CONFERENCE DAY ONE

As platform engineering matures, the imperative is no longer just to remove the burden of undifferentiated technology, while increasing consistency, security, and adoption of standards—but to deliver measurable, strategic value to internal teams. This session led by Bruno Suárez Laffargue – a leader passionate about software development end-to-end lifecycles – shares a case study detailing how adopting a Product Operating Model is transforming their internal platform from a cost centre into a value-driving product line. Bruno will outline the impact of:

• Treating internal platforms as products with defined personas and roadmaps.
• Segmenting internal audiences to personalise adoption and onboarding strategies.
• Aligning platform evolution with broader strategic outcomes.
• Building feedback loops to continuously improve developer experience and value.

Bruno Suarez Laffargue

Head of Product for Engineering Effectiveness
Tesco

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Session Available For Sponsorship

While every industry has its individual issues, the challenges of platform engineering in enterprise contexts has significant overlap. This panel brings together leaders from diverse sectors to share what’s working - and what’s not.

• Hear how platform priorities differ across finance, retail, healthcare, and manufacturing.
• Discover shared challenges around tooling, skills, and cultural adoption.
• Explore unique innovations and practices that can be borrowed cross-industry.
• Learn how different contexts shape team design, platform scope, and success metrics.

Colm Campbell

Head of Engineering
The Gym Group

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Navigating the transformation of banking and payment platforms demands precision, adaptability, and strategic foresight. In this session, Mani Ganapathy — a technology leader with extensive experience delivering payment platforms and leading modernisation initiatives — shares insights from his experience updating mission-critical systems by:

• Streamlining platform transformation to fast-track adoption and minimise disruption.
• Strengthening resiliency models to ensure operational stability at scale.
• Implementing regulatory-aligned observability strategies for compliance and efficiency.
• Cultivating high-performance engineering teams through structured process improvements.

Mani Ganapathy

Director, Head of Platform, Payments Technology
American Express

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Session Available For Sponsorship

As platform capabilities expand, so does the tension between autonomy and control. Platform Engineering leaders face fresh challenges building governance models that won’t stifle developer innovation and autonomy.

• Understand the risks of over- and under-governance in enterprise platforms.
• Learn how to apply policies that enable experimentation within boundaries.
• Explore frameworks like paved paths, golden templates, and policy-as-code.
• Hear how organisations are building trust while meeting compliance and consistency goals.

Simon Rohrer

Head of Enterprise Technology Architecture & Ways of Working
Saxo Bank

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Jacob Lärfors

Principal Engineer - Developer Productivity
SOK

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During this session, Donavan Thomson, a strategy and development leader and the Head of Product-Platforms at Utility Warehouse, will discuss how UW transitioned from a monolithic application to a modular, platform-based architecture over the last seven years. A

communications platform, initially designed to streamline customer messaging, was recently reevaluated, unlocking nearly £2 million in cost savings by digitising processes and refining analytics. This presentation will outline the importance of:

• Building close relationships with users and deeply understanding their goals.
• Partnering with key teams to create momentum and demonstrate value.
• Designing platforms that clearly separate concerns, leading to innovation.
• Experimenting strategically to validate changes and minimise risk.

Donovan Thomson

Head of Product Management - Platforms
Utility Warehouse

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Session Available For Sponsorship

Manufacturing companies are embracing digital platforms to stay competitive - but they bring a different set of challenges. Join this panel to hear how engineering leaders are translating platform best practices into industrial environments.

• Understand how platform engineering intersects with OT, edge, and factory systems.
• Explore platform strategies that work within long innovation cycles and physical constraints.
• Identify resistance points across non-technical teams and regulated processes.
• Learn how digital platforms are driving smarter production, traceability, and agility.

Jean Burellier

Principal Software Engineer
Sanofi

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Session Available For Sponsorship

Platform engineering teams are increasingly responsible for enabling rapid scale while maintaining system uptime and performance. Platforms are fragile from both internal, and increasingly external, threats. How can enterprises successfully scale platform engineering reliability and securely.

• Examine scaling strategies that maintain platform reliability during high growth.
• Learn how teams are re-architecting and modularising services to support scale.
• Identify operational risks and technical debt that emerge with platform growth.
• Discover how leading enterprises are aligning reliability goals with business expansion.

Italo Vietro

VP of Platform
Babbel

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Spoiler alert - your platform is probably more complicated than it needs to be! Scaling platforms without the superpowers that Design teams bring to the table often leads to the same place: platforms that are overly complex, expensive to maintain, and impossible to scale. In this presentation Helen Shaffer - an experienced design team leader - will go through the crucial role design teams play in planning and scaling platforms - even when there’s no traditional user interfaces involved.

• Get a sense of how systems thinking can help you streamline your services, teams, and platform offerings.
• Mythbust common misconceptions about the discipline of Design in software organizations.
• Understand how the way Designers are trained to think compliments the programming mindset.
• See how the Design approach can help fill in the gaps in your organization’s understanding and alignment.

Helen Shaffer

Group Design Lead
Wise

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