After two invaluable years with the CMS Advisory Board, we have decided it's time for renewal. Although the team has been functioning well, we want to ensure openness and provide opportunities for a broader audience.
It wasn’t an easy decision, but we all agreed when we discussed it at our meeting back in April: the CMS Advisory Board should not become a group of old friends exclusively discussing features, ideas, and strategies for the CMS. We need to ensure a broad and diverse range of opinions. After receiving an overwhelming number of applications from many enthusiastic Umbracians and conducting several interviews, we have now finalized the updated group of members.
Sadly, we will be saying goodbye (for now) to Søren Kottal, Frans de Jong, Michael Biggs, Heather Floyd, and Nurhak Kaya. They have all been outstanding contributors, providing valuable insights on everything from macros and New Backoffice to Headless and beyond. A huge #H5YR to them all! Fortunately, most of this talented group is already involved in other teams, and some are organizing festivals and meetups, so I'm sure we’ll have many opportunities to connect outside the CMS Advisory Board in the future.
The exciting part of this renewal is welcoming a group of new members. They will join our continuing members: Callum Whyte, Paul Marden, Matt Bliss, and Jason Prothero. And as you can see below, we now have two new passionate members from Australia, who have agreed to get up in the middle of their night to join our meetings. That makes us cover 4 out of 7 continents in this team, as we now have members from North America, Asia, Australia and Europe. We are thrilled to welcome the following new members to the CMS Advisory Board.
Aaron Sawyer
I am a Digital Solutions Architect at Marathon Consulting, Inc., an Information Technology Consulting company based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA. I build websites, code frontend and backend solutions, and provide support for other developers. I've been a web developer for over 13 years, and have been developing with Umbraco for the past 7. I've built many websites on Umbraco and continue to build new solutions on the Umbraco platform.
My goal is to provide the best solutions for both developers and users. I can provide real-world perspectives from developers that use Umbraco every day. Having worked with clients that use Umbraco, I can also provide input on what makes the most sense for usability. This is a wonderful opportunity and I look forward to helping make Umbraco better!
Nikhil Prajapati
I've been working with Umbraco for over 11 years, and I love designing a friendly CMS and Backoffice experience that customers enjoy using. As the CTO at GIRIRAJ DIGITAL, my commitment is to deliver top-notch Umbraco solutions with an exceptional user experience. We became an Umbraco Gold Partner in 2021 and have continued to establish ourselves as a center of excellence with our certified team.
This year, I was honored to be selected as an Umbraco MVP and I'm also an organizer of the Umbraco Users Group India Community Meetup. Also I am Umbraco Certified Master.
My passion lies in implementing Umbraco for enterprise clients, building packages, and creating custom connectors with CRMs, ERPs, and more. Joining the CMS Community Team is a fantastic opportunity for me to share my insights and help shape the future of the product. I'm really excited about this opportunity and can't wait to get started!
Kaspar Boel Kjeldsen
I have a deep love for Umbraco and see a unique opportunity to contribute in a new and exciting way. Having worked with Umbraco for many years and being active in the community for the past few years, I am eager to bring my perspectives, as well as those of my peers, to the board. I look forward to collaborating with and learning from the impressive team already in place.
I have worked with Umbraco since version 7 and currently work as a Senior Consultant and unofficial "Minister of Dangerous Code" at Knowit Experience. As a full stack developer, I am involved in all aspects of development, including frontend, backend, CI/CD/Cloud, and modding Umbraco like it's a computer game with HarmonyLib to meet urgent needs (that one time it happened, I swear). I also participate a lot in sales pitches and, because of that, care a great deal about Umbraco’s “message to the world” and what story is being told.
While I may not be an expert in every area, my broad understanding of various aspects of development allows me to offer valuable insights. I aim to bring these comprehensive perspectives to the board. Knowit Experience, already a contributing platinum partner, has made my decision to apply all the easier, as I have my agency's full support, not only in time for this role, but also for package development and other contributions.
Daniel Walker
While working as an Umbraco developer, I've had a lot of interactions with CMS users & marketing teams. Running training sessions, sales pitches, and teaching clients how to use their new CMS has opened my eyes to the different ways that people use & expect CMSs to work.
These experiences have allowed me to approach problems from various different lenses. Even though the "best" setup works fine for the developer writing the Umbraco project, it might not work well for the content editors who are going to be using the site.
I have always loved the Umbraco community, and it's a privilege to be able to share my (hopefully) unique perspective on all things Umbraco CMS, and help to shape the way forward.
I've been working with Umbraco for close to a decade now, and have worked as a full stack developer on a number of websites ranging from small local companies, all the way up to massive publicly listed international organisations.
As a Solutions Architect, I love being able to tailor an Umbraco implementation based around the unique needs and requirements of the client. Each client that we bring on is different, and it's incredibly satisfying to approach and solve the various challenges that each project brings.
Zandra Sjöberg
I wanted to join the team and meet others who share my passion for Umbraco. As I am not a developer I know Umbraco from the views of building content in the CMS, pitching Umbraco to clients in the sales process and also marketing the CMS in the Swedish market. I thought this team would be a great way for me to contribute to the community with my experiences and ideas.
My love journey with Umbraco started back in 2018 when I first joined the team at Webmind, here I work with Production & Project management and marketing. As a Platinum partner agency that also works solely with Umbraco, we are all very invested in the future of the CMS.
Dmitry Bastron
I’ve worked with multiple CMS platforms including Umbraco for 8 years as a backend developer, solutions architect and now leading the development team at Byteminds agency.
I'd like to share my experience working with many other platforms like Kentico, Sitecore, Optimizely and others to help Umbraco strengthen its position.
Saskia Jury
Having worked across various CMS platforms throughout my career, Umbraco is the one I feel most passionate about. As a Client Services representative, the 'aha' moment when my clients first get their hands on their shiny new Umbraco CMS and see first-hand how intuitive and friendly the experience is, is really rewarding. It's quite strange to say that content-editing is 'fun' but I've had genuine feedback from clients and their partners to this effect, so I want to keep pushing the CMS further; ensuring we remove areas of friction and create more moments of joy.
I've been working in Client Services for 12 years, starting my career in healthcare advertising and specialising in digital down the line. I've worked across a wide range of clients in government, not-for-profit, higher education, e-comm and B2B sectors.
Carlos Rey
I've worked with a broad spectrum of CMS systems and have a passion for improving both the developer and end-user experience.
I have always had a drive and creative flair for R&D within software and solutions development. I have sat on the sidelines with Umbraco for a long time and always had ideas for how to improve it. This led me to Codegarden and then to apply for the CMS advisory board because I want to help shape the future of Umbraco and bring my experience and ideas to the table in a meaningful way.
I have worked in professional software development for over 25 years, with over 10 years working with Umbraco. I started as a C++ developer but moved into C# from its version one beta.
I love coding. I have since moved up the ladder over the years (kicking & screaming) and am now in a leadership role at Radley Yeldar, but retain a firm grip on coding. I also have a large amount of client-facing engagement.
I've worked across a hugely diverse spectrum of industry sectors which gives me broad insights into how clients work.
All these factors coalesce to help give me a wide view of how Umbraco can make a difference.
Chad Tolkien
Whenever we've needed a CMS, we've always reached for Umbraco. It's been a staple of the solutions we build for over a decade. The next step is to help shape the direction of the platform from the perspective of an agency based on the other side of the world!
Originally a Web Developer, I've been working with .NET since its inception (and Classic ASP prior to that). I am a co-founder of Soda Digital where I spearhead technology decisions for our clients across the Australia / Pacific region.
Let’s get started
We are eager to begin working with this team and look forward to our first meeting soon. If this team functions as well as before, we will be very pleased.
Regards,
Bjarke Berg and Lasse Fredslund
Written by: Lasse Fredslund
Published: August 9, 2024