Community Stack Link
The commercial engine for community-led markets
Community Stack Link helps organisations grow through the communities, events, ecosystems, and trusted relationships that shape modern markets.
We connect companies, sponsors, investors, founders, marketers, DevRel teams, and community organisers with the people who influence adoption, reputation, partnerships, talent, funding, and revenue.
Why We Exist
Communities move markets. Most companies still do not know how to work with them.
The Value
Communities shape trust, education, adoption, hiring, product feedback, category growth, and commercial opportunity. They bring together the practitioners, founders, leaders, sponsors, organisers, and decision-makers that markets depend on.
The Gap
Most communities are commercially under-supported, while most companies engage them badly. Sponsorship becomes logo placement. Campaigns become noise. Communities become treated like lead lists instead of trusted ecosystems.
Our Response
Community Stack Link sits between both worlds. We help communities become more sustainable, help organisations build credible market presence, and help investors understand the value of community-led assets.
What Link Does
We turn community trust into commercial growth.
Community Stack Link is the advisory, activation, representation, and portfolio support arm of Community Stack. It helps organisations reach markets through trust, not interruption.
Who It Is For
Built for every side of the ecosystem.
Communities
For organisers who have trust, audience, and energy, but need sponsors, partners, speakers, venues, growth support, and a stronger commercial model.
Marketers
For teams that need credible access to practitioners, founders, engineers, operators, buyers, and ecosystem leaders without relying on cold outreach or generic campaigns.
Sponsors
For organisations that want sponsorship to create relationships, content, trust, market presence, and measurable commercial value rather than just logo placement.
DevRel Teams
For teams that need to engage developers through trusted communities, technical events, open-source ecosystems, practitioner feedback, and authentic market participation.
Founders
For companies that need to launch with credibility, build demand, find the right audience, create market moments, and earn trust in competitive categories.
Investors
For VC, PE, and acquirers that need to understand whether a community, event, audience, ecosystem, or open-source project has real commercial value.
Why Community Stack
We do not just advise on communities. We operate them.
Community Stack runs and supports the communities, conferences, platforms, and ecosystem infrastructure that technical and civic markets depend on. That gives Link a major advantage: we understand community-led growth because we build and operate it every day.
18
Communities
25,000+
Members
100+
Annual Events
9
Flagship Conferences
Community Stack Link is built from real operating experience. We know what communities need because we support them. We know what sponsors need because we work with them. We know what practitioners ignore because we build for them. We know what investors should look for because we see the difference between real trust and vanity metrics.
Our Network
Trusted by industry leaders
Ecosystem Sponsors
Event Partners
Previous Speakers From
Community Attendees From
Recent Conference Spotlight
Northern DevOps & Platform Conference
Hosted at CGI Leeds on May 19th, 2026. 156 attendees exploring platform engineering, DevOps culture, and engineering excellence across the North of England.
Featured Speakers
Matthew Skelton
CEO/CTO, Conflux - Team Topologies
Holly Jukes
Head of Engineering, Lloyds Banking Group
Alexandra Moore
DevOps Strategic Advisor, CGI
Adam Wilbraham
Director of Technology, Flutter UK & Ireland
Brian Walker
Infrastructure Specialist, HSBC
Andy Burgin
Principal Platform Engineer
Sponsors
CGI
Headline
Conflux
Platinum
Ada Meher
Platinum
Overmind
Platinum
Accenture
Platinum
T5 Digital
Platinum
Hippo
Platinum
Axiologik
Platinum
Nearform
AI Native
Barnsley College
Education
Burendo
Community
Perforce
Community
Dash0
Community
Digital Endeavours
Community
Doza Consulting
Community
Nimble Approach
Community
Searchability
Community
Recent Event Spotlight
Data & AI Leaders - Agentic AI
Hosted with Lloyds Banking Group in London. 120+ attendees exploring the cutting edge of Agentic AI in enterprise.
Speakers
Joanna Crown
Director of Data, Moonpig
Dylan Ratcliffe
Founder & CEO, Overmind
Sultan AI Awar
Solutions Architect (Digital Natives), Databricks
Joseph Reeve
Growth, ElevenLabs
Astitva Karunesh
AI Business Lead, AI CoE, Lloyds Banking Group
Lara Vomfell
Senior Data & AI Scientist, AI CoE, Lloyds Banking Group
The Commercial Opportunity
Community is becoming one of the strongest routes to market.
The next generation of market leaders will not win by buying attention alone. They will win by building trust, supporting ecosystems, creating useful moments, and becoming visible in the places their audience already gathers.
Market Access
Reach the communities, events, leaders, practitioners, and ecosystem networks that shape your category.
Revenue Growth
Turn sponsorship, events, DevRel, content, partnerships, and community engagement into measurable commercial outcomes.
Strategic Value
Understand, assess, and grow community-led assets across companies, portfolios, conferences, audiences, and ecosystems.
Founder Profile
Led by Ethan Sumner
Community Stack Link is led by Ethan Sumner, Founder and CEO of Community Stack.
Ethan has built Community Stack from grassroots community organising into a growing infrastructure company spanning communities, conferences, platforms, campaigns, and ecosystem services. He has personally run and supported 125+ events across cloud, DevOps, platform engineering, AI, data, developer experience, leadership, and emerging technology.
His background includes work with major organisations including Microsoft, Barclays, Mastercard, and leading consultancies, giving him a rare mix of grassroots community credibility, enterprise technology experience, and commercial ecosystem understanding.
Grassroots Operator
Built and scaled communities from local meetups into wider ecosystems, conferences, campaigns, and commercial opportunities.
Enterprise Credibility
Worked across major technology, financial services, and consultancy environments, including Microsoft, Barclays, Mastercard, and leading consultancies.
Commercial Ecosystem Builder
Connects communities, sponsors, vendors, founders, investors, and enterprise partners around shared market opportunity.
Ethan understands how communities work because he has built them. He understands how enterprises buy because he has worked inside them. He understands sponsors because he has sold and delivered value for them. He understands market building because Community Stack operates inside these ecosystems every week.
How We Create Value
From trust to revenue.
For Communities
We help create sustainable revenue through sponsorship, partnerships, events, venues, speakers, commercial campaigns, and ecosystem access while protecting independence and trust.
For Organisations
We help build market presence through strategy, campaigns, events, DevRel, sponsorship, content, partnerships, and community-led activation.
For Sponsors
We help turn budget into presence, trust, relationships, content, engagement, introductions, and stronger return from community investment.
For Investors
We help assess whether community, audience, events, open source, or ecosystem influence represents real strategic and commercial value.
Engagement Models
Simple ways to work with us.
Advisory Sprint
A focused engagement to define the audience, message, ecosystem, opportunity, and 90-day community-led growth plan.
Campaign Project
A defined project to plan and execute a product launch, market-entry campaign, DevRel campaign, sponsorship campaign, or ecosystem activation.
Activation Delivery
End-to-end delivery of a conference, meetup, roundtable, webinar, private dinner, hackathon, product launch, or partner event.
Representation Partnership
Commercial representation for independent communities, conferences, associations, and ecosystem networks.
Portfolio Review
Assessment of a community-led company, conference, audience, open-source project, ecosystem, or portfolio opportunity.
Strategic Retainer
Ongoing support across community-led growth, events, sponsorship, DevRel, partnerships, content, campaigns, and ecosystem strategy.
Why It Matters
The future of growth is built through ecosystems.
Communities are where trust forms. Events are where relationships deepen. Ecosystems are where markets move. The organisations that understand this will build stronger brands, better partnerships, more credible launches, and more defensible routes to growth.
Community Stack Link is the bridge between communities that deserve support and organisations that need credible market access.
Done well, communities become more sustainable. Companies grow with trust. Sponsors get stronger returns. Investors understand hidden value. Markets become better connected.
Community in Action
Moments from our events.
Get Started
Build growth where trust already exists.
Community Stack Link helps you reach, support, and grow through the communities that shape your market. Whether you are a community organiser, sponsor, marketer, founder, DevRel leader, investor, or portfolio operator, Link gives you a credible route into the ecosystems that matter.