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Top Interview

Ryan Storgaard: Ryan Storgaard, Award Winning Director of Technical Evangelism, Microsoft Canada
Ryan has a considerable history of success and incredible background to bring to the broad IT community and to his leadership roles. He rare accomplishments include the Microsoft Chairman’s Award and the Microsoft Circle of Excellence Award plus leading key initiatives. Have a good look at his amazing background below and then listen to the interview where you will get a great picture, resources, and insights to drive your organization’s success. Plus his valuable lessons are a catalyst for you in your job and career.

Enjoy!
Stephen Ibaraki

Presented by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Ryan Storgaard is a recipient of the prestigious Microsoft Chairman's Award. Ryan is a dynamic leader fuelled by optimism for the future and passionate about enabling others to achieve their goals and ambitions.

As Director of Technical Evangelism at Microsoft Canada, Ryan leads an amazing team of individuals focused on driving satisfaction and adoption of Microsoft technologies. From students and start-ups, to hobbyist developers and IT generalists, to Professional Developers, ITPros and Managers, his team is focused on driving awareness, engagement, adoption, and satisfaction of Microsoft platforms and solutions. Thus millions of Canadians are impacted through diverse engagements across social media and online communities, associations and user groups, and key conferences and events. His team of Developer and ITPro advisors is Microsoft Canada's ambassadors to the ICT community; connecting, listening, supporting and enabling the technical professional and industry.

A firm believer in embracing and driving positive change rather than being negatively impacted by it, Ryan's previous national roles at Microsoft Canada include creating and leading national and competitive strategies. As Director of Cloud Services Strategy, Ryan reported directly to Eric Gales, President of Microsoft Canada, and the Canadian Leadership Team as the company worked on incubating, developing, enhancing and releasing several strategic Cloud Services such as: Office 365, live@edu, Bing search, Windows Azure and Windows Live.

Prior to his current role, Ryan was Director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft Canada where he led another exceptional team that worked with the top Canadian brands, websites and software companies in Canada across Windows Phone, Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9 and Windows Azure. He also spent several amazing years leading Microsoft Canada's technical evangelism efforts with software companies from start-ups, to large enterprise systems, to competitive recruitment receiving the prestigious Microsoft Circle of Excellence award.

Ryan has a strong background in systems engineering, programming and professional training. Before joining Microsoft, Ryan owned his own consulting company and worked as a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Linux Professional Instructor teaching various courses in Novell, Cisco and internet security.

On both a personal and professional level, Ryan believes in "following your bliss". For Ryan, that means: being excited about the future and playing a positive role in shaping it, meeting passionate and positive people who challenge and inspire you, always seeking adventure and new experiences, and always progressing through ongoing learning, sharing, reflection, development and growth. Ryan feels incredibly fortunate that his current and past roles are "I absolutely love what I do!" type of jobs.

On a personal level, he continues to be inspired by his family and friends. Ryan is happiest traveling with his wife and son or balancing the solitude of nature with some adrenaline pumping action with a smile from ear to ear while mountain biking, snowboarding, or rock climbing!