Being accepted onto the NTC program for 2022 is the culmination of four years of working with the technology that has quite literally been life changing for me. I know that might sound clichéd, but those who know me well, know that six years ago I had truly fallen out of love with the world of IT, a world that had been my (work) life from the age of nineteen. I had been too long in a stagnant environment! I was bored, I felt couped up in stuffy offices, and needed a change, so I enrolled with the Open University here in the UK to read Environmental Science with a view to a complete career change.

A New Start

Then four and a half years ago I moved to a new role with a new employer, I became aware of Nutanix and became a customer. As a technology, it made me sit up and take notice, but more than that, as a community of people I was exposed to - Nutanix employees, their partners, and their customers – there was a buzz I hadn’t experienced for too long! I’m not ashamed to say that I found myself becoming something of an evangelist – happy to speak to other prospective customers about the tech, contributing to case studies, and ultimately found myself sharing a stage in Copenhagen with the amazing Jeremy Launier, telling my story to an audience of hundreds at the annual .Next conference (okay, there were four people there, we had the graveyard shift after lunch on the final day when everyone was trying to beat the airport rush)!
When the opportunity arose last year to join the Softcat team as a Nutanix presales Architect I literally jumped at the chance!

Recognition

For me then, being recognised as a Nutanix Technology Champion is about sharing my reignited passion for technology with as many people who will listen. It’s more than that though.  It’s also about a diverse community of advocates: people who see Nutanix as a game changer, but also as a company who don’t want to just succeed but want to change the IT landscape for the better. This is why Softcat and Nutanix work so well together because we both share that ethos of ‘it doesn’t just need to do the job; it needs to make a positive difference’.  The Nutanix community are a big reason I am here, now, at Softcat! The only question I ask myself is why I didn’t apply to the NTC programme sooner – back when I was a customer.

Looking Ahead

I’m looking forward to making many new friends through the program, and most of all to meeting some of them in person again when face-to-face events get back to normal. As I said in a social media post when I discovered I had been accepted onto the program: it makes me immensely proud to be part of this Softcat and Nutanix partnership and am really looking forward to being part of the NTC community in 2022, the year of ‘NuStu’!!

Oh, for anyone that is interested, I have reached my final year with the OU, but it’s now very much a journey of personal growth and no longer my emergency exit from IT!