How should Java evolve for AI, remain dependable in production, and make room for more developers to influence its future? The nominees for the 2026 Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee election bring different experiences to those questions.
Their candidate profiles and presentations at the Meet the Candidates webinar cover runtime engineering, enterprise adoption, developer tools, open-source sustainability, and education. During the webinar, hosted by Heather VanCura and moderated by Harold Ogle, candidates explained how they would contribute to Java’s future. The summaries below draw on the nominees’ profiles, position statements where provided, and presentations during the webinar.
The Executive Committee helps guide Java specifications through the JCP, approving them at key milestones, reviewing maintenance releases, and overseeing matters involving compatibility testing. Its members bring implementation experience and community perspectives to decisions about Java’s evolution.
Voting runs from November 3 through November 16, 2026. Nine seats are open: six Ratified, two Elected, and one Associate. Results are scheduled for November 17, with new members taking office December 1.
Ratified-seat candidates
Alibaba — Sanhong Li
Alibaba emphasizes its combined experience as a large-scale Java user, cloud provider, and long-standing OpenJDK contributor. Its statement highlights hardware portability, including RISC-V and AArch64 work, and contributions to production observability. Looking ahead, Alibaba describes exploratory work connecting its AI and hardware experience with OpenJDK Project Babylon. It also points to participation in Apache, Eclipse, and Adoptium as evidence of its broader commitment to Java.
BellSoft — Pasha Finkelshteyn
Finkelshteyn’s webinar presentation connected JVM engineering with developer support and community education. He highlighted BellSoft’s work supporting multiple architectures and helping developers use Java effectively. Its candidacy brings a runtime vendor’s perspective on compatibility, practical deployment needs, and maintaining access to Java across different environments.
BNY — Loiane Groner Avancini
BNY’s platform centers on sharing enterprise experience through education and community participation. Its statement highlights OpenJDK Quality Outreach, open-source Code Katas and Spring Katas, and Java in Education activities, including AI-related initiatives. Groner’s webinar presentation reinforced the importance of keeping learning resources current with Java’s six-month release cycle and helping developers apply new concepts in real applications.
JetBrains — Anton Arhipov
Arhipov emphasized the role of tools in helping developers adopt Java’s evolution. Through IntelliJ IDEA, JetBrains aims to support new Java versions from release day and enable experimentation with early builds. Its experience developing Kotlin adds a perspective on the JVM as a platform serving multiple languages.
Netflix, Inc. — Paul Bakker
Netflix wants to bring an operator’s perspective to the committee, with a particular focus on making Java releases and features easier and cheaper to adopt. Its statement highlights production feedback on technologies including Project Leyden and Generational ZGC, supported by work on build tooling and frameworks. Bakker’s presentation connected JVM performance with the practical challenge of keeping a large engineering organization productive.
SAP — Götz Lindenmaier
Speaking on behalf of SAP and Götz during the webinar, Christoph Langer highlighted platform support, observability, and long-term maintenance. He described contributions that help teams diagnose production problems, alongside work maintaining OpenJDK releases and delivering timely updates. SAP’s case connects adopting newer Java capabilities with maintaining the stability enterprise users require.
Elected-seat candidates
Chicago Java Users Group — Josh Juneau
Juneau proposed a direct feedback loop between community members and the JCP. The group plans to hold meetings explaining topics under consideration, gather developer input, and bring that feedback into the process. Its presentation also highlighted collaboration across communities and engagement with responsible AI use.
Eclipse Foundation — Ivar Grimstad
Eclipse’s statement emphasizes representing open-source communities and independent implementations of Java specifications. Its projects span developer tools, runtimes, and enterprise Java, including Jakarta EE, MicroProfile, Adoptium, Temurin, and OpenJ9. Grimstad’s webinar presentation stressed the connections between Java SE and the enterprise technologies built upon it, alongside the importance of keeping Java open and available.
Garden State Java User Group — Michael Redlich
Garden State’s presentation focused on the breadth of its community, including professional developers, educators, authors, and students. Its activities include university engagement, school outreach, student lightning talks, and a student liaison role. The group proposes bringing those varied experiences into the committee’s work.
MicroDoc — Christian Kuka
MicroDoc focuses on embedded and resource-constrained deployments, where hardware limitations, certification requirements, and business needs can make upgrades difficult. Its statement emphasizes security and stability updates for established Java versions, vulnerability management, and dependable support throughout an application’s lifecycle. Kuka’s webinar presentation reinforced the importance of considering devices and systems that cannot immediately adopt the latest release.
Microsoft — Martijn Verburg
Microsoft’s statement combines experience operating Java, contributing to OpenJDK, building developer tools, and providing cloud services. It highlights cross-platform development, Java support in Visual Studio Code, and investment in Java and AI tooling. Verburg’s presentation also emphasized access to expertise across programming languages and runtimes. Microsoft says its voting positions reflect input from a broad cross-section of Java users and developers.
Associate-seat candidates
Deep Netts Technologies — Zoran Sevarac
Deep Netts argues that Java’s growing AI capabilities need a stronger surrounding ecosystem. Its statement identifies libraries, APIs, tools, integrations, examples, and production practices as priorities. Through the Java and AI Working Group, it proposes connecting vendors, enterprises, researchers, universities, and communities to identify gaps and share requirements. Its goal is to support multiple approaches to production AI on Java.
Dominican Republic JUG — Brayan Muñoz
Education, collaboration, and Caribbean representation anchor this candidacy. The group’s statement describes work through JConf Dominicana, JDK Fundamental Talks, and the Zero to Hero Java Bootcamp. Its commitments include expanding educational resources and connecting local developers with international initiatives. Eudris Cabrera presented during the webinar on behalf of the group and Muñoz, emphasizing language access and opportunities for new talent.
Christian Grobmeier
Grobmeier’s statement brings the perspective of an independent developer, small-business owner, and open-source maintainer. Drawing on the lessons of Log4Shell, he emphasizes the responsibility placed on maintainers whose projects serve as critical infrastructure. He also raises a question about AI-assisted development: generating patches has become easier, while reviewing them still requires substantial effort. Compatibility, openness, and participation by smaller organizations are his central priorities.
Japan Java User Group — Shin Tanimoto
Japan Java User Group’s nominee-page statement focuses on strengthening communication between Japanese developers and the global Java community. It proposes making JCP discussions more accessible in Japan while bringing local experience into international conversations.
Java User Group Bangladesh — A N M Bazlur Rahman
Java User Group Bangladesh emphasizes accessible education, including Bengali-language resources, and clearer routes for developers to contribute. Its nominee-page statement proposes community discussions around Java specifications, gathering practical feedback, and reporting developments back to members.
Java Users Group Barranquilla — Geovanny Mendoza Gonzalez
Java Users Group Barranquilla’s statement offers concrete proposals for connecting Spanish-speaking developers with the JCP: Spanish membership and participation guides, public meeting summaries in Spanish, and reusable educational material for other user groups. It also proposes helping students become Associate Members before graduation. Mendoza’s webinar presentation emphasized university outreach and creating a path from local Java activity into standards participation.
JUG Istanbul — Altug Bilgin Altintas
JUG Istanbul’s nominee-page statement highlights community experience with cloud systems, AI, architecture, and developer productivity. It proposes using its events and community connections to communicate JCP developments and gather feedback from practitioners.
London Java Community — Steve Poole
The London Java Community emphasizes connecting working developers with the standards process. Its nominee-page statement highlights previous JCP participation and interests including compatibility, openness, software security, and open-source sustainability.
Review the candidates and vote
The candidates offer different ways to contribute: production feedback, runtime engineering, developer tools, stronger AI libraries, educational outreach, and wider participation in Java development and evolving technical standards.
For voters, the question is how those experiences will translate into sustained committee participation and useful input on Java’s future. Be sure to review the candidate qualifications page and webinar to learn more about the nominees and their priorities before casting your vote.
Eligible JCP members should follow their emailed voting instructions and submit their ballots by November 16, 2026.
