Jesse Ford

Automation Architect ‐ Itential

Jesse is a Network Automation Architect at Itential with over 20 years of experience spanning the U.S. Marine Corps, telecommunications, and enterprise networking. His career reflects the industry’s shift from manual operations to scalable, intelligent automation. From designing mission-critical networks for the Marines to leading infrastructure at Verizon Wireless, Jesse has applied lessons from both successes and setbacks to develop practical automation strategies. He specializes in multi-vendor environments, leveraging tools like Ansible, Python, Terraform, Netbox, and Nautobot. Passionate about mentorship and knowledge sharing, Jesse empowers teams to sustain and advance automation practices while bridging technical and business priorities.