release & DevSecOps process implementations.
