In a recent tweet, I asked the WooCommerce community a simple question: who truly inspires you in the Woo space? The replies highlighted a mix of developers, product people, educators, and business owners who’ve consistently given back to the ecosystem — through code, transparency, talks, or teaching.
As I look ahead to curating impactful sessions for Checkout Summit, I’m focusing on speakers who don’t just have opinions, but stories — real-world lessons, behind-the-scenes case studies, and practical takeaways. Whether it’s a developer breaking down a complex performance improvement or a business owner sharing the ups and downs of scaling a store, I’m looking for inspiration with substance.
Here’s my shortlist of ten potential speakers I believe could deliver something truly valuable — and memorable — to the community.
Of course, this list is intentionally selective. I’ve met — and already work with — many brilliant WooCommerce creators, and this isn’t meant to leave anyone out. It’s just a shortlist to see if I can motivate a few I don’t already collaborate with often.
James Kemp
James recently joined Woo as Product Manager, but many of us have followed him long before that. As the founder of IconicWP, he built a suite of successful WooCommerce plugins with clean UX, a performance-first mindset, and clever problem solving.
James could talk about his journey from indie plugin developer to acquisition, and now to shaping the future of the platform itself. A behind-the-scenes story of how plugin ideas are born, validated, and scaled would be an incredible lesson for both developers and product people.
He’s also one of the few who truly understand both the business side and the technical demands of WooCommerce — which makes him the ideal person to show what “thinking like a product manager” means in a Woo context.
Katie Keith
Katie runs Barn2, one of the most respected WooCommerce plugin companies around. What sets her apart is how openly she shares the business journey — from pricing experiments to revenue breakdowns to hiring and strategy decisions.
A talk like “Lessons from Scaling a WooCommerce Plugin Business” would offer huge value to solo founders and small teams. Katie brings clarity to topics like support processes, marketing funnels, and how to choose which plugin ideas are worth pursuing.
She could also offer a business case study from a non-technical founder’s point of view — showing how strategic thinking and customer feedback can drive success just as much as coding skills.
Beka Rice
Beka has been influential in the WooCommerce ecosystem for over a decade, from her work at SkyVerge to Automattic and beyond. She’s a powerhouse of product knowledge, documentation strategy, and user experience best practices.
A possible talk: “What I’ve Learned from Building Products That Actually Get Used.” Beka could explore practical frameworks for feature planning, onboarding design, and how to balance Woo’s flexibility with user expectations.
She also has the rare ability to make complex topics approachable — perfect for a session that bridges the gap between devs and store owners, or teaches product teams how to communicate better internally.
Patrick Garman
Patrick has been in the trenches of high-performance WooCommerce for years. His agency, Mindsize, specializes in large-scale stores with demanding performance and stability needs — and he’s also contributed directly to Woo core.
He’s the right person to speak about “Lessons From Optimizing Enterprise-Scale WooCommerce.” What breaks when a store grows too fast? What caching myths still persist? How do you deal with huge order volumes, large catalogs, or fragile checkout flows?
Patrick’s ability to blend practical examples with deeper architectural insight makes him a great fit for an advanced developer track — especially one focused on speed, scale, and resilience.
Devin Price
Devin is currently leading engineering at Universal Yums, a high-volume WooCommerce-powered subscription store.
He could present “Lessons from Scaling a WooCommerce Subscription Business.” With hands-on experience running a growing, logistics-heavy DTC brand on Woo, Devin could share insights on fulfillment, custom plugins, third-party service integrations, and maintaining site performance as the product line evolves.
His story is especially valuable for agencies, developers, and product owners alike.
Patrick Rauland
Patrick is currently the Director of eCommerce at Xero Shoes, a thriving multiple six-figure/month store. He’s also written books on Woo, hosted podcasts, and taught countless developers and store owners over the years.
A great session title: “What I’ve Learned Running a High-Volume WooCommerce Store.” Patrick could cover operations, tooling, team structure, data reporting, and the pitfalls of scaling without breaking UX or site speed.
His unique combination of teaching skills and live store experience makes him a strong voice for anyone navigating the chaos of WooCommerce at scale.
Amber Hinds
Amber leads Equalize Digital, a company focused on accessibility in WordPress — and WooCommerce is a key part of that work. Her talks are always practical, eye-opening, and focused on actionable change.
A strong topic: “How to Make WooCommerce More Accessible — Without Breaking Everything.” She could share audit results, before/after UX examples, and plugin compatibility pitfalls.
Accessibility is often deprioritized, yet it’s critical for both legal and ethical reasons. Amber brings deep expertise and a rare ability to get devs, designers, and business owners all on the same page.
Mike Jolley
Mike is one of the original creators of WooCommerce — and still contributes to this day. If anyone can explain why Woo works the way it does, it’s him. His perspective is both historical and deeply technical.
A compelling session might be “WooCommerce: How It Started, Where It’s Going.” With years of core architecture experience, Mike could offer valuable insight into extensibility, backward compatibility, and how the platform evolved from simple checkout to complex commerce engine.
Even better: a code-focused talk or AMA session where devs could ask anything about the internals of WooCommerce.
Bryce Adams
Bryce is the founder of Metorik, one of the most beloved third-party SaaS tools in the WooCommerce space. As a solo founder and former Automattic engineer, he’s built a business that thrives by fixing WooCommerce’s biggest reporting pain points.
He could talk about “What Store Owners Really Do With Their WooCommerce Data.” From tracking LTV to segmenting customers and sending revenue-driving emails, Bryce sees it all from the backend.
His talk would benefit plugin developers, SaaS founders, and advanced store owners — especially those looking to build smarter tools or use existing data better.
Robert Windisch
Robert has been a pillar of the WordPress and WooCommerce community in Europe. As part of Syde, he’s been involved in huge enterprise projects, multilingual Woo setups, and complex custom builds.
He could give a talk like “Building for Scale: Multilingual & Multisite WooCommerce.” A behind-the-scenes look at large client work — what works, what fails, and what needs to be custom — would offer rare insight for agency developers.
Robert also brings strong community roots, and could share how contributing to open source (while running a business) is still possible — and why it matters.
