James Lovegrove is the Public Policy Director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions at Red Hat. With over 25 years of experience at the intersection of technology, law, and government, James is an expert and passionate advocate to defend open in the global conversation on open source strategy, digital sovereignty, cybersecurity, emerging technologies and the evolution of open standards.

Since joining Red Hat in 2016, James has played an active role in various open source organisations to advise policymakers on how regulation impacts the open source ecosystem and avoid unintended consequences. European examples of engagement range from the Copyright Directive, NIS, CSA, CRA,  IEA, AI act, 1025, and, NLF to Horizon related engagement.

Beyond his regional oversight, he co-leads Red Hat’s global sovereignty activities and co-chairs the European Public Sector group, driving the adoption of “open-by-default” procurement policies across governments in Europe and beyond.

James holds several positions within the European technology policy / regulatory landscape:

• OpenForum Europe: Co-chair of the Open Source Task Force

• EU AI Alliance: Member, contributing to the framework for trustworthy artificial intelligence

• Multi-stakeholder Platform (MSP) for ICT Standards: Member, representing open source interests in European standardisation

• DIGITALEUROPE: Open source software issue leader

• IPR Steering Committee: Member of the EU’s steering committee on Intellectual Property Rights