AvePoint's Community Champions

Matthew has passion for bringing technology and people together, and after 25 years building software solutions for Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Cisco, Saleforce.com and more, I started Blacktip to transform technology consulting for the Florida and regional Southeast markets. He believes that the right technology solutions can make companies and their teams thrive, so he listens to our clients’ needs, provide the highest quality service and work as a long-term partner to keep technology accessible, efficient and invisible.

With over With 10 years of experience in digital transformation, including 6 years in the Microsoft 365 cloud environment, Laurent is a Microsoft MVP and digital workplace consultant based in France.

He works with worldwide clients in business and education sectors, designing and implementing modern workplace/modern teaching with Teams and other Microsoft 365 tools.

Focused on the WHY and HOW and the "indispensable but often forgotten" translation between IT and users, he loves sharing his dual expertise in adoption change management & technical governance and can be found presenting in many languages (french, english, japanese) at international conferences and user groups.

My Microsoft journey started in 2012 when my Manager told me to start learning SharePoint. I learned how to build a SharePoint server, build forms, and give tech solutions from blogs, tutorials, and the tech community. Everything changed when Microsoft 365 has released. After that, my field of expertise widened. I am now working as a Productivity Analyst focusing on Microsoft 365 and Power Platform.

I am curious about how things work, especially regarding technology. Learning and connecting with people have been my great companions since then. I want to help others by leveraging the value of the services offered by Microsoft 365. In any way possible, I try as much as I can to help the tech community and the business as I love doing it.

Senior Office 365 and SharePoint Consultant and Office 365 MVP with over 15 years of experience in public and private sector and various verticals. Since 2003 I have been focusing on SharePoint, delivering solutions and contributing as a SharePoint consultant, project manager, business analyst, and trainer. In addition to my professional tenure I've always been a big proponent of sharing knowledge and giving back to the community through presenting at numerous conferences and networking meetings on the topics of utilizing SharePoint for various business verticals, SharePoint and business process optimization as well as managing projects. Prior to entering the SharePoint arena, I spent a number of years in the medical imaging industry where I helped launch an orthopedic software division and published four patents and numerous articles. I hold a Masters of Science in Computer Science with a specialty in Computer-Assisted Orthopedic Surgery from Queen’s University and a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from the York Schulich School of Business, and am a PMI-certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP).

Born is Sweden in 1977. Started my career in IT in 2002 in a ServiceDesk. That was the first time I encountered backup. It was Backup Exec 8. Since then, I’ve worked with many different backup solutions and had many different roles, all from a network technician to team leader of a service provider with managed services. I've now landed at a new company called Cristie Nordic and a new role as Senior Engineer working with Avepoint as my main focus area.

Marciana is a Salesforce MVP and a 10X Certified Salesforce professional. She works as an independent consultant with a passion for mentoring and teaching. She was determined to get into tech, but she didn't find her true break until she discovered Salesforce. Through several classes, she gained the skills and network to land her first role as a Salesforce Administrator, but the learning didn't stop there. She was determined to build her developer skills, so she learned to code with Trailhead, and worked on key projects throughout her career.

Stacy Deere, MVP is the Owner of Focal Point Solutions LLC, a Cincinnati, OH based company that provides SharePoint Solutions for all and focuses on doing so by following best practices and doing it the right way. Previously, Stacy led a rapidly growing SharePoint practice where she engaged in a wide range of consulting projects across various industries. With 20+ years of experience in the IT Industry, Stacy has mainly focused on Collaboration Solutions such as IBM’s Lotus Notes\Domino and Microsoft’s Messaging and Collaboration Solutions. She has numerous environment deployments, upgrades and many other SharePoint & M365 projects under her belt.

Within the SharePoint community, Stacy is a SharePoint MVP and is known for topics such as Governance, User Adoption, Administration and planning. She is actively sharing her real world expertise through her blog http://www.spmindmelt.focalpointsolutions.co, and speaking engagements such as SharePoint Saturday’s, Collab365, ITUnity, SPTechCon, SharePoint Fest, SharePoint Engage, and User Group events. She has also co-authored two books called SharePoint 2013 and 2010 Using Managed Metadata.

I have for several years been working as a consultant mostly focusing on Microsoft products and cloud technologies. Today I work to empower businesses with the help of Microsoft 365 and modern tools - helping customers collaborate better, work more efficient and be more productive. I’m also an active Office Apps and Services MVP, doing community work like speaking at events, co-hosting the European Teams User Group and contributing to the Microsoft TechCommunity.

Ami diamond is a SharePoint and Microsoft Teams Consultant With over 15 years of experience in IT.

He is the owner of YouTube channel named “SharePoint Wizard” where he uploads tips and tricks and new features in SharePoint online and Microsoft Teams https://www.youtube.com/c/SharePointWizard

With over 20 years of experience in technology, Stephanie is a leader, an innovator, and skilled problem solver. She believes that technology can minimize risk and maximize business growth and potential. Stephanie is a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP and a recognized member of the Modern Workplace community where she speaks, writes, and organizes events. Stephanie's community engagement helps her stay on the pulse of technology to get ahead of the curve when it comes to emerging technologies. She leverages her knowledge and relationships with vendors, peers, and thought leaders into innovative business solutions for customers. As Technical Community Lead, Stephanie supports Avanade’s global technical leadership communities.

Paul come's with unique skill-set of having a great technical knowledge whilst maintaining a strong connection to the end user. He understands how individuals and teams operate today and finding bespoke means for improving their individual effectiveness and efficiency is key to their successful adoption of Microsoft 365 products. Paul has recently worked with organisations such as The Houses of Parliament , NHS England and Scope charity.

Blog:http://pauldredge.co.uk

I am a US Navy Veteran and lead Reputation Management and Social Selling thought leadership. I'm the architect of the official state websites of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which are powered by Microsoft SharePoint technologies.

I served a key technical advisory role in several political campaigns, including the re-election campaign of a US governor. I am an Amazon Best Selling Author and acting President of SCORE Greater Baltimore, a resource partner of Small Business Administration responsible for the launch of 191 new businesses and the creation of 147 new jobs in 2019.

I am the leader of the longest running Microsoft training and User group community in Maryland and host of Microsoft SharePoint Saturday, an annual one day conference which is currently in its 13th year.

I specialize in high visibility, public-facing consulting engagements with a key focus on information and platform architecture, on-premises to cloud migrations, enterprise social media, governance, instructional systems design, and information worker training.

I am the founder of Managed Path Solutions, a Microsoft partner which focuses on post deployment support of Microsoft technology.

Daniel is a Microsoft MVP and Independent Consultant working with organizations throughout North America to help them understand, adopt, and love their technology. Daniel is a sought-after trainer, providing customized Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Microsoft Viva, Power BI, and Power Automate training for companies around the world.

Daniel is passionate about building technical community in Tennessee with his roles as the co-founder and current President of the Nashville Microsoft 365 Users Group and Director of Microsoft 365 Nashville. He is also co-host for the popular "365 Message Center Show" at https://365MCS.com. You can follow Daniel online at https://DanielGlenn.com and @DanielGlenn on Twitter.

Richard Harbridge is the Chief Technology Officer at 2toLead. Richard works as a trusted advisor with hundreds of organizations, helping them understand their current needs, their future needs, and what actions they should take to grow and achieve their bold ambitions.

Richard remains hands-on in his work and has led, architected, and implemented hundreds of business and technology solutions that have helped organizations transform both digitally and organizationally. Richard has a passion for helping organizations achieve more; whether it is helping an organization build beautiful websites to support great content and social strategy, or helping an organization leverage emerging cloud and mobile technology to service better their members or the communities that they serve.

Richard is an author and an internationally recognized expert in Microsoft technology, marketing, and professional services. As a sought-after speaker, Richard has often had the opportunity to share his insights, experiences, and advice on the digital workplace, Intranets, collaboration, social networking, ROI, technology/process adoption, and Microsoft technologies at numerous industry events in around the globe. When not speaking at industry events, Richard works with Microsoft, partners, and customers as an advisor to business and technology, and serves on multiple committees, leads user groups, and is a Board Member of the Microsoft Community Leadership Board.

With over 20+ years of experience within IT industry Robert has always strive to assist companies globally to achieve sustainable Designs, Strategies and Implementations regarding Restore, Disaster Recovery, Proactive Monitoring and Business Continuity that really works in a crisis situation. A key differentiator is the specific focus of not focusing on backups, simply restores and recovery capabilities first.

Robert owns and runs the companies sumNERV and sumNERV Provider located in Sweden that offers their services globally helping companies achieve true Recovery by making them understand the actual business need when it comes to suitable RTO, RPO, RLO and what the business really expect.

Robert has repeatedly been awarded with the Microsoft MVP award ten times in a row due to his knowledge and commitment to Microsoft and the community. He is often seen on stage presenting with different product group members from Microsoft at Ignite, Inspire, MMS, ExpertsLive and many more global conferences. He has also authored four books within his field of knowledge.

Feel free to reach out to Robert any time at Robert.hedblom@sumnerv.se

I’m a geek and proud to admit it! I’m also a rather large, talkative South African who plays drums, wears horrendous Hawaiian shirts, and has an affinity for engaging in as many social gatherings as humanly possible because, well….I want to experience as much as possible and connect with as many different people as I can! I am, unapologetically, Myself! My zest for interaction and collaboration has led to a fixation on community and an understanding that ANYTHING can be achieved by bringing people together in the right environment.

Paul Keijzers is founder and co-owner of KbWorks. A company which is specialized in Microsoft Teams and Office 365. He is responsible for the technical innovations and implementations with Microsoft 365.

Paul started working with SharePoint in 2001 and worked with the online versions since Bpos which now is Microsoft 365. He did a lot of development within SharePoint. Since Microsoft Teams came out, he specialized himself in Microsoft Teams and everything that’s connected with Teams.

He is an expert around strategy, development and adoption of Microsoft Teams and with his knowledge of collaboration he knows what it takes to fully embrace Microsoft products.

Paul posts a lot of blogs and video’s on Social Media. He is also available to give a presentation on conferences, workshops of within companies.

Noorez Khamis (aka “Rez”) is CTO of Creospark, and a Microsoft recognized MVP in Viva, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Power Platform, Azure, and Microsoft 365 Technologies. He has a background as a Senior Information Management Consultant & Enterprise Solutions Architect with comprehensive experience in enterprise scale information & business solutions, portals, and cloud applications. Noorez is also an active blogger, speaker, trainer, community contributor and an evangelist of Microsoft Cloud platforms.

Hi! I’m Joanne Klein, founder of NexNovus, an Office 365 Consulting company, and a 3-time Microsoft MVP in Office Apps & Services. What this really means is I spend my time working with customers across different industry verticals on Office 365 collaboration tools and services, specifically SharePoint, and sharing my knowledge with the larger technical community.

One of my SharePoint specialties is modern site and information architecture since I believe it to be the critical underpinning to any great SharePoint environment (so much so that I wrote an eBook about it!).

Another area of focus for me is the Office 365 suite of tools built to help organizations protect and retain their unstructured content now being produced at an exponential rate. This is an important shift for organizations and information workers to make in the modern workplace. I have substantial practical experience in Office 365 working with customers to help them make this shift.

Christian is the Founder and SharePoint Consultant of Ka’ana IT GmbH based in Austria. Christian is specialized in guiding clients to their best digital Workplace Solution or getting their governance policies done in Office 365 or On-Premises. His many years of experience and numerous implementation and migration projects makes him and his team an excellent Partner for Enterprise Customers in the DACH Region.

Kirsty McGrath is an awarded Microsoft MVP and the Managing Director of OnPoint Solutions. Kirsty founded the Australian Office 365 Business User Groups and runs the Australian Microsoft 365 Adoption User Groups in both Sydney & Melbourne plus is a regular on the speaker circuit. Kirsty is also the author of the Office 365 ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Infographic. OnPoint Solutions is a leading Australian Adoption practice helping organisations maximise ROI through best practice adoption methodologies, accelerating team collaboration and communication in the cloud. Kirsty is a highly experienced Adoption Specialist having trained over 180,000 people, worked on over 60 Office 365 projects and built alongside Microsoft their Work Wonders adoption program with their top 200 clients, leading businesses through large and complex transformation projects.

Working with Microsoft collaboration technologies for more than 10 years, Rene has lived and worked in Europe and Asia Pacific. He's an Office Apps & Services MVP, and runs the Singapore SharePoint+Office 365 User Group. In his role, he is responsible for the rollout and adoption of collaboration technologies in APAC.

I am a Global Principal Cloud Security Technical Lead/CTO for Atos across Microsoft, AWS, and GCP. I am the thought leader determining trends, developing, advocating, and building business plans for the overall Cybersecurity services for this Global SI. I also lead the Cloud education portfolio for Microsoft and AWS.

I also provide training and consulting services to Opsgility for their Microsoft training and technical coaching. I have served many roles over my 30 years of IT experience, including solution engineer and product manager. I am 18x certified in multiple Azure and M365 roles, including Azure Solution Architect Expert, Azure Administrator Associate, Azure Security Engineer Associate, Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator Associate, Microsoft Security Operations Analyst Associate, Microsoft Information Protection Administrator Associate, Azure AI Engineer Associate, and M365 Security Administrator Associate.

In addition to creating curriculum, training, and blog writing, I am also a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Regional Lead. I have provided sessions speaking at conferences and user groups globally that are focused on Cloud security, Identity security, and Data/AI trends. I have authored books and am a Security Professional Community Manager for Packt publishing.

Vesku is a Modern Worklife and Workplace Principal Consultant focusing on Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and Office 365. He works for Sulava (https://www.sulava.com/) and is also a Microsoft MVP for Office Apps & Services. Yes, his real name is Vesa but he prefers to be called Vesku.

He helps and coaches customers to find benefits, solutions and value when adopting new tools, methods, ways or working and practices into daily work-life equation. He is always eager to challenge current situation and dig out new possibilities and ways to think and work. You could describe him as a jack of all trades but his main focus area and deep personal driver is Microsoft Teams since it has changed the way I work and did a giant step forward to make it possible to work from anywhere - the location does not matter even us much as it mattered before. Microsoft Teams opened the path for many organizations to rethink their practices, worklife, culture and start the change.

Vesku is also active Microsoft Teams community member and organizer. He is part of EuroTeams User Group, #TeamsFest co-organizer and is the main organizer of Teams Community Finland. He has presented sessions live and online in different events like Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Techdays Finland, SharePoint Saturdays and TeamsFest.

Feel free to connect with him at Twitter!

Foyin is a passionate, self-driven Solutions Architect who has an insatiable desire to make a difference for the better. She lives with the quote “I need to leave it better than I met it”. She has architected and administered Software Projects across various industry verticals. Her goal over the years has been to help knowledge workers do more with less and has supported enterprises to achieve this.

She believes strongly in knowledge sharing and is a Microsoft MVP. She is an advocate for women's empowerment through Technology and is the co-founder of TechStylers – a community to upskill women in technology.

Shari focuses on the "People Side of Change." She is a Microsoft 365 Solutions Architect and Consultant that grew up right along with SharePoint. Her practical knowledge of the Microsoft Productivity stack coupled with her passion for empowerment via learning makes her an excellent resource as a consultant. Her philosophy for information architecture and SharePoint design are centered on solving business challenges with technology and ensuring usability and adoption for the organization.

In the Learning and Adoption space, she is known as "Shortcut Shari" for her love of keyboard shortcuts and her passion for improving productivity. She delivers learning experiences internationally both in-person, virtually and as an eLearning author and developer. She shares her knowledge and passion via her blog at @ShortcutShari.com and her Tips and Tricks channel on YouTube. Her eLearning courses can be found on LinkedIN Learning, ClipTraining and Pluralsight.

Shari is a frequent and passionate speaker in the Microsoft Community and enjoys contributing to the success of community-driven events. She often supports Microsoft events such as Microsoft Ignite and is an active board member of the Virtual Chapter of the International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners.

When not embracing her inner #GirlGeek, she can be found travelling and experiencing the world, it's history, people and food or on the back of a motorcycle exploring the wonders of Colorado and beyond.

Gokan is an independent SharePoint and Office365 consultant for Neoxy where he assists customers with building innovative, intelligent and responsive cloud driven solutions. With the Mobile first, Cloud first ideology, his goal is to empower every person and organization to do more with the Microsoft cloud and the ecosystem is perfectly aligned to accelerate this. Creativity, automation and perspective are what he loves most when using the Microsoft cloud, so every customer can be more agile, responsive and competitive. Gokan is a frequent – and funny – conference speaker. He presented at numerous national and international conferences and is actively involved in European and American conferences: Microsoft Techdays, Microsoft Experiences, European SharePoint Conferences, SharePoint Days and SharePoint Fest are a few major ones.

A proud author of books that reached the half million of downloads and founder of several communities, Gokan is a real community warrior. Due to his active contributions in these domains, he has been honoured with Microsoft Regional Director and Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. Additionally, he is an active Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and a Microsoft Regional Lead for all MCTs in Belgium.

You can always talk to me about: Soccer. World Traveling. Food. Next-Gen Cloud Systems. Architecture & Strategy. SharePoint + Office365!

Hi, My Name is Nati Papirovitch - I own PointU – a “boutique” SharePoint & Office 365 Productivity Consulting Service (SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Planner, Yammer, Office 365 Groups, Forms etc..)

My expertise is helping customers migrate from SharePoint on-premise / File Servers to SharePoint Online and Migration from any other Cloud Sturge to Office 365.

With more then 15+ years I’m building SharePoint Portal’s from scratch in Office 365, plus consulting, training, development, etc. My love is to define the requirements from the customer and build the best solution with the best tools in Office 365.

In the last 8 years I’ve lead the Office 365 & SharePoint Community in Israel, speaking and organizing events for technical community members.

Mark is an Office 365 MVP who is a motivated, adaptable, creative, highly capable senior resource able to fill any role necessary to ensure the success of a project, team or organization. Whether the need is management, design, marketing, development, implementation, troubleshooting, or just simply holding the client’s hand, Mark has a unique skillset that sets him apart from most individuals that have such a deep technical background.

I work as a consultant with a strong focus on making modern work possible with Microsoft 365 Apps and Services. The apps I focus on the most are Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Loop, and parts of the Power Platform. Besides the tech aspects of this challenge, the changes people and organizations have to cope with to adapt and use the solution in the best possible way also count to my favorite topics. An excellent way to achieve this, in my opinion, is to create added value in all areas of the organization through the new possibilities and, in doing so, to make the future of modern working a hands-on experience for all employees. My bachelor’s degree in business administration and my experience in this field give me the necessary knowledge of how the divisions and departments of the organizations work and which problems often exist in their context.

• • A Futurist and Technopreneur with a mission to accelerate Filipino lives through Business Applications
  • First MVP for Business Applications in the Philippines

Loryan Strant has been in IT for over 20 years working across web design, network infrastructure, servers, IP telephony, with the majority spent designing productivity and communications solutions. He has lived & breathed Office 365 for almost a decade; writing blogs, speaking at conferences, consulting to organisations, and has co-authored two books. Loryan is passionate about enabling people and organisations using technology, enabling them to become more productive.

Sharon is the founder and CEO of Smarter Consulting, a business and technology consulting services company. As a Microsoft Regional Director, Microsoft Certified Trainer, Process Improvement, and Productivity Expert, Sharon's background in Software Development, Business and Systems Analysis, Project Management, and Agile combined with her Developmental Psychology degree and Six Sigma Black Belt blend perfectly with her love of helping and training people to make her a well-rounded leader, consultant, and coach.

Being part of the community is extremely important to her and she is an active leader, participant, and mentor. She is the lead organizer for SharePoint Saturday Kansas City and the Kansas City M365 User Group. She is an active board member of the Kansas City IIBA chapter and Digital Women of Kansas City.

In her “spare time”, Sharon speaks professionally at local, national, and global events and teaches subjects such as Office 365, Business Analysis, Six Sigma, Leadership, and other continuing education courses publicly as an adjunct instructor for the local community college and privately for business all over the country. You can find great tips and tricks around productivity on her blog at https://sharoneweaver.com/blog/.

Jeremy Wood is a Federal IT implementer, strategist, and enthusiast specializing in complex business systems. His expertise and career spans infrastructure, service desk, software development, budget, policy, and architecture. He continues to focus on providing value to business through technology solutions to reduce costs and increase efficiency. He is currently in a pivotal role at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that will help transform both the business and IT systems. Jeremy has a special focus on mentoring and helping those early in their career, or even those seeking to understand how to get started in a career, within the government/contracting space. He volunteers with the ACT-IAC Associates leadership development program and was a vice-chair in 2020 and the government chair in 2021.

I am a Microsoft MVP recognized for adding value to higher education using SharePoint, Power Automate and Power BI. I blog, speak, contribute to the community, and evangelize Office 365.