Mandy is a Principal Architect and Global Technical Customer Advocate in VMware’s Global Support organization. As a technologist, Mandy focuses on enterprise architecture and continually expands her expertise including automation and integrations, into cloud, networking, and the edge. Mandy is a frequent speaker at events and is passionate about driving innovative solutions to her customers. Mandy loves to lift others up, especially through mentoring others. In her spare time, you can find Mandy outdoors, hiking, biking, camping, skiing or practicing canine agility with her standard poodle.

Kim is a Senior Staff Solution Architect in the Cloud Incubation team focusing on the newest VMware Cloud technologies. She has been with VMware since 2010 and is a frequent speaker at events and conferences. Kim is also a former Ambassador to the Office of the CTO and a Culture Chair for the global PRIDE@VMware leadership team. Prior to joining the Cloud Incubation team, she was an architect in the VMware Cloud Management BU and later in the Customer Success team. She has spent much of her career in professional services, implementing software and developing custom solutions for customers around the world. You can connect with Kim on twitter at @KCDAutomate or http://www.teamkandycloud.com

Rick Vanover is an expert in intelligent data management. In his role at Veeam, Rick sits at the crossroads of many types of storage. Whether it is storage systems, critical application data, data in the cloud or data anywhere in between; Rick has experience in the data management practice as IT practices change with new technologies.

Matt Crape is a skilled specialist in data protection. As a Senior Technical Product Marketer, he works with the expanded Veeam team to develop content to share with customers, prospects, and the IT community alike. With a background that includes systems administration and IT management, he’s developed a reputation for working closely with customers to help them achieve their goals.

Todd is a Global Solutions Architect at Dell Technologies with over 25 years’ experience developing Cloud and End User computing solutions optimizing IT services & strategy to achieve strategic business outcomes. My primary focus has been helping organizations adapt and embrace an always changing technology landscape to achieve agility and competitive advantage aligned with business objectives.                    

Specialties: Cloud Native Application Strategy planning, Cloud Operating Model and DevOps strategy development, public cloud adoption models, Cloud Native application transformation strategy development, Edge use case and solutions development, software defined data center product planning & design. Pre-Sales engineering leadership. Driving business outcomes and alignment through sound Digital Transformation strategies

As a Staff Technical Marketing Architect at VMware, Dave Morera’s responsibilities encompass all things vSphere, with a particular focus on Persistent Memory, hardware accelerators, and Hybrid Cloud with vSphere+.

Joe Houghes is a co-leader of the Denver VMware & PowerShell User Groups and he's a Sr. Solutions Architect with Pure Storage. He focuses on automating us out of our IT operations while freeing us to perform higher-level tasks.

Joe has been the #1 speaker internationally for VMUG in 2021 and 2022 for virtual/in-person events, and works to encourage the next community speaker(s) to take his place, while helping get them started.

Joe believes automation should be a focus for admins & engineers, although it requires in-depth thinking beyond performing a task once. Even though it is not always someone's default method, the result is then repeatable and consistent.

Joe tries to help others understand why we should do the easy tasks better, and he challenges everyone to push themselves outside of their comfort zone and learn more about any topic of interest.

He's a collector of communities as a leader for 2 User Groups, vExpert Pro, Cisco Champion, Veeam Vanguard, Tanzu Vanguard, plus vBrownBag crew. He tells people not to let fear keep them from sharing their knowledge with others and teaching from their unique perspective.

You can spot him by the bright hat, big grin, and the loud "Howdy Y'all."

I lead product marketing for Application development services and Developer Relations for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Illyse is a Data Center Cloud Solutions Architect with 20+ years of hands-on IT design, including consulting experience with enterprise datacenters of all sizes across multiple industries. Leveraging in- depth technical knowledge with well-honed strategic analytical skills, Illyse specializes in identifying and remediating environments in need of agile transformation. With expertise in software-defined data center solutions across compute, storage, networking, and enterprise applications, Illyse has led orchestration/automation projects across dedicated, virtualized and public cloud infrastructures. As a member of the “VMware Champs”, an informal Intel group, Illyse is frequently called upon to speak in front of customers, partners and our joint sales staff. Illyse’s industry certifications include but are not imited to: VPC-DV; AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate; and Azure Fundamentals.

Danika Jaskulak-Gonzalez (she/her) is a Cloud Solutions Architect on the Cloud Incubation Team at VMware. She has been with the company for a little over a year now, joining through the New Grad Academy Program. She studied Applied Computer Science at Dominican University of California and was first introduced to the field of technology through Girls Who Code when she was 16 and her interest grew through Girl Up when she was 17. During college, she taught for Girls Who Code as well as The Coder School before joining VMware.

Hasini Bandara (she/her) is the Strategy & Execution Lead for the Cloud Incubation team, where she streamlines cross functional pre-sales team efforts to grow and foster the adoption of emerging technologies that expand the global presence of VMware Cloud Solutions. Formally a Solutions Engineer for VMware’s Federal Healthcare team. Initially coming through the New College Graduate Academy Program, Hasini is a President’s Club winner and former America’s SE of the Quarter. Her passion for inclusion shows through her efforts on the leadership board for Women Allies & Sales and recruiting efforts for Academy Program new hires. Outside of work, she prides herself on pretending she is a local restaurant critic, advising a mental health advocacy non-profit, and scootering around DC on the weekends with friends and family.

Kim is a Senior Staff Solution Architect in the Cloud Incubation team focusing on the newest VMware Cloud technologies. She has been with VMware since 2010 and is a frequent speaker at events and conferences. Kim is also a former Ambassador to the Office of the CTO and a Culture Chair for the global PRIDE@VMware leadership team. Prior to joining the Cloud Incubation team, she was an architect in the VMware Cloud Management BU and later in the Customer Success team. She has spent much of her career in professional services, implementing software and developing custom solutions for customers around the world. You can connect with Kim on twitter at @KCDAutomate or http://www.teamkandycloud.com

Natalie Wenske (she/her) started her professional journey quite different than most people at VMware. Her career started in a salon, doing hair of all things. Five years later, Natalie was married with a kid, and decided to transition to a career in sales, for more family friendly hours and benefits. She pursued roles as a Territory Account Manager for a distributor, eventually went into B2B sales and spent the majority of the next 15 years selling business outsourcing solutions to small business as a Sr. Business Consultant. Natalie pivoted and became employee number three at a new tech start up known as CloudChomp, and she was quickly promoted to the VP of Sales & Strategic Alliances. In December 2021, CloudChomp was acquired by VMware, and Natalie joined the Cloud Economics team to assist with the transfer of knowledge after the acquisition. In May 2022, Natalie was offered a permanent role, with an amazing group of people, on the Cloud Incubation team as a Staff Cloud Architect.

Yukari Osanai (she/her) started her career as software engineer developing w-cdma cell phones at Motorola then entirely changed my career at SAP certified basis consultant at Arthur Andersen, KPMG consulting, and BearingPoint. Yukari then moved to storage vendors (EMC, VCE, NetApp, and Canadian Pacific Railways) as an SAP SME. She then jumped to join a startup CMP (Cloud Management Platform) company experiencing open/close the entity in Tokyo. Finally, I am at VMware at the Cloud Incubation Team working on emerging products, as a Staff Cloud Architect on the team.

Uma came to VMware after graduating from Georgia Tech through the Sales Academy program. She moved to the VMware Cloud on AWS pre-sales solution engineering team where she presented and demoed to a number of customers and led Pilots/POCs. She then moved to the consumption focused Velocity team before landing at the Cloud Incubation team as a Solution Architect. She enjoys learning about new technologies and innovative solutions.

I have been with VMware 4 years and serve as a Staff Technical Account Manager covering Enterprise accounts out of Nashville, TN.  I am the internal Global Lead for the Skyline Taskforce Team, as well as one of the leaders for the newly developed internal Skyline SME POD.  I am the Skyline HOL Captain and work closely with the Skyline Tech Marketing and Product Teams to provide feedback and assist with demos and workshops.  I frequently speak at local VMUG meetings, UserCONs, and VMware Explore on Skyline, Patch Management, and vSphere Upgrades.  I am a 9x vExpert and hold VCP (VCP-DCV ’22) and VCAP (VCAP-DCV Design ’22) certifications.  Prior to working at VMware, I held various Senior IT Management and Engineering Roles for both Regional and Global Organizations in an IT Career that has spanned over 30 years, and previously served as a VMUG Leader and Steering Committee Member for 10+ years in various VMUG Chapters.

A 25+ year IT veteran, Matt Heldstab is the architect of the Minnesota State Colleges and University system’s virtual infrastructure. Matt is a member of the VMUG Global Board of Directors, leader of the Minneapolis VMUG, and the chair of the Program Success Committee, which oversees all VMUG programs and events.  Matt has presented at tech conference events across the country including two VMworld's, and over 20 VMUG User Conferences.

A double-VCP in Datacenter and Desktop virtualization, Matt is a 9-time VMware vExpert, 6-time VMware EUC Champion, and 3-time vExpert EUC.

Colin Rutherford currently serves as a Field CTO at Dell Technologies covering North America. In this role, he leverages his business & technology knowledge to help organizations translate their business strategies into innovative technology strategies that connect data, applications and infrastructure. Colin also provides technical thought leadership across a range of emerging technology domains. With experience spanning APJ and North America, Colin has worked across technology vendor, consultancy, and internal roles (Private and Public Enterprise Level). This has provided him with a unique and well-rounded view of the technology landscape, across a wide range of industry verticals and technologies.

His primary responsibility is to help drive collaborative sales and strategy and promote the adoption of Dell and VMware joint solutions. In this role, he leads a technical community and is responsible for the development and execution of programs focused on how Dell Technologies can deliver differentiated technology solutions and outcomes to organizations in the areas of Cloud, Edge, and AI through the partnership with VMware.

Dianna Marks is a product marketing manager at ControlUp for the VDI and DaaS product, Real-Time DX. Before joining ControlUp, she worked at Microsoft as a product marketing manager for Windows Server, Windows Admin Center, and Office 365 security. She also served as a product marketing manager at Dell for entry to midrange-level storage hardware. Dianna loves to write and come up with creative new ways to translate the value of technology for customers.

Tom Fenton has a wealth of hands-on IT experience gained over the past 30 years in technologies involving virtualization and storage. He currently works as a Technical Marketing Engineer for ControlUp. He writes for Virtualization and Cloud Review Magazine and StorageReview.com. He held Staff and Senior positions at VMware, IBM Sequent, and The Taneja Group. He can be contacted at @vDoppler. He lives in the Pacific Northwest. He enjoys skiing, hiking, motorbiking, and extreme gardening 

Rob has been leading DevOps automation since filing patents for the first virtualized clouds in 2000. He founded RackN to help companies be both collaborative and autonomous with system automation.  They focus on providing distributed IaC Pipelines for Cloud, Edge and Enterprise infrastructure.   He is also a frequent community speaker and leader of the weekly the2030.cloud virtual hallway discussions.

Bob Plankers works in the Cloud Platforms group at VMware, focusing on all forms of security and compliance from VMware Cloud to on-premises vSphere. Prior to joining VMware, he spent more than two decades leading cross-organizational teams that designed, built, and operated reliable, secure, and compliance-oriented IT infrastructures worldwide, focusing not just on technological solutions, but also the people and process aspects, too.

After one too many failed presentations, Neil Thompson, an engineer, knew he had to improve. He did so, and now works with technical professionals like himself to improve their communication skills. He hosts a podcast, the Teach the Geek podcast, interviewing technical professionals about their public speaking journeys. He is also author of the book, Teach the Geek to Speak: a No-fluff Public Speaking Guide for STEM Professionals.

Jason has been in the IT industry for 20 years and currently works for VMware as a Senior Strategic Accounts Solutions Sale Architect where he helps enterprise and global companies define and reach their business and technology initiatives. He has worked for several Fortune 500 companies in the areas of finance, consumer goods, and market research. Jason holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Studies from Florida State University and a Masters in Science in Entrepreneurship in Applied Technology from University of South Florida. Jason has over 10 years’ small firm consulting experience as a computer system engineer and has also engaged in several small entrepreneurial ventures. He cofounded The Breast of Texas Dragon Boat Team, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; whose mission is to empower breast cancer survivors through the sport of dragon boating. In his free time he and his wife enjoy volunteering and taking their therapy dog, Gilley, to various organizations.

Sean Massey is a EUC Technologist and Staff Multi-Cloud Solutions Architect for VMware. He blogs about Horizon and End User Computing at thevirtualhorizon.com. He is VCDX-DTM 247, and he is part of the NVIDIA GRID Community Advisors program and a VMUG steering committee member in Wisconsin.

Patrick Coble is an EUC vExpert, CTP, and Nerd who has worked in IT for over 26 years, with ten years as a customer, nine years as a Partner, and now seven years working at VDISEC providing security, deployment, and architecture services. He has a passion for presenting information on INFOSEC and EUC topics, doing Penetration tests to break into companies, and training people on cyber security and privacy. @VDIHacker

As the Executive Director of the VMware User Group (VMUG), Brad Tompkins is tasked with providing executive leadership to the organization. He sits on the VMUG Board who is responsible for advancing the group's mission through strategic planning and fostering a forward-looking vision. With oversight of all VMUG programs and operations, Brad is dedicated to creating value for stakeholders, including the global community of 150,000+ members, volunteer leaders, as well as VMware, and its partners.