I’ve been waiting for a long running transaction to commit, so to speak, before announcing the big news…

I am truly happy to announce that Microsoft Learning has hired a new SQL MCM Program Manager to keep moving forward with our recent program changes and continue to expand the program’s value and impact:  

Robert Davis (blog | twitter | linkedin) is the new SQL Server Microsoft Certified Master Program Manager!

There are many reasons why I’m happy about this hiring decision, but I’ll stick with my top three reasons here:

1. Robert is an active and tireless community contributor, author and speaker.  His community interactions are frequent, consistent and high quality.  I also appreciate that he helps people on both internal Microsoft and external facing forums. 
2. He is a Microsoft Certified Master with a deep understanding of the program scope (depth and breadth).  He also understands that while the program is elite it should not be elitist.  As I’ve said several times before, there are many “uncertified masters” out there and the program has only just started to reach them.
3. Robert is also incredibly responsive and focused on taking care of the community and ensuring that people’s hard-earned efforts are recognized and appreciated.  

I think Robert will take things well beyond where I left them and I’m looking forward to seeing all the great things that I know he will do.  

Now – where did I go off to? 

I actually transitioned to my new role a few weeks ago.  I was a SQL Server support engineer for the last 4 ½ years with the Microsoft Premier Field Engineering team and I also served the dual role of acting SQL MCM Program Manager for the last two years. 

The time was right for a big change and so I’ve joined the SQL Server Content & Community team in a Program Manager role.  While there are several aspects of the position still in motion – I will start off in this role by working on various aspects of Microsoft’s SQL Server content strategy.  I’ll also be involved in planning and driving the next wave of content for the upcoming release of SQL Server.    

This is definitely a behind-the-scenes role and that suits me well. I do hope to blog at my same infrequent pace – but we’ll see.  While this role gets away from support and far more into the PM space, I’ll still be digging in to some technical details as part of my new role (already encountered a very interesting scenario that will be fun to blog about when the time is right).  So if something warrants comment I’ll try to share.  Or I may ask others to share instead and this blog will become even dustier.  We’ll see…

In the meantime, onward we go – and please join me in welcoming Robert Davis to his new role!