60 #MSInspire Thought Leaders You Should Follow in 2018

Microsoft Inspire 2018, co-located for the first time with Microsoft Ready (MSFT’s annual sales, marketing, and technical conference), offers community members more opportunities than ever before to network and cultivate relationships with people who can have a significant impact on their success.

Whether you plan to attend the conference in person or remotely, it’s equally important to follow up and nurture relationships with key decision-makers and the people who influence them.

We’ve compiled a group of 60 socially active thought leaders and subject matter experts who will be attending #MSInspire that help you get the most out of your Inspire experience. This list of social insiders is comprised of Microsoft executives and managers as well as a collection of community voices, including channel executives, Microsoft MVPs, keynote speakers, and subject matter experts.

We believe their tweets, comments, and posts provide a roadmap of the business and technology topics of greatest importance to Microsoft partners, including emerging technologies that are driving digital transformation, marketplaces, and sales opportunities, as well as new collaboration tools that are changing how people work together.

Import your new contacts into Nimble to discover their complete contact details, including their business email addresses, phone numbers, their areas of interest, and company background. Click on their social profiles to quickly discover common areas of interest so you can connect with them authentically on social media and set the stage for effective face-to-face meetings during Inspire.

Find out why thousands of Microsoft 365 users choose Nimble as their simple sales and marketing CRM and how you can profit from Nimble’s growth here.

Methodology – How We Built The #MSInspire List

The list was compiled on June 30th, 2018 using Nimble, the simple CRM for Microsoft 365. Nimble enables small business teams to manage relationships more effectively and at scale within a single, socially enriched system of record.  

We started by using LittleBird, which has since been acquired by Sprinklr, to develop an initial list of more than 1,000 people talking about Microsoft Inspire using the hashtags #MSInspire or #MSInspire18.

Next, we used the Nimble Smart Contacts app to import the Twitter lists into Nimble. This automatically enriched each contact with their personal and company details. We then tagged them as “InspireSocialInsiders.”

We used Nimble’s auto-enrichment details and data to whittle our list down to 150 people with a minimum of 1,000 social reach. Next, we cross-referenced the list with MyInspire Connections and the Meeting Request Tool to identify top people to potentially meet in person during the conference.

We also included a number of keynote speakers who are not yet talking about #MSInspire, but we are confident these socially influential people will be soon.

While we have not captured all MS Inspire social insiders, these individuals certainly caught our attention. We kick off the list with Microsoft employees below, followed by the collection of community voices. People are listed in alphabetical order by first name.  

Microsoft Employees

(In alphabetical order by first name)

Alyssa Fitzpatrick
General Manager, Worldwide Partner Sales
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @alysfitz

Anand Eswaran
Corporate Vice President
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @anandeswaran

Brad Smith
President and Chief Legal Officer
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @BradSmi

Bryan Goode
General Manager, Office 365 SMB & Web
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @bryanmgoode

Colin Masson
Global Industry Director, Manufacturing at Microsoft Business Solutions
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @colinmasson

David Smith
VP US Partner Development
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @DavidSmithMSFT

Diana Ishak
Senior Manager – One Commercial Partner US
Bellevue, WA, United States
Twitter: @emleila2000

Eduardo Kassner
Chief Technology Officer, Worldwide Channels & Programs
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @ekassner

Gavriella Schuster 
Corporate Vice President, Commercial Partner Channels & Programs
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @gavriels1

Gretchen O’Hara 
VP, Go-To-Market Strategy, One Commercial Partner
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @GretchenOHara

Jason Zander
Executive Vice President
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @jlzander

Jenny Kordell 
Global Partner Audience Marketing Lead, One Commercial Partner
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @jennykordell

John O’Donnell
Sr. Partner Development Manager
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @jodonnel

Judson Althoff
Executive Vice President
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @judsonalthoff

Julia White
Corporate Vice President
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @julwhite

 Justin Slagle
 Partner Channel Development Manager – Southwest area
 Irvine, CA, United States
 Twitter: @JustinSlagle

Melissa Mulholland
Partner Cloud Profitability lead
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @Melimulhol 

Michel Bouman
Territory Channel Manager
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Twitter: @BoumanMichel

Patama Chantaruck
GM WW Software Asset Management & Compliance
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @patamach

Paul Maher
Partner, General Manager- Industry Experiences
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @PaulJFMaher ‏

Rachel Braunstein 
Partner Marketing Manager
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @rkbraunstein

Regina Tolbert 
Business Development Manager
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @regina_tolbert

Ryan Lowdermilk 
Senior Technology Evangelist- US ISV (OCP)
Dallas, TX, United States
Twitter: @RyanLowdermilk

 Satya Nadella 
CEO of Microsoft Corporation
Bellevue, WA, United States
Twitter: @satyanadella

Seth Patton 
General Manager
Bellevue, WA, United States
Twitter: @SethPat

Shish Shridhar
WW Director, Retail Industry Solutions
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @5h15h

Toby Richards 
General Manager, Partner Programs and Marketing
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @tobyrichards

Tracy Pretorius 
Director of Global Partner Business Strategy
Seattle, WA, United States
Twitter: @traceypretorius

Microsoft Inspire Insiders

Alexander Low
Social Selling Partner, Microsoft
London, UK
Twitter: @alexander_low

Beth Burrell 
Director- Dynamics Business Operation, Andosi
Tampa, FL, United States
Twitter: @bcohen26

Christine Bongard 

MS Partner, Director Partner Channel and Alliances, ATSG
Parsippany, NJ, United States
Twitter: @cdbongard

David Gersten 

MS Partner, VP of Sales, Bond Consulting Services
Orange County, CA, United States
Twitter: @dsgersten

David Huth 

Director, U.S MSP Sales, Drop Suite
Portland, OR, United States
Twitter: @davidahuth

David Meerman Scott

Keynote Speaker and Author, Freshspot Marketing
Boston, MA, United States
Twitter: @dmscott

Dominik Halpin 

Founder, Tech Nativ TV
London, UK
Twitter: @domhalps

Dux Raymond Sy

Chief Marketing Officer, AvePoint
Washington, DC, United States

Twitter: @meetdux

Eric Klauss
Partner, PartnerSource Solutions
Orange County, CA, United States
Twitter: @eklaussmentor

Geeman Yip 
Chief Executive Officer, BitTitan
Redmond, WA, United States
Twitter: @GeemanYip

Jan Ketil Skanke 
COO and Principal Cloud Architect, CloudWay AS
Oslo, Norway
Twitter: @JankeSkanke

Jari Pullinen 
Vice President, Valo Intranet
Espoo, Finland
Twitter: @jaripullinen 

Jeff Shuey
Technology Alliances, Zerto
Sammamish, WA, United States
Twitter: @jshuey

Jon Rivers
President and Social Media Disruption Expert, Marketing Monarchs
Tampa, FL, United States
Twitter: @jon_rivers

Julie Simpson
CEO, ResourceiT Consulting Ltd.
Bramley, Hampshire, United Kingdom
Twitter: @Julie_Simpson

Karen Chastain 
Senior Director Global Alliance and Partners, Episerver
Orange County, CA, United States
Twitter: @karenchastain

Mark Abes
VP of Marketing, Dyn365Pros
San Diego, CA, United States
Twitter: @MSDyn365Guy

Mic V Adam
CFO and Content Creator, Vanguard Leadership
Brugge, Belgium
Twitter: @micadam

Nikkia T. Carter
Director of Collaboration and Training, C3 Integrated Solutions
Arlington, VA, United States
Twitter: @ladygwenavear

Paul Robichaux 
Chief Tech Officer, Quadrotech
Huntsville, AL, United States
Twitter: @paulrobichaux

Paul Woods 
Founder, Adopt and Embrace
Brisbane, Australia
Twitter: @paulwoods

Reed Wilson 
CEO, Palmetto Technology Group
Greenville, SC, United States
Twitter: @sreedwilson

Scott May
Director of Channel Programs, Velosio
Findlay, OH, United States
Twitter: @wjscottmay

Stephane Bureau 

Founder and CEO, Social_4u
Grenoble, France
Twitter: @SBUCloud

Tim Hughes
CEO and Co-Founder, Digital Leadership Associates
Twickenham, United Kingdom
Twitter: @Timothy_Hughes

Vince Menzione

CEO, Cloudwave Partners
Florida, USA
Twitter: @vincemenzione

Robert Rose
Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute
Los Angeles, CA, Unites States
Twitter: @Robert_Rose