My name is Ilya. I am the founder and a CEO of Data Egret GmbH - a consultancy that provides PostgreSQL administration services globally.
Open source has always been an important part of what I’ve been working on throughout my career and Data Egret was built as Open source friendly as a commercial company could be.
I live in Germany, in a small town near Saarbrücken - a perfect location since it is right on the border of France and close to Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland and Netherlands, which allows me to easily travel to European Postgres conferences and meetups and visit our European clients.
I was later involved in the launch of the CoC (code of conduct) committee and served as its member for two years. I am now a PostgreSQL contributor, part of the organisational / volunteer / gopher teams for community events, organized by Postgres Europe (such as PGConf.EU, FOSDEM PGDay). I am also on the Sponsorship committee that provides recognition to sponsors in the PostgreSQL project.
Serving on the PostgreSQL Europe Board of directors was an important part of my community contribution 2021 and 2024. A lot of the work that the board does is behind the stage and is to do with administrative, financial and legal aspects of the project.
My last term on the PGEU board, we successfully streamlined many processes, allowing us to now focus on engagement activities while maintaining day by day operations.
In May 2025, I've urgently jumped in being co-opted to Board of PGEU to be its Treasurer.
It was not the easiest journey of dealing with French authorities, accounting companies, banks and payment systems under pressure of urgency. We did some significant progress by identifying silos and fixing the most burning things, but work is far away from being done.
That's why I am staying for re-election for the next term, and if reelected I would continue my work in the following directions:
If I have some spare time besides treasurer work, I would be glad to drive a couple of other not less important directions such as:
Maintain and increase open dialogue with community members to identify areas and geographies where, as the PGEU board, we can support them, building on our experience with established local groups.
Further support community processes and enhance transparency so that newcomers understand how the community works and how they can contribute.
Running an NGO of this size involves various formalities. I will leverage my commercial management experience from running an international business to enhance our current processes and further strengthen PostgreSQL Europe.
It would be an absolute honor to continue being a part of the PostgreSQL Europe board, contributing to the growing popularity of Postgres and enhancing the experience for its users. I would like to see Postgres not only as the technological solution of choice in Europe but also as an exemplary, well-structured global ecosystem with a supportive open-source community.