đź’ˇ Product Circle â• Chat - European Tech Sovereignty with Joana Pereira
​Welcome to 💡 Product Circle ╠Chat on
đź•” Wednesday 26 August 2026 at 7pm (AEST - Sydney)
đź•• Wednesday 26 August 2026 at 9am (CET - Oslo)
​Topic: European Tech Sovereignty: What It Means and Why It's Happening Now
​A generation ago, a European digital infrastructure would have been a quaint idea. Today, European governments are walking away from decades-long contracts with providers like Microsoft and AWS. The official reason is jurisdiction, not service quality. But the trigger goes deeper than paperwork.
Why now?
​Since 2018, the US CLOUD Act has meant that data stored on European soil by a US-headquartered provider can still be compelled into US hands on request, regardless of where the servers physically sit (CNBC, TechCrunch). That risk sat mostly theoretical for years. What appears to have turned it urgent: in 2025, after the Trump administration sanctioned ICC officials, Microsoft reportedly cut off email access for those individuals — a moment European officials, including former EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, now cite directly as proof that a "kill switch" can be flipped once and can be flipped again (The Register).
​That's why this has moved from conference talk to law. On 3 June 2026, the European Commission unveiled the Cloud and AI Development Act, a tiered framework that would bar AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud from the most sensitive government workloads — health, finance, justice, defence — and gives Brussels emergency powers to override existing contracts during a crisis (Tech Times, Tech Policy Press). It's already playing out on the ground: France moved its Health Data Hub off Azure to French provider Scaleway, and the Commission awarded a €180 million sovereign cloud tender to four European provider groups in April 2026 — though even that drew criticism, since one winning consortium runs on infrastructure underpinned by Google Cloud (TechCrunch).
​US providers are racing to respond with their own "sovereign cloud" offerings — Microsoft's EU Data Boundary, AWS's European Sovereign Cloud — but European buyers remain largely unconvinced, since none of these resolve the underlying CLOUD Act jurisdiction problem (The Register).
​So: is Europe walking away because these providers aren't European, or because trust broke? Joana's answer, and ours: the nationality question is the policy proxy. The trust question is the actual driver.
​Joana Pereira has spent her career building products across six countries and ten industries, sitting in C-suite seats while Europe's regulatory and market conditions shifted under her feet. She joins us to unpack this shift from the inside, and what it means for product people building inside this new reality and for software companies watching from outside it.
​What we'll cover
​✅ What "tech sovereignty" actually means, beyond the headlines
​✅ The CLOUD Act, the 2025 ICC sanctions moment, and why trust broke before the laws caught up
​✅ The Cloud and AI Development Act: what it requires and who it affects
​✅ Data residency, procurement rules, and what they mean for product roadmaps
​✅ Whether a distinct "European product playbook" is emerging, and what it looks like
​✅ What this shift means for software companies outside Europe selling into it
​"To work in the tech industry in Europe right now is to watch an inflection point in history being crossed in real time. While no one can tell what the new paradigm will be, it has become clear that the current one will not carry on." — Joana Pereira
​Perfect for: Product Managers, Senior PMs, and Product Leaders working in or selling into European markets, plus anyone trying to understand where European tech regulation is headed next.
​
​About Joana Pereira
​Joana Belo Pereira is a product executive whose career spans six countries, ten industries, and C-suite roles across Europe. She has deep experience in M&A integration, cross-border organisational transformation, and building product functions from scratch, giving her a practitioner's view of what it actually takes to ship products under different regulatory, cultural, and market conditions.
​She is co-founder of The House of European Tech, a publication and hub showcasing the best of European companies, products, and founders, and currently works at the intersection of EU regulatory compliance and product strategy.
​Between 2022 and 2025, Joana coached dozens of PMs and aspiring PMs on career management in product. More recently, she has been researching how product careers actually unfold, gathering hard data to confirm or disprove some of the most widely repeated myths in product management.
Zoom Link: See invite
​✨Attend and WIN ✨
​You know we always have something special to giveaway at every chat. This one is no different!
​🏆1 lucky attendee will receive a free 1-hour coaching session with Joana.
✨Virtual Networking ✨
​The first hour of the Chat will be recorded. Afterward, stay on for live networking with product and tech peers from around the world—no recording, just meaningful connections.
Mark your calendar, bring your questions for Joana!
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✨Huge Speakers Booked✨
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​If you missed our past speakers, catch up on the recordings with Christian Idiodi, Rich Mironov, Jason Knight, April Dunford, Bob Moesta and many other Leaders!
​All Product Circle Chat recording will be posted at https://theproductvenn.substack.com/
​thanks,
​Irene
​--
​Irene Liakos
​Product
irene@phronesisadvisory.com
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