The UK organisation for the business of Open Technology

Ashley Nicolson is a Senior Community Manager at GitHub, where she works closely with the global community, with a particular focus on Education users (students and educators). She helps ensure that community voices are clearly represented within internal product and engineering teams, connecting real user experiences and feedback to how GitHub evolves.

Previously, Ashley was Head of Community at SalesAgility, the maintainers of the open source CRM platform SuiteCRM. In this role, she led community strategy, coordinated global community efforts, and played a key part in release management, ensuring alignment between contributors, users, and the product roadmap.

She began her career as a software engineer, where she discovered a passion for open source collaboration and online communities. Since then, she has built experience in shaping community strategy, driving engagement, and acting as a bridge between users and product teams.

Alongside her professional work, Ashley continues to contribute to the open source ecosystem. She co-founded Scotland Open Source Users Meetups (SOSUM), helping foster local connections within the community. Although SOSUM has since wrapped up, it led to the launch of the Scotland Open Source podcast, where she shares stories and insights from across the ecosystem. She has also contributed to the Open Source Way guidebook as the author of the “Community Manager Self-Care” chapter.

Ashley was recognised as a finalist for the 2020 Red Hat Women in Open Source Award for her contributions to community building and education. She is passionate about increasing access to computer science, particularly for young people, and has delivered educational sessions on open source participation to over 100 primary school students across Scotland.

She continues to advocate for the role of open source in education and enjoys sharing insights through writing and community initiatives.