SolarWinds Head Geek Program Welcomes New Team Member and Celebrates Industry Achievement

Liz Beavers joins the Head Geeks as the latest industry expert to help IT pros navigate today’s evolving IT challenges; veteran Head Geek Thomas LaRock receives Microsoft MVP distinction for 12^th straight year

AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI), a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software, today introduced Liz Beavers as the newest member of the company’s Head Geek^™ team and announced that Microsoft recognized Head Geek Thomas LaRock with his 12^th consecutive Microsoft^® MVP award for passionately sharing data platform knowledge with the tech community.

“Having once been on the front lines working as IT pros themselves, the SolarWinds Head Geeks are invaluable assets to the organization when it comes to relating 1:1 with our IT pro community,” said Darren Beck, CMO, SolarWinds. “Their depth of firsthand knowledge and experience combined with industry insight drives today’s tech conversations and is what makes them unique. We’re excited to see Liz bring her ITSM expertise to the Head Geeks team, and we’re so proud to see Tom be recognized year after year as Microsoft MVP.”

Beavers brings a robust set of skills and experiences to the Head Geeks team, including the following:

• Experience in customer success and IT service management. Previously a senior solutions engineer at Samanage (now SolarWinds^® Service Desk), Beavers joined SolarWinds last year with a passion for helping customers solve their pain points and streamline IT operations with the aid of the SolarWinds platform. As Head Geek, Beavers will use her ITSM expertise to spearhead ITSM best practices within the ITIL^® framework.
• Multiple skills and licenses, including an ITIL 4 certification. Beavers served as the main technical point of contact in the sales cycle for SolarWinds Service Desk, owning the more technical elements of RFIs and RFPs. Certified in ITIL v3 and ITIL 4, she’s spent years as a trusted advocate for prospective and existing customers and helps enterprises understand how service management fits into their larger business initiatives.
• Industry thought leadership and public speaking. Formally trained in public speaking, Beavers is actively involved in the service management community. She often participates in and hosts podcasts, webcasts, and panel discussions as well as speaking engagements at large-scale industry events hosted by leading organizations like HDI, SDI, and more. Beavers is passionate about staying involved, constantly learning, and sharing her own experiences to help others, whether she’s sharing ITSM best practices or insights on the future of smart technology and digital transformation.

LaRock is a 12-time recipient of the Microsoft MVP honor:

• The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Program makes up a global community of over 4,000 technical experts driven by passion, community spirit, and a quest for knowledge. These community leaders come from more than 90 countries, speak over 40 different languages, are awarded in more than 90 Microsoft technologies, and answer more than 10 million questions each year.
• LaRock received his first Microsoft MVP award in 2009 and has received one each consecutive year for his continued contributions to and enthusiasm for the Microsoft community. LaRock was named a Microsoft MVP for his technical expertise with SQL Server^® and his interest in system center cloud and data center management as well as Microsoft Azure^®. In addition, LaRock is a Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Data Platform MVP, VMware^® vExpert^™, and former Microsoft Certified Trainer. He has a wide range of experience in the IT industry—including roles such as programmer, developer, analyst, and database administrator—and he enjoys sharing his insights on his blog.

Who Are the Head Geeks?

The SolarWinds Head Geeks^™ bring over 120 collective years of real-world expertise and renowned industry credentials to provide the tech pro community with perspectives, advice, and discussion on the latest trends and challenges in technology.

The Head Geeks are experts in all areas of IT, including IT operations management, hybrid IT, networking, application management, databases, security, enterprise, cloud, DevOps, virtualization, ITSM, and more. The SolarWinds Head Geeks engage with technology pros on THWACK^®, the SolarWinds community forum; on the Orange Matter^™ and Geek Speak^™ blogs; in-person at events, including conferences, trade shows, SolarWinds User Groups^™, and THWACKcamp^™, the annual SolarWinds virtual IT conference; in TechPod^™ podcasts; and in SolarWinds Lab^™ sessions, where they provide advanced technical training.

Connect with the Head Geeks on THWACK:

• Leon Adato: Adatole
• Liz Beavers: lbeavs
• Sascha Giese: saschg
• Patrick Hubbard: Patrick.Hubbard
• Thomas LaRock: SQLRockstar
• Chrystal Taylor: ChrystalT

Connect with SolarWinds:

• THWACK
• Twitter^®
• Facebook^®
• LinkedIn^®

#SWIcorporate

#SWIitsm

About SolarWinds

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) is a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software. Our products give organizations worldwide—regardless of type, size, or complexity—the power to monitor and manage their IT services, infrastructures, and applications; whether on-premises, in the cloud, or via hybrid models. We continuously engage with technology professionals—IT service and operations professionals, DevOps professionals, and managed services providers (MSPs)—to understand the challenges they face in maintaining high-performing and highly available IT infrastructures and applications. The insights we gain from them, in places like our THWACK community, allow us to solve well-understood IT management challenges in the ways technology professionals want them solved. Our focus on the user and commitment to excellence in end-to-end hybrid IT management has established SolarWinds as a worldwide leader in solutions for network and IT service management, application performance, and managed services. Learn more today at www.solarwinds.com.

The SolarWinds, SolarWinds & Design, Orion, and THWACK trademarks are the exclusive property of SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC or its affiliates, are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other SolarWinds trademarks, service marks, and logos may be common law marks or are registered or pending registration. All other trademarks mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and are trademarks of (and may be registered trademarks) of their respective companies.

© 2020 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

Contacts

Nicole Fachet

Archetype

Phone: +1-212-871-3950

nicole.fachet@archetype.co

Courtney Cantwell

SolarWinds

Phone: +1-512-585-0849

pr@solarwinds.com