Leadership Team

Julia Millidge is a founder and Director at Payara. Her role within the business is Head of People, a role she loves and feels passionate about. Supported by a great team, her focus for many years has been developing a strong Payaran culture which is inclusive and creates a sense of belonging for our diverse global team. She has a detailed knowledge of HR Relations and Compliance, which she uses to advise and support the Senior Leadership team when developing People Team and business strategies. With a background in education, she uses her passion for people management to encourage and grow People Team policies that demonstrate Payara’s core values and reflect the challenges of an ever changing workplace.

Steve Millidge is the founder, CEO and Technical Director of Payara Services. He is an expert in Java EE, Jakarta EE and MicroProfile, and a Project Lead for the Eclipse Foundation GlassFish and Jakarta EE platforms. Steve has spoken at a number of events about the performance and scalability of Java systems, including Java One, JBoss World, UK Oracle User Group Conference and Special Interest Groups, JaxLondon, GeeCon, EclipseCon, and Jakarta EE LiveStream. He regularly presents technical workshops and webinars on Jakarta EE, MicroProfile and big scale Java. Steve has been working with Java since pre-1.0 and has worked on large scale distributed applications and application servers since the 1990s. Before founding Payara Services, Steve ran a consultancy company providing advice and guidance on architecting, building and running at scale large web applications on Java technologies. Steve has a keen interest in non-functional attributes of big scale Java.

Valentina Kovacic is the Marketing Director and has responsibility for marketing strategy, brand management, and leading and supporting the marketing and communication team. Prior to joining Payara, she worked for many years in strategic marketing development, public relations and internal communications at several international organisations and financial institutions. She holds a bachelor’s degree from La Roche University, Pittsburgh, USA. She attended banking and management academies for several years as part of her previous engagements. Her greatest strengths are creativity, drive, and leadership. She currently resides in Germany and loves collaborating remotely with teams across the organisation.

Cátia Santos is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Payara, where she oversees and supports the Finance & Operations team. With a strong focus on scalability and use of technology, Cátia and her team play a pivotal role in managing data, financial processes, fiscal and legal compliance, and operational activities. Their primary objective is to ensure the accuracy of financial information, providing a comprehensive understanding of Payara’s financial performance. By actively engaging in financial modelling, they work in having a clear path and timeline for the company’s success.