Nearly two years into this pandemic and life has continued to move forward despite every day being groundhog day.

I have officially left Sales after 5 1/2 years. I have LOVED every minute of it. Even the ugly bits.

I’m happy to say that I have decided to stay at VMware and it’s really because of the people here.

Let me state the obvious – not everyone has been rainbows and unicorns. Some people sucked. There are always gonna be a couple of lemons for their issues. Don’t let someone else’s problems become yours. I also have problems distinguishing my shortcomings versus how other’s are judging me. I often conflate the two. My only advice here is to be introspective of yourself and decide what you want to work on. All other negative stuff is other people’s problem, not yours.

Ok, where did I go?

I have joined the Multi-Cloud Center of Excellence in the VMware Cloud Infrastructure Business Group. That’s a mouthful. What is that? And what am I actually doing?

I’m part of a small team within the Cloud Infrastructure Business Group that produces collateral regarding VMware’s multi-cloud strategy. Still ambiguous as heck. Let’s try again. I’m helping to write the documentation and make the VMware cloud strategy real with our customers and to teach the greater VMware family how to execute on our cloud strategy. Better?

I’m excited because I have so much experience from clients, my own experience in IT, and partners about how using VMware in the cloud is going. For some of you, it’s not going anywhere. For others, there’s body parts strewn all over the lawn. I feel your pain. I’ve been working with clients and partners across the United States (and sometimes across the world) on how to consume VMware Cloud on AWS. The good news is that I know the VMware family has a lot of technical folks that really know their stuff. The challenge is VMware itself has a lot of work ahead of it to fully flush out our story. It’s a good one. Think enterprise multicloud infrastructure. The best bits of VMware in the past with all the advantages of the various clouds today. I moved to this role because I want to help fill that story out. I’m hoping to help provide the greater community clarity on the mission, the tech, and the best practices. It’s a lot but we have to start somewhere.

Although I’m technically not a part of the presales organization anymore, I still plan to be very engaged with my SE and SA counterparts to provide them the content from the business side of the VMware. I also plan to be more visible and engaged in the community to open these discussions and help our partners and clients alike in our journey together.

I’m very much looking forward to being able to talk about VMware working in all the various clouds. It’s an exciting time. VMware has new ways of delivering our platform(VMC, AVS, GCVE, OCVE, etc), new and better ways of moving workloads(HCX, VCDR, +), and new ways of reimagining what managing enterprise infrastructure will look like.

Personally, this is a growth step for me. I really had fun in sales and I may go back one day. However, I have always looked up to those evangelists within the industry and this is my opportunity to do my diligence and learn some of those skills. I’ve been fortunate at VMware. I’ve had support from colleagues and management to move teams and change roles time and again. People here have given me opportunities that I have taken advantage of. I’ve grown as a result of those opportunities. More importantly, all of these lateral moves have exposed me to many people from different organizations both internally and externally that I have come to respect and love. It’s this network of people that keep me afloat during my toughest times. They give me hope that someone can help me in my times of need. I try to pay that forward when I can. Let me bring this post to a close by reiterating what I said in the beginning – I stayed because of the people. Value those around you for you may never know who will help in your time of need. Jobs come and go. Roles come and go. Companies, even, may come and go. But you take the people you bond with wherever you go.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

I live by her words. If I come across you, I aim to leave you better than I found you!