Self-Introduction

I was born near Rome and raised in Sardinia, a wonderful island in the Mediterranean Sea. After my studies in Marketing and Digital Communication and before joining Microsoft, I worked for companies like XING and Airbnb, as a community manager. From the very first moment I´ve heard about the MVPs, I was immediately fascinated and wanted to work with such amazing people.

Besides my passion for working with influencers, I love foreign languages, traveling, and meeting people from all the corners of the world. Although I have a strong interest in the latest trends in the web and the online world, I very much enjoy connecting with people offline as well. I am particularly curious about people´s ancestry and background. Beyond that mythology and ancient history are my big passion.

Email Address:

alice.piras@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

After graduating from Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan with a degree in Marketing and Logistics Management, I hit the road as software trainer. Later, I joined a software company, TechSmith, where I was the Camtasia Product Manager and Chief Technical Evangelist. I am story teller who is passionate about community, technology and social media. I've authored over 800 blog posts, created hundreds of screencast videos and traveled extensively across the globe educating new audiences. I was honored to join Microsoft in June 2016.

Email Address:

Betsy.Weber@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

I was born and raised in Mexico, earned a BS in Economics and started my career as a financial analyst most recently with Amazon. In my personal life I love learning about gadgets, food and traveling. I hope to visit a new country every year, maybe even all the continents. My favorite part of traveling is eating, not a foodie, just like eating good food. I try to offset this by running, cycling, and on the rare occasion doing a triathlon, marathon, or century bike ride.

Email Address:

Christian.Talavera@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

I have been at Microsoft for 15 years and in that time, I have worked across the business in roles covering training, certification, audience evangelism and product management. Prior to starting at Microsoft, I was a keen dancer and attended Leeds University studying English and Dance. I love working with technology and I’m always impressed with the way my two daughters adapt to the changing world of devices, apps and developing. It amuses me to know that my daughter’s will never understand that at one time, you took a photograph and then had it developed before you could view it.

Email Address:

csmyth@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

After studying Economics at the Madrid UAM University, and studying a post-graduate program in international business management across different European countries, I joined Microsoft as an intern in 2002 working in the Small and Medium Business marketing organization in Munich. Amazed from the very beginning by this fast-moving technology environment, the creativity around the product launch campaigns as well as the passion about software adoption and constant "learning-by-doing" - I was offered the opportunity to work with our brilliant community in Spain. The MVP Program has evolved over time to adapt to the latest community trends, embracing a diverse and always growing group of technology leaders passionate about community.

Email Address:

crisgonz@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

The Community Program Manager (CPM) role is my second stint at Microsoft, after spending a few years at IBM (running the IBM Champion program and community/social media strategy for DB2-LUW) and Akamai. Most recently, I ran a startup which built plug-and-play data visualization web-parts for Microsoft SharePoint. During my previous time at Microsoft, I was managing community audience marketing campaigns as well as the RD program, besides working on events like TechEd. I was also one of the first Enthusiast Evangelists – a set of roles chartered to appeal to the ‘hobbyist’ in developers. An engineer and a proud Bangalorean at heart, I have spent all my living years in the garden city, where I continue to live with my software-architect wife and 8-year old son.

Email Address:

deraje@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

I returned to my hometown in 2008 to put a pause on my overseas life due of family. For the past 8 years (when I started working as a marketing professional) I studied a BBA and MBA degree at the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland. There I worked in M&C, PMM and in a COO role for 3 different multinational companies. Getting settled in Beijing and re-learning the working culture locally is not an easy thing. With all of the great people’s help, I did make every single success in my career. I love to work in the IT industry as a woman. I lived in Toronto, Canada for 8 years where I experienced cultural diversity. It seems I choose to always lives in cold places. I am happy to face all different challenges; and I love to succeed. In my life, travel is very important to me and I am always excited to explore new places, meet new people and see a new culture. Walking around all over the world would be my dream come true.

Email Address:

diliang@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

When I reflect on my career history, the passion I have for community started from day one. When I was a young professional, I began my career in a fundraising and marketing capacity for various humanitarian and children’s charities, and I soon realized people and communities were at the heart of everything that I was doing.

I then transitioned into various ICT organizations across Australia, managing an awards innovation program and helping ICT professionals develop their technology career and workforce skills. Today, I am thrilled to be part of the Microsoft family and support a vibrant community of MVPs and Regional Directors.

Email Address:

epappalardo@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil and decided at an early age that technology would be part of my life. I earned my degree in Computer Science and have always had a special affection for collaborative solutions and management methodologies, and that is where Microsoft started to change my career. Back in 2010, I had the honor of being nominated as a SharePoint Server MVP and with that came the opportunity to know most of my friends. Along with other MVPs, we created the famous MS Tech Day across 15 cities and gathered over 4,000+ attendees, among leaders and students with one single objective: the passion for community!

Email Address:

Fernanda.Saraiva@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

I’m passionate about IT since I was 9 and started programming on Apple II computers. Since this time, I had no doubt that I´d develop my career working in Technology. After working at several startups, I went on to Xerox (2y), Unisys (6y) and Microsoft (10y) in different roles like: developer, consultant, project manager, TAM and Cloud Infra SSP. In 2016, after a very good personal experience at Silicon Valley I came back to Brazil and posted the Vale Digital Manifesto with the goal to develop a community where we connected the Public Sector, Private Enterprises, Academic Institutions and the Society to transform our reality by doing and not waiting. for. After that moment on, my beliefs were stronger than ever that ONE can impact and influence MANY! With this startup spirit (idea-MVP-replicate-scale) I´m very excited and to join the team to make history with MVP´s and other communities in Brazil and WW to make Microsoft more and more relevant for everyone!

Email Address:

glauterj@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

After studying electronics and computers science at the Orsay University in the 80’s, I spent 12 years working in development, first in low layers (BIOS/OS) in different languages such as Assembler and C, then in the applicative layer, focusing on C++ and Visual Basic. After these experiences; I entered Microsoft France in 1997 as a Premier Support Engineer, supporting Development tools, with a specialty in Data Access areas. (At that time, I was a newsgroups contributor!). After 7 years, I decided to stop the technical stuff to move my career to a more relational path: And so, I became Community Program Manager (named MVP Lead at that time).

Email Address:

Martine.Thiphaine@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

Hey! I take pleasure in doing what others say is impossible; always looking at how things can be done. I am a creative individual dedicated to creating success stories coupled with positive community experiences. Growing up in an international environment enabled me to see the world from a different perspective: the perspective of new emerging technologies and their interconnectedness with local communities. Consequently, I went to study Management of Information Systems & Entrepreneurship at University of Minnesota. After graduating, I joined Microsoft in 2012, as a Technical Account Manager in Austin, Texas, and for the past 8 years I have worked directly with Microsoft’s Global Enterprise Services customers. Over the years of working with large enterprises I felt an urge to go back to the roots and focus on Microsoft’s communities. As a result of my increased involvement witch such communities I moved back “home” to CEE to work with Microsoft’s MVP global community leaders. Going forward, I want to empower each and every MVP to achieve more and to provide MVPs with the tools needed to do so.

Email Address:

matatar@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

Born and raised in Japan. Before joining Microsoft, I worked as a software test engineer for 4 years and made efforts to improve the quality of the car audio system for popular luxury cars of the United States and Germany. I have really enjoyed my role as a Japan-based Community Coordinator since I started my career in Microsoft in 2013, and had a great time with our awesome MVPs, Regional Directors (RDs), and community members so far. In my private life, I love watching baseball game at the ballpark with having a beer. I am the big fan of Yokohama DeNA Baystars!

Email Address:

Rie.Moriguchi@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

I was born and raised in New York. I’ve worked in different industries, including working as the director of business development for a financial services startup, as an Americorp volunteer at the Mayor's office of Veterans' Affairs and a community manager at Edge4Vets, an organization that helps veterans transition from the military into the civilian workplace. Most recently I worked as a developer relations associate at Elastic, a data analytics company. My responsibilities included management of meetups and conferences.

Email Address:

Rochelle.Sonnenberg@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

Before becoming a community manager at Microsoft, I worked as a Product Marketing Manager for various online products at the company. Previously, prior to joining Microsoft, I worked at internet companies as a strategy and business planning manager. During that time, I also started my own venture start-up company, specializing in online content and community building for targeted audiences like university students, businessmen, and women, etc. To date, I have also worked in Shanghai and Tokyo looking for business partners and opportunities while working for the Korean Internet and game company, NeoWiz.

Email Address:

sylee@microsoft.com

Self-Introduction

My professional involvement in marketing began while I was studying Business English and Italian at the Copenhagen Business School, working as a Sales Secretary. I was later hired at Microsoft, where I spent my first 5 years working in communications and marketing, targeting small and medium business partners in education. Since that time, I have also held a role in our OEM organization, working with Nordic and Western European partners. My most recent role transformed from another focus in Audience Marketing, where I spent 3.5 years working in Denmark before joining the global team of community program managers!

Email Address:

tinas@microsoft.com