FOSDEM 2025

Open Source Advocate | Community Organizer | Program Manager | Speaker

Lori Lorusso is the Head of Community at Percona, where she brings developers, database experts, and open-source enthusiasts together. She is passionate about building strong technical communities, driving conversations around database performance, and making open-source knowledge accessible. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling and exploring new cultures.

Co‑founder of Percona and one of the foremost experts on MySQL strategy and optimization. Peter leveraged both his technical vision and entrepreneurial skills to grow Percona from a two‑person shop to one of the most respected open source companies in the business. A serial entrepreneur, he co‑founded his first startup while attending Moscow State University where he majored in Computer Science. He is a co‑author of High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, and Replication, one of the most popular books on MySQL performance. Peter frequently speaks as an expert lecturer at open source database conferences and has contributed articles to outlets such as Fortune and DZone.

Database Engineer

Principal Software Engineer at Percona Corporation. Part of the team which develops Percona Server for MySQL, Percona’s fork of Oracle’s MySQL Server. Before that, member of MySQL Runtime Team at Oracle for 19 years, involved in development of New Data Dictionary in MySQL 8.0, MetaData Locking subsystem in MySQL 5.7 and several other areas (DDL, Triggers, …).