Announcing the 2026 Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year, Firas Benbelgacem

Each year during Red Hat Summit, we recognize Red Hat Certified Professionals who make a difference in their organizations by demonstrating enthusiasm, commitment and dedication to their role and industry. We’re proud to announce that Firas Benbelgacem, Telco Cloud CaaS Engineer at Orange, has been named the 2026 Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year.

Firas has worked diligently to earn a variety of Red Hat Certifications, including up to Red Hat Certified Architect in both Enterprise Linux and OpenShift. Earning these certifications highlights Firas’s commitment to open source technologies and excellence in his field. 

“I chose learning as my strategy because certification and learning gave me more credibility and more confidence, especially for someone like me who didn't start in IT,” said Firas. “I think it helps me to handle complex projects. Red Hat Training and Certification changed my professional mindset.” 

Utilizing Red Hat Learning Subscription through the encouragement of Xavier, his manager, Firas was able to learn theory and practice labs all on his own time. This led to him being successful in earning a majority of the certifications he currently holds today. 

“Firas is someone who is calm, thoughtful and very caring. As a colleague, he is a very good teacher, and within a team he is capable of training and supporting any expert on the subjects within his area of expertise,” said Xavier. “As a manager that’s the greatest gift, to see that someone is developing.”

For more than 25 years, the Red Hat Certification program has had a single goal – validating skills through a program with rigorous, hands-on and performance-based testing. By encouraging IT professionals to become their organization's person in the Red Hat, earning certifications help close the skills gap facing the IT industry and act as benchmarks for what an industry professional should know when utilizing Red Hat technologies. 

Being recognized as the Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year marks a significant step in his ongoing commitment to innovation, IT excellence, and team leadership. Congratulations to Firas, who will be recognized this week in Atlanta, GA during Red Hat Summit 2026!