As part of the changes currently taking place with User Group Support Services, I'm pleased to be able to announce that we now have four out of five UGSS Regional Leads in place. The main role of the regional leads is to help user group leaders be as successful as possible. It doesn't matter if you are part of Culminis, INETA, PASS or another user group association, or if you are an independent user group not part of any association, their job is to help you. Of course, your main relationship with Microsoft probably has been and will remain with a Microsoft evangelist or other local resource, but the Regional Leads are an additional resource to help you when you need. I've included their email addresses in their descriptions below - they would LOVE to hear from you!
You may recognise some of these names and faces - all the Regional Leads have been involved in community for many years. You will also notice that we are one region short - at this point we are still trying to find the right person to be the Regional Lead for EMEA.
Sanjay Shetty, Regional Lead - APAC, has been leading and participating in user group community activities for almost a decade. He has been and is currently the INETA APAC President since its inception. He also worked earlier with Culminis as Regional Lead APAC & EMEA. He is part of the Worldwide Microsoft Regional Director Program for Mumbai, India (11 years). He is also the CEO of Wireless Strategist & Consultants (I) Pvt. Ltd. which consults companies on building mobile and .Net solutions. He has written many articles on .Net and Mobility at Devx, .Net Developer’s Journal, Mobilized Software. He’s been a regular speaker for the past 11 years at various Microsoft conferences such as DevDays, PDC, TechEd and other 3rd party events like VSLive and Microsoft Mobile Developer conference.
v-sshe@microsoft.com
Vicki Tomich Rodas, Regional Lead- LATAM, began her work in the technical community with Culminis in early 2005 where she interfaced with and led the Latin American IT Pro Community- first as a Community Manager and later as Regional Director for LATAM. At Culminis, she designed and implemented a variety of customer relationship programs and a number of highly successful grassroots initiatives for the local IT Pro Community. Vicki is passionate about the technical community, exploring their needs and ensuring that their needs are met and their voices heard. Prior to developing her deep interest in the Microsoft IT Pro community, she was a computer science teacher for an elementary school in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She has a degree in Marketing and International Business from UNITEC in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and a technical degree in Computer Science.
v-viroda@microsoft.com
Emilio Mansur, Regional Lead - Brazil, has been an MCSE since 1999 and a Microsoft MVP since 2004. Employed as an IT Pro with companies such as Amazon Corporation, Unisys and Lanlink. Teacher and evangelist, he helped a lot of IT Pros get certified in Brazil and founded four User Groups (MCPdx, MS-Bel, MSFor, and MCT Brasil). In the last years he was working for Culminis helping and coaching User Group Leaders.
v-emilim@microsoft.com
Paul Hailey, Regional Lead - North America, has 28 years of experience in both corporate business (accounting/operations) and as a self employed business owner. Paul used to work with Black Box Network Services, and spent the last three and a half years with Culminis as Managing Director of Operations.
v-pahail@microsoft.com