2026

Katja Obring

Kato Coaching Ltd., United Kingdom

Kat Obring is the founder of Kato Coaching and creator of the Q.E.D. (Quality-focused Experimentation and Development) framework. With over 20 years in the software industry, Kat now focuses on what matters most: teaching teams and individuals how to measurably improve the quality of their work. Her practical frameworks combine insights from her diverse experience as a DevOps QA engineer, Head of Delivery, and, surprisingly, her early career as a chef. She specialises in helping QA and test professionals transform from reactive testers to strategic quality advisors through evidence-based decision-making. She’s learned that evidence always beats guesswork, and a well-designed experiment will reveal more truth than months of planning ever could.

Rikard Edgren

Test Expert – Inera, Sweden

Rikard Edgren describes himself as a humanistic and technical tester since 1998, specialized in generalities like test strategy and exploratory testing. Thus far Rikard has had twelve speaking appearances at EuroSTAR and was a winner of the Best Conference Tutorial Award in 2014, 2020 and 2024, and Programme Chair in 2018. Rikard is a member of the think-tank The Test Eye, co-author of Software Quality Characteristics, author of The Little Black Book on Test Design and Den Lilla Svarta om Teststrategi.
Rikard currently works as Test expert at Inera, Sweden, working with Swedish healthcare infrastructure.

Ingo Philipp

VP, Product Management, UiPath, Austria

Over the years, Ingo has launched and scaled new business lines from zero to over $150M in ARR at Tricentis and UiPath by focusing on the right product–market fit and strong execution. With an MSc in Astrophysics, an MBA in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and more than 15 years in product development, he brings a mix of technical know-how and business insight. He has led global, cross-functional, and cross-cultural teams across product, marketing, sales, services, and partners to deliver effective go-to-market strategies. He’s also an experienced speaker, having shared keynotes, workshops, and seminars at over 80 software development, testing, and product management conferences around the world.

Michael Kutz

REWE digital, Germany

Michael Kutz is a principal engineer at REWE digital. He joined the company as one of the very first developers in 2014 and helped to establish a lean and agile development process. Michael used his passion for and experience in self-organizing teams, quality assurance, and test automation to shape these topics in the rapidly growing company.

Today, Michael is helping to shape the future of software development throughout the now much bigger REWE Group IT, and is an established speaker at international conferences.

Dona Sarkar

Microsoft, USA

Dona believes that you are one experiment away from being your most powerful self at work. And yes, in life!

Currently at her day job, she’s running 100 experiments as the Chief Troublemaker of the Microsoft AI and Copilot Extensibility Program. Her goal is that people all over the world can use Microsoft’s AI and Copilot programs to reason over their OWN data and truly make AI useful for their business.

Dona’s also a keynote speaker (fave audience is corporate leaders like YOU), a multi-published author (it turns out fiction writing is useful in software!),  the owner of the ethical luxury fashion brand called Prima Dona Studios and she has recently become a wine bar co-owner and is studying to be a sommelier.

A few years ago, she was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Productive People and Cosmopolitan magazine’s Businessperson of the Year for her multi-faceted (aka weird) life.  And yes, she is always ready to get on a plane and come see YOU.

István Forgács

4Test-Plus, Hungary

István Forgács, PhD, has published numerous scientific articles. He is the lead author of three books. He introduced reliable domain and action-state test design techniques. He is the founder and CEO of 4Test-Plus. István was an author for the Advanced Test Analyst Working Group and a member of the Agile Working Group at ISTQB.

He developed an intelligent mutation testing framework to help testers enhance their test design skills. Additionally, he is the creator and key contributor of Harmony, the AI-powered test design automation tool. He was a keynote, invited, and regular speaker at several academic and industrial conferences.