Red Hat Summit 2026 | Leigh Day, Red Hat

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Leigh Day

Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

Red Hat

play_circle_outline Late-Night Labs & Product Spotlights: Hands-On Roadmaps for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ansible and OpenShift

play_circle_outline 20th Innovation Awards: Customer-Driven Tech Partnerships Improve Lives — Winners Include Argentina Satellite Provider, Dubai Bank, NZ Telco, TD Bank

play_circle_outline Innovator of the Year decided by community vote, reflecting Red Hat's community-driven values.

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Leigh Day, Red Hat

Leigh Day

Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Red Hat

In this interview from Red Hat Summit 2026 in Atlanta, Leigh Day, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Red Hat, joins theCUBE's Rebecca Knight to discuss the Summit's evolution over two decades and how Red Hat is embracing AI as a collaborative tool across its own marketing organization. Day reflects on a journey that began with single-product Linux conversations and now centers on AI, sovereignty and virtualization — while the community energy that defines Red Hat has endured throughout. She details two new event formats introduced this year:... Read more

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What was the reasoning for emphasizing product spotlights and late‑night labs (shifting from small talk to hands‑on terminal time), and have you seen anything in those sessions that illustrates what this format aims to achieve? add

What common qualities or themes make these Innovation Awards projects stand out and deserve recognition? add

What does it say about Red Hat that the Innovator of the Year is decided by a community vote rather than behind closed doors, and what community activities is Red Hat doing here at the summit? add

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Leigh Day, Red Hat

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Rebecca Knight

>> Hello everyone and welcome to theCUBE's live coverage of the Red Hat Summit here in Atlanta, Georgia. The first time ever Red Hat's been in Atlanta. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. We are kicking off three straight days of wall-to-wall coverage here at the Georgia World Congress. I would like to welcome our first guest to the set today. She is Leigh Day, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Red Hat. Welcome, Leigh.

Leigh Day

>> Thank you for having me, Rebecca.

Rebecca Knight

>> Yeah, we're so excited to be here. And as we said, this is the first time that Red Hat has been in Atlanta. The energy here on the ground, it's day zero, is incredible. What made you select Atlanta?

Leigh Day

>> Well, first of all, accessibility is really important. We have a very international group of people, so making sure that there are as few lifts as possible to get here so that people can maximize their time in the city and not in the air. But also, the great Southern hospitality of Atlanta is wonderful. And we've really embraced the peach in our swag as you'll see around the conference this year. Lots of fun things for people to do here though.

Rebecca Knight

>> Well, we're going to get into all of that. I mean, you've been leading the summit since 2005, you're a Red Hat veteran. When you walk around today and compare it to what you've seen in past years, what would you say are the different kinds of conversations you're having, the different vibe and maybe even some differences about who's here in fact in the room?

Leigh Day

>> Yeah, sure. So way back when we were mainly talking about one product and that was Linux. We were talking about how people could move their proprietary Unix operations to Linux. Throughout the years, that's evolved as we've evolved as a company, becoming a multi-product company. And now, really the discussion is about AI, it's about sovereignty and it's about virtualization. So the topics definitely change over the years, but the one thing that doesn't change is the palpable energy you feel when you're here. Everyone really enjoys being with one another and that's something that I think has been great to see endure through all these years.

Rebecca Knight

>> Particularly Red Hat. This is an organization that is all about the community and that really shines through every time I'm at a Red Hat event, so I would agree with you there. This year, you're really leaning into these product spotlights and late night labs trading, as you say, small talk for the terminal window. What was your thinking behind that? And is there anything that you're seeing already in the labs or the spotlights that's capturing what this format is all about?

Leigh Day

>> Yes. So we've taken a look at our data over the years to really identify the experience that our attendees really want from us. And that experience will vary depending on whether we're talking about a practitioner with hands on keyboards to someone that's an IT decision maker. So we've got something for everyone. So the reason why we broke out the product spotlights is because we saw that people are very, very interested in our roadmaps to see where the technology is headed from all three of our platforms, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ansible and OpenShift. And we want to make sure that we can accommodate those conversations in a larger setting. We saw we need more room basically, but also that we're going to give people a taste of those topics on the main stage during the keynote and then they can go into those product spotlights for more information. And in the late night labs is just an answer to people that wanted more time in doing Red Hat things beyond normal business hours. So it's going to be a lot of fun. We're talking drinks and pizza and labs and neon, so it's going to be a great time.

Rebecca Knight

>> Excellent. So let's talk about the 20th anniversary of the Innovation Awards, which is quite a milestone. For our viewers who may be less familiar with what these awards are, just tell our viewers a little bit about what they're all about first.

Leigh Day

>> Innovation Awards are just all about celebrating our customers and the amazing things that they have done. So we get several submissions every single year and then we have a panel of judges. I've been fortunate to be one of them and we read through all of these submissions and the stories are incredible. They're talking about how they are improving actual lives through the use of technology. And what's really gratifying is that Red Hat is a partner in that work. And so it's just a wonderful way to recognize the amazing, innovative work of our customers.

Rebecca Knight

>> And this year's winner span a satellite provider in Argentina, a bank in Dubai, a telco in New Zealand and TD Bank here in North America. We're going to have many of the winners, in fact, here on the program telling us a little bit about their projects. How would you describe the through line in terms of what it is that makes all of these projects shine and makes you say, "You know what? This deserves an award. This deserves recognition?"

Leigh Day

>> I would say there are really two vectors. One is about efficiency, efficiency for the business to be able to do more, to be able to save time and save resources. To save resources both calories and cash. And the other vector is about really serving their communities, making sure that their users, their customers, their citizens have a great experience that has been improved because of technology.

Rebecca Knight

>> So you've talked about AI becoming a team sport, which pulls in legal sales operations and not just the traditional data scientists. How realistic is that shift, and what do you see making possible even in your own work in marketing, this real collaborative team spirit that you're talking about?

Leigh Day

>> I think it's definitely a team sport. If everyone in the company knows how to use AI, how to leverage AI tools to get better at their job, to make their jobs more efficient, then we will have collectively better outcomes and stronger outputs. In marketing, we are really all about authenticity, so you won't see us use AI for our artwork. You will see us use AI to help production, so that resizing and localizing assets, for instance, can be done with the help of AI. That's one way. We also have a tool that we've built for the marketing organization that is built on OpenShift and you can query it to find out what engagements are working the best, what's happening in Switzerland in marketing, what's going on in Asia for events. So that's been really a great tool so that we can all have the same data at our fingertips in marketing.

Rebecca Knight

>> So you're seeing it as a real church and state. I mean, one of the things you said is we don't use it for our artwork. That is a human task, but we are going to really splice it and dice the data that we're getting. So how do you help your team think through, "This is what we will use humans for and this is what we'll use machines for, and this is where we'll do a balance between the two?"

Leigh Day

>> We never want to lose our authenticity and that's what our brand has been built on. You touched on customers. Our customers are a key part of our story. We wouldn't alter their stories using AI. We wouldn't alter images of people's faces with AI. That would be a huge loss for us, but we will use AI to make each other smarter to share information. And that's really where I think AI shines, especially in marketing.

Rebecca Knight

>> I want to ask you about the innovator of the year, because this is being decided by a community vote. Even as you and I here are talking on this stage, Leigh, what does it say about Red Hat that the top honor of the week comes down to this great democratic decision rather than something that is decided behind closed doors by a bunch of people in suits?

Leigh Day

>> I think that's so us. I think that's so us. I mean, if it were to decide behind closed doors, if it were top down, people would be very skeptical of Red Hat and we always want to engender trust and we love bringing people into our world to also help all these other customers learn about these innovators of the year and to help them make the choice.

Rebecca Knight

>> The community garden initiative for local Atlanta kids is a really nice touch.

Leigh Day

>> Oh, yeah. That's so cool.

Rebecca Knight

>> Can you tell our viewers a little bit more about what Red Hat's doing here?

Leigh Day

>> I'm looking at it right now across the hallway. It looks like a little greenhouse and you can go in there and build little kids to get to the community to help with their gardening efforts. And it's just something we do every year at the summit. We want to do something to give back to our local communities, our local city hosts, and that's something really fun that we're doing this year.

Rebecca Knight

>> And really cool for the kids that are here giving back to the community. You're closing this week at the Georgia Aquarium.

Leigh Day

>> Yeah, we're very excited.

Rebecca Knight

>> So what do you think? Sharks aside, what does choosing that venue say also about the kind of community that Red Hat has built and is continuing to build?

Leigh Day

>> Our community loves to have fun together. They love to be together and I think there will be all sorts of different experiences to appeal to different types of people in that aquarium setting. I also personally love otters, so that's another reason to choose it. I'm just kidding. But it's going to be a really fun time. We just love for our people to get together, have a little fun, especially toward the end of the conference where they've spent so much brain power, learning. We need to kick up our feet a little bit and enjoy each other.

Rebecca Knight

>> How many people are here? How are we expecting here in Atlanta?

Leigh Day

>> Over 7,000.

Rebecca Knight

>> Okay. Over 7,000. If someone is here for the week when that person goes back to their office in Berlin or Raleigh-Durham or San Francisco or Tokyo, what do you want them to leave with? What do you want them to come away thinking about the Red Hat Summit 2026 here in Atlanta?

Leigh Day

>> I want them to go back saying, "I feel so inspired. I talked to amazing people. I learned awesome things. I went to these sessions. I saw these keynotes. I met these customers just like me and I feel confident and inspired to take this back into my own work."

Rebecca Knight

>> Any tasters for Red Hat Summit 2027?

Leigh Day

>> Well, it'll be the best one ever. After that, this is the best one ever and then that one will be the next best one ever.

Rebecca Knight

>> It will be outdone next year.

Leigh Day

>> Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Knight

>> Okay.

Leigh Day

>> Always.

Rebecca Knight

>> Well, Leigh, a pleasure having you on. As always, we are so excited to be here. We've got tons of great interviews lined up and we're really excited.

Leigh Day

>> Thanks again for having me and thanks for being here.

Rebecca Knight

>> I'm Rebecca Knight, stay tuned for more of theCUBE's Live coverage of the Red Hat Summit here in Atlanta. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in enterprise tech news and analysis.