John Hughes
John Hughes is the VP of Product at Hyvä, where he oversees the development of Hyvä Commerce, Enterprise, and more. Based in Shrewsbury, UK, John has been working with Magento since 2012. Before joining Hyvä, he served as Technical Director at Fisheye, helping grow the agency and deliver high-performance eCommerce solutions.
He is passionate about fast, user-focused online stores and empowering both developers and merchants to get the most out of the Magento ecosystem. A fan of bold design and even bolder colours, John is famously obsessed with all things orange - possibly due to his long-standing love for Magento.
He was also a founding Board Member of Mage-OS and a contributor to the Magento Association’s content committee, helping shape the future of the platform and its community
2025-11-24
- 10:00 - 10:30
- 30 min
CMS is a large part of almost all Magento websites, and for many developers it’s something that you spend a lot of time working with (or against!).
For too long, uttering the phrase ‘CMS’ in relation to Magento has caused panic, fear and loathing for developers (and users), but those feelings are soon to be a thing of the past. This is not another Hyvä CMS demo! Instead, this talk delves into the history of CMS with Magento, the issues developers have traditionally faced and dives deep into what a good CMS should offer developers from a technical perspective. It covers experiences (and issues) with Page Builder and external CMSs, and provides insights, tips and best practices in relation to our new solution, Hyvä CMS, and why we decided to build it from the ground up. It will be equal parts educational, informative and therapeutic, as well as fun (with gifs/memes etc.)!
Key takeaways the talk will provide:
- The fundamentals of what is wrong with existing CMS solutions
- What a modern CMS should provide for developers
- Get an understanding of the decision making process that led us to build Hyvä CMS
- Best practices on working with Hyvä CMS (or any other CMS)
- Gain some tips on lesser known areas of Hyvä CMS and how you can extend/customise
- 14:00 - 15:00
- 60 min
In the digital age, e-commerce platforms based on the Software as a Service (SaaS) model dominate the market thanks to their simplicity, speed of implementation, and affordability. On the other hand, open source software has long offered flexibility and full control over the code, which is crucial for large and custom projects. How can this be used optimally?
The discussion focuses on the question: in an increasingly standardized world of SaaS, do the openness and flexibility of open source platforms still constitute a key competitive advantage? Do they give companies a unique opportunity to stand out in the market, build custom solutions, and avoid vendor lock-in?
This topic explores how companies can use open source software not only to create, but also to scale and innovate, gaining unique advantages that cannot be achieved in a closed SaaS platform ecosystem.