Who to Follow for Digital Workplace Technology Insights
Microsoft 365 experts are the people who have either done a significant job in Microsoft 365 or put in their efforts to help IT Professionals, SharePoint admin, and end-users across the globe to further understand and get the most out of their Microsoft 365 platform. This article illustrates a list of the most notable Microsoft 365 influencers, thought leaders, and experts. Throughout this year, these individuals have promoted learning and the sharing of Microsoft 365 knowledge by sharing their insights through LinkedIn, blog posts, podcasts, and other media.
These Microsoft 365 experts may be SharePoint Consultants, Microsoft Evangelists, MVPs, System Architects, or Business Owners. Nevertheless, their social and technological contribution to the Microsoft community has paved the way for the future of digital workplace technology. So, let us get started with some of the most important names in the Microsoft 365 community you need to follow (this is not a ranking but rather a list).
1. Susan Hanley
Susan Hanley is the founder and president of Susan Hanley LLC. For more than fifteen years, Sue and her associates have helped her clients deliver successful SharePoint and Microsoft 365 intranet and collaboration solutions that enable them to reduce the time it takes to deliver projects, work more effectively with partners, share and reuse knowledge and best practices, and reduce the “time to talent” for new employees. Sue is a recognized expert in the design, development, and implementation of successful portal solutions, with a Microsoft SharePoint specialization. Since 2015, Sue has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for Office Apps and Services. She is a frequent writer and speaker on building effective collaborative portals, portal governance, user adoption, and information architecture and building communities of practice, and measuring the value of knowledge management investments. She has presented top-rated presentations at many conferences in the U.S. and around the world. Keep up with all the latest updates through her blog at https://www.susanhanley.com/.
2. Vlad Catrinescu
Vlad is an Office 365 consultant helping organizations get the most out of their Microsoft 365 Digital Workplace. IT Professional at heart, Vlad focuses on assisting administrators to deploy, manage, automate, and configure governance across services such as SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams. Vlad is the author of three SharePoint books published by Apress and over 25 courses on Pluralsight covering SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and the Power Platform. Vlad is also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 2013. He also shares his knowledge by speaking at conferences around the globe and at local community events. Vlad is often featured as an expert on other industry-related websites and blogs. He has been recognized multiple times as part of the “Top 25 SharePoint & Office 365 Influencers” award, showcasing him as one of the world’s most influential Microsoft specialists. Follow his blog at https://VladTalksTech.com.
3. Antti Koskila
Antti seeks to build and organize things, but still thrive in chaos. And since Software Development is about building stuff in naturally chaotic and complex environment, it’s what he enjoys the most. In 2019, he was awarded Microsoft MVP for Office Development – presumably due to all the hacks and “thoughtful workarounds” he has documented on his technology blog at https://www.koskila.net. Antti has around 15 years of experience in both Software Development (mainly web-based systems, but occasional projects for desktops and mobile clients) and Accounting.
4. Sebastien Levert
Seb is an Office Development MVP working at Valo Intranet, the product that will make you fall in love with your intranet! He is a Product Evangelist & Partner Manager, helping his partners & customers reach their business and technology goals by ensuring that quality and simplicity are always the focus in Valo Intranet deployments worldwide. Seb is speaking regularly at conferences around the world. When he gets his hands dirty behind a keyboard coding, he’s building solutions mainly with client-side technologies levering all aspects of the Microsoft Cloud, including the Microsoft Graph and Office 365. You can read Seb’s blog at www.sebastienlevert.com.
5. Goken Ozcifci
With the Mobile first, Cloud first ideology, his is to empower every person and organization to do more with the Microsoft cloud. 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 honored 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. Creativity, automation, and perspectives are what he loves the most when using the Microsoft cloud so that every customer can be more agile, responsive, and competitive.
6. Matthias Einig
Matthias Einig is the founder and CEO of Rencore, a software and services company that helps enterprises to stay in control of the growth and risks of their Microsoft collaboration environments in SharePoint and Office 365. Matt has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP in Office Servers and Services for many years. He regularly speaks at technology conferences worldwide in keynotes, technical and business sessions, and just for fun. He also organizes in his “free time,” a collaboration conference in Germany with 2500 attendees every year.
7. Erica Toelle
Erica Toelle is a Microsoft MVP in Office Apps and Services. She is an internationally recognized speaker on Compliance, Office 365, and SharePoint. Erica has been working with customers to deploy these solutions since 2004 and has been hired as an expert by over 30 Fortune 500 companies, several Microsoft Product and IT Teams. Erica was #15 on the 2019 International SharePoint Influencer list. Look for her upcoming book on Office 365 Compliance, published by Apress in October 2020.
8. Joanne Klein
Joanne is a SharePoint and Office 365 specialist and owner of NexNovus Consulting. Her focus is on helping organizations by sharing best practices, technical expertise, and guidance thru real-world SharePoint and Office 365 experience. Joanne has spent the past decade working with SharePoint in both on-premises and online versions, as well as the broader ecosystem of Office 365, where her expertise extends well beyond SharePoint. Her specialties include Office 365 adoption, Office 365 data protection and retention, SharePoint information management, and SharePoint site and information architecture. Joanne shares technical knowledge via blogging, informal training, mentoring, and support. She also speaks at local, national, and international events about various topics on SharePoint and Office 365. You can read her blog at JoanneCKlein.com.
9. Knut Relbe-Moe
Knut was awarded the Microsoft® Office Server & Services MVP Award for 2015 and 2016 with a specialty in SharePoint, Office 365, and Azure. He was awarded the Nintex vTE (Virtual Technical Evangelist) for his contribution to Nintex and workflow automation. Knut is an Office Server & Services MVP, Nintex vTE, conference speaker, and blogger, as well as an MCSE SharePoint, MCSA Office 365, and MCT. He delivers both engaging keynotes and highly technical sessions (level 400) on many different Office 365 space subjects. As an architect, his job is to engage people and companies in evaluating and adopting new technologies and running critical projects as a consultant. His core competence is to explain complex scenarios and make it understandable by combining technical insight and business value.
10. Mark Rackley
Mark is Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at PAIT Group and an Office 365 MVP with more than 20 years of experience designing and developing software solutions. Mark’s daily responsibilities include forging the direction of solution architecture and development projects for clients while providing the best solutions for clients’ unique problems. As a globally recognized SharePoint geek, Mark is an active blogger, presenter, author (and bacon aficionado) who is eager to lend his real-world knowledge of SharePoint to all who need it.
11. Waldek Mastykarz
Waldek is a Microsoft Office Development MVP and Senior Developer at Rencore. He reinforces Rencore product development adding loads of business experience from working as a SharePoint consultant for more than ten years. Waldek is passionate about what he does and shares his enthusiasm through his blog and as a regular speaker at conferences and community events worldwide. Recently, Waldek joined the Office 365 Developer Partner and Practices (PnP) Core Team to help developers better use the Office 365 platform. Follow his blog at https://blog.mastykarz.nl.
12. Matt Wade
Matt is an engineer-turned IT nerd. You may know him best for the Periodic Table of Microsoft 365 (https://jumpto365.com). Matt consults internationally on Microsoft 365 migration and adoption. He has recently found himself neck-deep in AI and bots. He has worked in environments ranging from government to private sector; fewer than one hundred users to thousands; strictly secure to eh-good-enough; custom to out-of-the-box; snowed-in to palm tree-laden.
13. Asif Rehmani
Asif has been training, consulting, and mentoring on primarily Microsoft SharePoint technologies since 2002. He has been awarded SharePoint Server MVP for ten consecutive years – since 2007. Asif provides online and in-person SharePoint training publicly and in private workshops. Asif has been a speaker at conferences since 2006, including Microsoft’s TechEd, Ignite, SharePoint Conference, SPTechCon, SharePoint Connections, SharePoint Fest, Evolutions, Best Practices Conference, SharePoint Saturdays, SharePoint Roadshows, and more. For a more detailed bio, please visit http://www.visualsp.com/about/.
14. Richard Harbridge
Richard has a passion for helping organizations achieve more. As a Microsoft MVP, Richard has led, architected, and implemented hundreds of business and technology solutions that have helped organizations transform both digitally and organizationally. Richard is also 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 around branding, partner management, social networking, collaboration, ROI, technology/process adoption, and business development at numerous industry events in around the globe. When not speaking at industry events, Richard works with Microsoft, partners, and customers as an advisor around business and technology, and serves on multiple committees, leads user groups and is a Board Member of the Microsoft Community Leadership Board.
15. Tracy van der Schyff
As a Microsoft MVP and Coach, Tracy’s passion is to empower people, and therefore, training and change management lie close to her heart. Her mission is to positively impact WHAT and HOW people create, as she believes that what we design / develop designs / creates us back (Ontological Design). It is about enabling others to serve themselves better, expand their possibilities, increase their capacity to learn, act more effectively, and better design their future. This is why she endorses O365, as it not only delivers a platform to support and grow digital literacy – but also enables users to achieve more and be more.
With the global situation of COVID-19 affecting our entire 2020 year, Microsoft has needed to significantly expand its resources worldwide. These top 15 Microsoft 365 experts have been at the forefront of this digital workplace revolution contributing their knowledge and resources to support various organizations stay connected, perform, adapt, and, most of all, survive in these unprecedented times. These experts can help you optimize your Microsoft 365 integration, implement policies to secure your data, develop streamlined processes that support business objectives, and much more. If you want to hear the latest news, insightful hacks, or ways to leverage technology, be sure to follow these individuals.
Our team at Klarinet Solutions closely follows all these expert leaders and collaborates with a handful of them through our Valo partnership. Together we are committed to supporting your organization with all your Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and digital workplace needs. If you have questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us via info@klarinetsolutions.com.
