POWERUp 2026 Opening Session

With 31 years of experience on the IBM midrange platform, Floyd is Director, Business Development for the SenecaGlobal group. In his role at SenecaGlobal, Floyd has been extensively involved in the management of DevOps , Enterprise Modernization and refactoring projects on IBM i, from planning stages through to delivery. His expertise in hybrid application development both native and Cloud makes him a trusted advisor for companies in project rollout, managed services and the introduction of agile methods. Floyd is a trusted global speaker on the subjects of DevOps, Release Management, Modernization, Version Control and BI.

My latest work as the Friendly Techie, includes assisting IBM i with the design and testing with IBM i 7.6 as both Beta Tester and Redbook Author, and as assistant in the design and testing of the new IBM i Migrate While Active tool and the AI based RPG Code Assistant.

I have worked in the IBM Business Partner world for over thirty years now and despite IBM's best attempts I still love them ;-) My career started as an RPG developer but for the last twenty years I have specialised in System Design, installation and management. In 2008 I founded my own company (Rowton) and now I and my team spend my time supporting clients or designing new IT solutions using a combination of Power servers, Intel and storage with a little extra cloud magic where it's needed.

When I'm not looking after my own clients, I help run the UK's largest IBM i User Group the i-UG and also serve on the Common Europe Advisory Council (CEAC) to help IBM shape the future of IBM i. In 2019, IBM made me an IBM Champion in recognition of the work I have done to help and evangelise the IBM i platform, Happy Days :-)

I have a love of teaching IBM i and have spent over a decade volunteering to teach at IBM i events around the world, in more recent times I have been creating my online webinars. I am a firm believer that the more I teach, the more I learn.

Jack is a consulting programmer with over 30 years' experience in open source. He authors Ublu, an open source remote language for IBM i. He specializes in open source modernization on IBM i. He is currently experimenting with connecting IBM i to IBM Q quantum computing via the open source Qiskit.

Hillery is the General Manager for IBM Power and serves as IBM Infrastructure CTO.  In this role, she is focused on setting the global strategy for both Power and Infrastructure Platform in addition to driving cross-functional innovation and growth across IBM's Infrastructure portfolio which includes IBM zSystems, Power, Storage, TLS and IBM Cloud.