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Dave is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) with over 20 years of experience in the IT industry. His background includes data communications networks within multi-server environments, and he has led architecture teams for virtualization, System Center, Exchange, Active Directory, and Internet gateways. Very active within the Microsoft technical and consulting teams, Dave has provided deep-dive technical knowledge and subject matter expertise on various System Center and operating system topics.

Dave is well-known in the community as an evangelist for Microsoft, 1E, and Veeam technologies. Locating Dave is easy as he speaks at several conferences and sessions each year, including TechEd, Ignite, MVP Days Community Roadshow, and VeeamOn. 

Recently Dave has been honored to take on the role of Conference Co-Chair of TechMentor with fellow MVP Sami Laiho.  The lineup of speakers and attendees that have been to this conference over the past 20 years is really amazing. Come down to Redmond or Orlando in 2018 and you can meet him in person.

As the founder and Managing Principal Consultant at TriCon Elite Consulting, Dave is a leading technology expert for both local customers and large international enterprises, providing optimal guidance and methodologies to achieve and maintain an efficient infrastructure.

BLOG: www.checkyourlogs.net

Twitter: @DaveKawula

Cristal Kawula is the co-founder of MVPDays Community Roadshow and #MVPHour live Twitter Chat.   She is the President of TriCon Elite Consulting where she manages the day to day operations of the field consulting and sales teams.

Cristal is also only the 2nd Woman in the world to receive the prestigious Veeam Vanguard Community excellence award.  In July of 2017 she was awarded the designation of Microsoft MVP.  

Early in her career Cristal worked as a consultant with Microsoft authoring content for internal SMSGR and GTR teams.   This content was used to train internal support engineers and global escalation engineering teams.  

Cristal can be found speaking at Microsoft Ignite, MVPDays, and other local user groups.   She is extremely active in the community and has recently helped publish a book for other Women MVP’s called Voices from the Data Platform.  

BLOG: http://www.checkyourlogs.net

Twitter: @supercristal1

Markus is living the IT Pro live since more than 10 years as a consultant, Architect and Systems Engineer. He is focusing on virtualization and automation technologies. In addition to his second Veeam Vanguard nomination in 2018, he was 2016-2018 awarded as a VMware vExpert. 

Blog: https://mycloudrevolution.com/

Twitter: @vMarkus_K

Didier Van Hoye is an IT veteran with over 20 years of experience and accumulated hands on expertise in ICT. He specializes mainly in Microsoft technologies (storage, virtualization,networking, cloud) to design and build highly available, high performance solutions that scaleboth efficiently and effectively without breaking the budget. He works mainly as a subject matterexpert advisor and infrastructure architect in Wintel & Hybrid Azure environments, often leveraging DELL EMC hardware to deliver exceptional value for the money.

As a Microsoft MVP in Cloud and Datacenter, a member of the Microsoft Extended Experts Team in Belgium, a DELL TechCenter Rockstar and a Veeam Vanguard he contributes his experience and knowledge to the global community. He’s a trusted adviser, blogger, writer and public speaker on his areas of expertise.

Blog: https://blog.workinghardinit.work

Twitter: @workinghardinit

LinkedIn: https://be.linkedin.com/in/didiervanhoye  

Karl is a Veeam Vanguard and VMware vExpert with 15+ years of experience in the IT industry. He started his career as an IT support technician and worked for several years at small IT company with many vendor partnerships.

After a year in the military (Swiss national service with the achievement of the officer rank) he went back to the IT, to be more precisely to a software vendor and was responsible for the internal IT systems and support for several years.

But Karl wasn’t a software-type of guy. He liked, and still likes, to get the hands-on the hardware. So he switched the job again after several years, back to the hardware sector, again at an IT support company. He worked the ladder up from an IT supporter to the Engineering and was responsible for the biggest customers of that company. All kinds of support, up to cloud offerings and virtual infrastructure went over his desk.

After many years of customer support and consulting he decided to switch the job again, but this time he went to the customer side. At a global acting company, Karl is now responsible in the virtualization team for all things about the cloud, from private to public cloud, and also for everything that he calls «basic infrastructure» like on-premises HCI systems and ESXi hosts.

Karl is also very active in the vCommunity as a VMUG leader, he writes blog posts with a focus on products from Veeam and VMware, and also for solutions if there is an issue to solve. He has been awarded twice Veeam Vanguard and also VMware vExpert, and he holds several certifications in IT. 

BLOG: www.driftar.ch

Twitter: @widmerkarl

With over 25 years experience within the IT industry Craig Dalrymple is one of the original members of the Veeam Vanguard program and was select as VMware vExpert 2018. 

Craig has been involved with implementing and providing support for systems ranging from the early days of x386 to present day, with a background predominantly in field engineering. Nowadays dealing primarliy with virtualization technologies.

Craig is also one of the founding leaders of the Veeam User Group UK, and can be found presenting at these events from time to time.

Away from technology Craig helps run the vGamers discord channel and on the odd occasion can be found playing a game of rugby now and then.

Blog: www.cragdoo.co.uk

Twitter: @cragdoo

Mike is a Veeam Vanguard and vExpert with over 17 years’ experience in IT. Working from the humble beginnings of a helpdesk, Mike has worked at a range of companies, from Start-ups, to Multinational Corporations.  

Mike’s experience is primarily in the Microsoft ecosystem, moving through Infrastructure, Unified Comms, and now to Azure. He has a strong passion for PowerShell and will automate as much as he can throughout the day.  

Mike now works as a Solution Architect at Bupa Dental Care, one of the UKs largest dental chains, helping lead the strategy and architecture design for the business through a vast change of Digital Transformation. 

Along with his technical work, Mike has a love of teaching and sharing knowledge, speaking at many events across the globe, including VeeamON and Gartner in not only technical sessions, but business and strategy forums. 

Blog: www.mikeconjoice.com 

Twitter: @mikeconjoice 

Affectionately known as Eugene K, is a highly experienced web hosting professional with over a decade of hosting solutions support, design, implementation and automation, primarily focused on Cloud Platforms, Business Continuity and Security Services at INAP. Whether performing minor system optimizations or handling big projects with different unknowns involved, Eugene believes there is always a way to make it run smoothly, seamlessly and at a high rate of automation applied for routinely performed operations. He likes to be challenged with the tasks and do the research to approach the goal desired.

Ian has over 15 years’ experience working with Windows server and virtualisation technology supporting organisations of varying size. Ian cut his teeth in the virtualisation space using Hyper-V 2008 but has been primarily focused on the VMware stack since 2010.

Ian is a Veeam Vanguard, vExpert and a member of NetApp United as well as being one of the Veeam User Group UK leaders and can be found presenting at events round the UK.

Ian can be found on social media at the following locations:

Twitter: @ian0x0r

Blog: https://www.snurf.co.uk

Veeam User Group UK: https://veeamug.uk/

Rhys Hammond is a Senior Systems Engineer specialising in Data Availability. One of his goals is to help the IT community understand more of what Veeam can offer, as part of that effort,  he maintains http://rhyshammond.com, a Veeam and Virtualization-centric weblog providing information, insight, and technical knowledge on all things Veeam related.

• In 2018, Rhys became a Veeam Certified Architect which is the highest level of Veeam technical certification.
• In 2017, Rhys was awarded VMware vExpert for having demonstrated significant contributions to the community and a willingness to share expertise with others. VMware grants the vExpert as an honorary title for advocates of the company's products.
• Also in 2017, Rhys was selected to join the Veeam Vanguard program, the Vanguard program is a global hand-selected list of people who represent Veeam's brand to the highest level in many of the different technology communities in which they engage. These individuals are chosen for their acumen, engagement and style in their activities both on and offline.
• In 2015, Rhys was awarded Veeam Technical Champion for ANZ as a result of his passion and knowledge for the product.