Celebrate success with Sonar
Sonar is proud to introduce the Sonar Excellence Awards, a new customer recognition program designed to acknowledge customers who are driving innovation, quality, and security throughout the software development lifecycle.
Sonar award categories
Learn more about the four Sonar Excellence Award categories:
AI Integration
For the trailblazers leveraging Sonar to ensure the highest quality and security of their AI-generated code. This category recognizes customers who are responsibly integrating AI into their development practices.
Code Excellence
Honoring those who consistently achieve exceptional code quality, maintainability, and reliability, setting new standards within their organizations.
Security First
Celebrating champions who have made remarkable strides in fortifying code security, drastically reducing vulnerabilities, and fostering a robust security posture.
Sonar Champion
Recognizing dedicated individuals who champion Sonar internally, driving adoption, fostering a strong culture of secure, quality code, and dramatically enhancing the developer experience through its seamless integration.
Code Excellence
APJ/ EMEA Winner: Foad Marciani
Company: Commonwealth Bank Australia
Job title: Head of Product Engineering
Foad Marciani, Head of Product Engineering at Commonwealth Bank Australia, has led one of the sector’s most ambitious quality transformations with the "Digital Transformation Quality Initiative." Integrating Sonar across hundreds of teams, Foad enabled real-time technical debt management, standardized code gates, and instant developer feedback, ensuring both operational excellence and regulatory compliance. His innovative "Quality Champions" program and gamification initiatives fostered engagement and made code quality a daily pursuit, while strategic use of Sonar data supports both engineering and business decisions. Under Foad’s leadership, CBA has achieved measurable reductions in technical debt, fortified its security posture, and accelerated delivery cycles—a benchmark for large-scale digital transformation in finance.
Selected for the Code Excellence category, Foad exemplifies the award by empowering developers and business leaders alike through innovative, scalable, and data-driven improvements to code health and reliability.
AMER Winner: Peter Nguyen
Company: United Wholesale Mortgage
Job title: Senior Principal Engineer
In his tenure at United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), the nation’s largest mortgage lender, Peter Nguyen has been instrumental in setting new benchmarks for code quality, reliability and maintainability. By implementing Sonar’s Data Center Edition across all major development teams, Peter embedded quality gates and rigorous reviews at the heart of every pull request and build —covering hundreds of repositories and reviewing thousands of PRs weekly. Under his guidance, Sonar metrics improved technical excellence, enabled SOC2 audit readiness and delivered year-over-year reductions in technical debt. Additionally, his hands-on approach and commitment to seamless integration within Bitbucket and CI/CD pipelines has elevated the standard for code excellence at UWM.
Peter’s achievements directly align with the Code Excellence category, which honors individuals and teams consistently delivering exceptional code standards. His impact is seen in quantifiable improvements in audit preparation, developer productivity and a results-driven engineering culture.
Sonar Champion
APJ/ EMEA Winner: Sarah Burgess
Company: Xero
Job title: Lead Product Manager
Sarah Burgess, representing Xero, leads by example in advocating Sonar as the essential tool for code risk and compliance in financial software. Xero’s deep engagement is evident in a full migration of 2,000+ projects to SonarCloud Enterprise, widespread use of innovative microservice orchestration apps, and a robust feedback-driven partnership with Sonar’s UX research and product management teams. Sarah and her colleagues have played key roles not only in technical transformation, but also in strengthening confidence and collaboration—even during major incidents—across every level of the organization. Xero’s recognition reflects not just commitment, but industry leadership and passion for secure, high-quality code.
Winning as a Sonar Champion, Sarah exemplifies the role of internal advocacy and sustainable best practices, making Sonar an integral part of Xero’s development culture, compliance, and forward-thinking innovation.
AMER: Jon Fechner
Company: Rockwell Automation (Optum)
Job title: Senior DevOps Manager
Jon Fechner has played a pivotal role in centralizing and elevating software delivery standards at Rockwell Automation (Optum), driving Sonar’s adoption across an expansive, global organization. By mobilizing executive sponsorship and leading the onboarding of dozens of teams, Jon and his collaborators ensured Sonar’s integration into everyday engineering workflows. The result: a consistently positive, supportive environment and a rapid surge in platform usage necessitating a swift upgrade to a larger license. Jon’s impactful advocacy and clear communication have set an organizational tone where code quality and secure delivery are the expectation, not the exception.
As a Sonar Champion, Jon demonstrates the dedication, organizational impact, and developer enablement the category recognizes, making him a true exemplar of Sonar-driven transformation.
Security First
APJ/ EMEA Winner: Phat Thitalohita
Company: Bangkok Bank
Job title: Senior IT Specialist
Phat Thitalohita has championed a transformative "shift left" strategy at Bangkok Bank, one of Thailand’s largest institutions. By embedding SonarQube into every stage of development and leveraging Portfolio dashboards for transparent governance, Phat established security and quality as core values shared by every developer. Innovations such as peer-learning sessions and full alignment with international standards (OWASP ASVS 4.0) have resulted in significant technical debt reductions, improved Code Quality coverage from 20% to over 50%, and enhanced regulatory compliance. Phat’s leadership makes secure, high-quality code the foundation for all digital operations at Bangkok Bank.
Chosen for Security First, Phat exemplifies dramatic improvements in vulnerability reduction, developer empowerment, and sustainable, compliant security practices.
AMER: Svetla Toncheva
Company: Nuvei Limited
Job title: DevOps Manager
Svetla Toncheva, DevOps Manager at Nuvei Limited, has created a secure global platform for financial transactions built on Sonar’s powerful scanning capabilities. By managing high LOC consumption and frequent upgrades, Svetla maintains a system where developers continuously find and fix bugs and proactively detect vulnerabilities—critical for fraud prevention and the safe integration of hundreds of payment methods worldwide. Her close partnership with Sonar ensures platform reliability and a sustainable security posture, driving both technical and process excellence within Nuvei’s fast-growing environment.
Her selection in the Security First category celebrates her exceptional strides in improving code security and reducing vulnerabilities, as well as fostering a developer culture where security is an everyday responsibility.
AI Integration
APJ/ EMEA Winner: Roy Novianto
Company: Telkomsel
Job title: General Manager, IT Quality Assurance & Deployment
Roy Novianto and the Telkomsel team have redefined AI-driven software delivery in Indonesia’s largest telecom provider, leading the charge to onboard multiple technical teams onto SonarQube and activating its innovative AI features. Fully Kubernetes-focused, Telkomsel’s advanced DevOps culture enables responsible exploration of AI in production, exemplified by engaging Sonar’s research team on AI-generated unit test feedback and being among the first to adopt new AI solutions within Sonar. Their openness and willingness to try all things AI has established Telkomsel as a globally recognized account and core technical stakeholder in Indonesia’s digital transformation.
Roy’s work fits squarely within the AI Integration category, which recognizes trailblazers leveraging Sonar for the highest standards of AI-generated code quality and security. Telkomsel’s rapid integration and willingness to collaborate on feature direction make them a standout in responsible, future-ready development.
AMER: Abhishek Koushal
Company: Boston Consulting Group
Job title: Global IT Tech Analyst Manager
Abhishek Koushal, Global Product Manager at Boston Consulting Group, stands out as a pioneer in the responsible integration of AI into development. By embedding Sonar deeply within the CI/CD pipeline, Abhishek ensures that every line of AI-generated code meets rigorous quality and security standards. Their leadership is evident in rapid and positive adoption of Sonar’s AI Code Fix feature, which has streamlined developer productivity and accelerated issue resolution. Abhishek’s sophisticated use of layered quality gates and proactive approach to optimizing resources demonstrate their commitment to continuous improvement and keeping code quality at the forefront of BCG’s global business services operations.
Chosen for their trailblazing contributions, Abhishek meets all criteria of the AI Integration category: leveraging Sonar to maintain high-quality, secure AI-driven projects and promoting innovative practices like aggregated views across complex architectures. Their efforts exemplify how forward-thinking practices and strategic solution adoption can drive tangible excellence and industry leadership.