Customer Success

Explorers Assemble! A Sneak Peek at a Few of the CXS Team Members at VMware Explore Las Vegas

One of the best parts of VMware Explore is connecting with like-minded IT professionals and your favorite VMware experts!  

Our experts will be on-site to chat through maximizing your VMware investments, modernizing your IT infrastructure, and more — and they can’t wait to meet you. 

Here are just a few of the VMware CXS experts heading to Las Vegas and where you can find them: 

Mandy Botsko-Wilson

Mandy Botsko-Wilson is a Principal Architect for VMware Global Support Services, providing critical support to help customers maximize their VMware investments and operate them smoothly. She’s also a member of the VMware Office of the CTO (OCTO) Global Field, a mentor to aspiring tech professionals, and the leader of a Girls Who Code club. Mandy was also just the 189th IT professional to become a VCDX in Cloud Management and Automation. 

Mandy develops innovative solutions for customers, whom she often works with for long periods of time to ensure their business and technology goals are realized. She believes that in the world of customer support, there’s a place for not just technical skill, but also creativity and collaboration — allowing her and her team to provide the best guidance possible. 

While Mandy’s undergraduate degree was in a liberal arts field, she quickly discovered her love of computer science after working a job that required her to work with complex databases. She recommends that other professionals interested in tech also consider liberal arts education, which she believes prepared her to be an effective team leader. 

Her VMware Explore session will show cloud professionals how to go from siloed cloud teams to a collaborative, cloud-smart operating model — ensuring cloud teams have the skills needed to succeed in a modern, multi-cloud environment. 

Mandy’s session at VMware Explore: 

Jimmy Arias

Jimmy Arias is a Senior Staff Engineer on our Global Support team, based in Costa Rica with more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry. Jimmy provides support for North American customers, helping them navigate complex scenarios and resolve performance issues to improve their productivity and cost efficiency. 

Since joining VMware in 2015, Jimmy has earned VCAP-Data Center Virtualization Deploy and VCP-Data Center Virtualization certifications. Jimmy is also a member of VMware’s vExpert program, which is VMware’s global evangelism and advocacy program initiative that awards individuals who have made significant contributions to the VMware community.

Jimmy will lead three sessions at the VMware Explore CXS Theater — which dive into Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) deployment for on-prem or cloud infrastructure, multi-cloud performance obstacle resolution, and cost-effective, sustainable multi-cloud models with VMware Aria Operations. 

You can also find Jimmy at the Expert Bar, where you can meet 1:1 with him or another VMware expert to discuss your VMware solution, no appointment needed. 

Jimmy’s sessions at VMware Explore: 

Pablo Sibaja

Pablo Sibaja is a Technical Adoption Manager and VMware CTO Ambassador based in Spain. He’s a passionate IT professional with more than 10 years of experience across multiple IT verticals. He first joined VMware in 2013 as a Technical Support Engineer, providing critical support to VMware customers around the world. 

Pablo has spoken at numerous VMware events, including Technical Support Summit in Costa Rica, VMware Day, VMUG UserCon, and VMware Explore. Outside of work, he loves photography and cooking.  

At VMware Explore Las Vegas, Pablo is presenting two sessions in the CXS Theater. The first session will explore how administrators and cloud architects can use VMware Aria Operations to reduce costs and waste associated with virtual machine and application resource utilization, ultimately optimizing multi-cloud infrastructure. His second session focuses on common multi-cloud performance obstacles and what cloud professionals can do to resolve them. 

Pablo will also leading Hands-on Labs, which are interactive workshops led by VMware experts that give you experience with VMware solutions. Pablo’s workshop will take attendees through new advanced features available in VMware Cloud on AWS. 

Pablo’s sessions at VMware Explore: 

Josh Tacey

Josh Tacey is a Staff Consulting Architect for the VMware’s End User Computing Healthcare Professional Services Team. He works with some of VMware’s largest and most influential healthcare customers to innovate, optimize, and streamline the delivery of desktops, applications, and devices needed for clinicians to deliver world-class outcomes to patients. 

He first joined VMware in 2018 as a Senior Consultant in EUC and holds VCP certifications in Desktop Management and Digital Workspace. He’s also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Project Management Professional (PMP). 

At VMware Explore, Josh’s session will dive into how VMware helped Wellstar Health, one of the largest health systems in the state of Georgia, develop a successful multi-cloud EUC strategy. Join to learn how VMware and Wellstar enabled clinicians to securely access patient data anytime from any device and simplified IT delivery for more than 25,000 care providers at 300 facilities.   

Josh’s session at VMware Explore: 

Andrea Siviero

Andrea Siviero is a Principal Architect in the VMware Customer Experience and Success (CXS) Portfolio, specializing in cloud management and security. He also holds a VCDX in Cloud Management and Automation and a TOGAF 9 certification. 

Andrea is passionate about working with customers to adopt cloud-smart strategies using the VMware Multi-Cloud Adoption Framework. He says that customer conversations and collaboration are his favorite parts of his job. 

He started his career at VMware as a Senior Channel System Engineer in 2006, working to grow VMware’s channel of partners in Italy. He also served as a Product Marketing Manager and Professional Services Engagement Manager before becoming an architect. His expansive portfolio of work at VMware includes working with Vodafone to support the first installation of 4G in Europe. 

At VMware Explore, Andrea looks forward to leading a CXS Theater session, joining a Meet the Expert Roundtable, and, most importantly, interacting with customers at our kiosk in the Hub! His session will lead cloud architects through the VMware Multi-Cloud Adoption Framework, helping them leave cloud chaos in the past. 

Andrea’s sessions at VMware Explore: 

Jonathan McDonald

Jonathan McDonald is a Senior Staff Architect on the VMware CXS Outcome Engineering team at VMware. He’s been with VMware since 2005.  

Jonathan specializes in VMware cloud infrastructure platforms, including VMware vSphere, VMware vSAN, and VMware Cloud Foundation. He participates in the development of validated solution architectures, comprehensive professional services, and technical training for customer success. Prior to joining Professional Services Engineering, he was a Staff Technical Support Engineer with VMware Global Support, working with the vCenter product and supporting technologies.  

When asked what he is looking forward to most about VMware Explore, he said, “VMware Explore is a great opportunity to not only network and talk with experts, but to learn about the technologies that power the VMware cloud vision. That is what I am most excited about and look forward to every year that I get the chance to attend!” Be sure to join Jonathan’s VMware Cloud Foundation session or find him at the Customer Experience and Success Kiosk at the VMware booth in the Expo hall.  

Jonathan’s session at VMware Explore: 

Linus Bourque

Linus Bourque is a familiar face to many at VMware Learning, with roles including Technical Learning Engineer, Lead Instructor for the Americas Instructor Certification Workshop, Subject Matter Expert, VMware Learning Global DEI Council Leader, and mentor to new VMware Learning team members. He’s also a VMware Certified Instructor (VCI) who teaches students the ins and outs of VMware Horizon and end-user computing. 

Linus joined VMware 17 years ago as an Escalation Engineer specializing in VMware vCenter and security. He also worked as an IT instructor at Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto, teaching Linux, Windows, and hardware courses.

At VMware Explore, Linus’s session will show EUC administrators and architects how to better understand their security certificates in a VMware Horizon environment. He’ll also cover multiple deployments and use cases, troubleshooting, and end-to-end lifecycle management. Don’t miss out! 

Feeling stuck in your career? Ever feel like sitting down for 20 minutes and mapping it out would relieve some anxiety? Linus and our VMware Learning team will be doing just that! Sign up to meet with a VMware Technical Learning Engineer for a personalized career mapping session, here.

Linus’s session at VMware Explore: 

Tim Burkard

Tim Burkard is a Technical Learning Engineer (TLE) from the VMware Learning team and is a VMware Certified Instructor (VCI) with more than 20 years of technical teaching experience. He specializes in teaching VMware NSX, though he’s also taught courses covering the entire VMware vSphere portfolio since joining VMware as a VMware Certified Instructor in 2012. As a TLE, Tim is also responsible for developing course content that will help IT students adopt the skills to manage modern, evolving cybersecurity threats. 

Tim is a passionate learner himself, holding VCIX, VCAP, VCP, and VCA certifications in network virtualization and data center virtualization. He’s also a CISSP, MCSE, CEH, CCNA, and CCNP, among other certifications. 

Also known as v_gandalf, Tim’s well-known among the VMware community for the long beard and staff he dons at VMware Explore, similar to the garb worn by the Lord of the Rings character. Be sure to join his two security-focused sessions, which explore distributed security and VMware NSX Federation stretched networks, or meet him at the Customer Experience and Success Kiosk at the VMware booth in the Expo hall.  

Tim’s sessions at VMware Explore: 

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Want even more CXS at VMware Explore? Check out our CXS agenda. 

Rachel Nissley

Rachel Nissley is a Product Marketing Manager for VMware’s Customer Experience and Success organization. She has over five years’ experience in compliance for electronics and cybersecurity. Rachel holds a Masters…

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