Christian is a highly respected open source strategy and governance expert with many years of international experience at the intersection of business, marketing, and technology. Currently, Christian is VP of OW2 open source organization and also chair of the OW2 Quick App Initiative. Previously, he represented Orange on the steering committee of Systematic's Hub Open Source and on the board of OW2. Christian participated in authoring the Good Governance Initiative handbook.

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In 2020 Christian Paterson founded the consultancy company Open Up to help organizations with open source governance and community strategy. Prior to this, Christian was head of the Open Source Governance for Orange where he was instrumental in the creation of the OW2 Good Governance Initiative (now part of the OSPO Alliance), as well as the OW2 Open Source Accessibility Initiative (now shuttered). Whilst at Orange, Christian also held several other posts, most notably concerning the deployment and positioning of CRM platforms into Orange affiliates. Before joining Orange Christian worked as a website production manager for several companies in England and France.

Whilst Christian no longer has many opportunities for code development, his past programming experience ranges from POP11 (for AI simulations) to Java, Perl, XML/XSLt, HTML, and Javascript. He holds a BSc. in Neurobiology and an MPhil. in Cognitive Science. Out of hours, Christian enjoys walks, gardening, current affairs, and the occasional video game. The BBC micro B will always rule.