Welcome!

The 2023 vExpert Second Half Application submission period officially open on June 5th, 2023, and closes on June 30th. The announcement of the selected vExperts will be made on July 21st, 2023. It is important to note that your application must be finalized by June 30th, as that is when we will lock applications and begin the voting process on the week of July 3rd. You can apply now vs waiting for June 5th, June 5th is just the official announcement date.

If you missed the session where we provided guidance on the entire application and voting process, described what we are looking for and what to avoid when submitting your application, you can watch the recorded session here (passcode: ?9QtHNM@).

What is the vExpert program?

VMware vExpert is VMware's global evangelism and advocacy program. The program is designed to put VMware's marketing resources towards your advocacy efforts. Promotion of your content, exposure at our global events, co-op advertising, and early access to beta programs and VMware's roadmap. The awards are for individuals, not companies, and last for one program year. Employees of both customers and partners can receive the awards. In the application, we consider various community contributions from the previous year activities in determining who gets awards.


What are Community Contributions?

We are looking for IT Professionals who are sharing their VMware knowledge and contributing back to the community. Community contributions are activities that are not work or job role related. These activities should be significant, relevant to VMware and going above and beyond your day job.

Some examples of community contributions are: Blogs, Hosting or Co-Hosting Podcasts, Session Speaking, Webinars, Authoring, Co-Authoring Books or Publications, Sharing Scripts, Video Publishing, VMTN or other Community Forum Participation (answering questions), Active VMUG Leadership, Active VMUG Steering Committee Contributions and more. We have some vExperts who contribute on a single platform and others who contribute from multiple platforms. Here is a good example of a winning application. 


How to Apply for vExpert

You can fill out your application at anytime to keep track of all your activities throughout the year. We provide a place where you can log each activity in your application in real time. No more trying to remember what you did all year, just add it to the application anytime and hit save.

In December we have a submission period that ends in mid January, during this period you have time to finalize your application before the submission end date. At the end of the submission period we lock applications and the vExpert PRO's start voting on you previous year contributions. Voting last for a few weeks until we announce the winners of the vExpert award. All applicants are sent a decision by email and we allow for application appeals for 2 weeks after the program is announced.

In June we open the second half application submission period, finalize voting and announce award winners in July / August. All awards for first or second period expire when the new program is announce the following year. Example: The award is for one program year. If you win the award from the second half, you must reapply again in December for the following years program. The purpose of the second half application period is for those who missed the first period or didn't win the award want a second chance for the award.


vExpert Program Benefits

  • Network with over 1,400 other vExperts
  • Opportunity to apply for 9 Official VMware Business Unit lead vExpert sub programs.
  • Invite to our private vExpert #Slack channels
  • vExpert certificate signed by our VMware CEO
  • Permission to use the vExpert logo on cards, website, etc. for one year
  • Exclusive gifts from various VMware and VMware partners
  • Private & technical deep dive webinars with VMware and VMware partners
  • Access to private betas (subject to admission by beta teams)
  • 400-day eval licenses for most products for home lab
  • Private pre-launch briefings via our bloggers briefing pre-VMware Explore (subject to admission by product teams)
  • Featured in a public vExpert online directory
  • Access to vetted VMware & Virtualization content for your social channels through VMware Advocacy
  • Yearly vExpert parties at both VMware Explore U.S. Europe events or Gifts for vExperts attending VMware Explore


VMware vExpert Program Participation

The vExpert Program ("Program") is a marketing program designed by VMware to reward community members for evangelizing VMware's products and services. The program has grown to nearly 1,300 recipients, and VMware wishes to be clear that it may and will exercise its discretion with respect to which individuals may participate in the Program. Our goal is to promote actions consistent with the Program’s mission. Accordingly, we will assess whether an individual may participate in the program based not only on their own activity in evangelizing VMware products and services, but also on the activities of the company (or division within the company) that employs the individual.