AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog

Meet Our Newest APN Ambassadors and Explore Their Latest Expertise

By Elaine Perales, Manager, Global Programs at AWS

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The APN Ambassador Program is a vibrant worldwide community of technical experts from AWS Partner Network (APN) Consulting and ISV Partners.

APN Ambassadors are prominent leaders who are passionate about sharing their Amazon Web Services (AWS) technical expertise. They author blogs and whitepapers, create and deliver public presentations, and contribute to open source projects.

APN Ambassadors evangelize AWS via social media and facilitate peer-to-peer learning by presenting at conferences, leading workshops, and hosting user group events.

As a result of their membership in the APN Ambassador program, AWS Partner team members can gain advanced knowledge and sharpen their technical delivery best practices.

What Have Our APN Ambassadors Been Up To?

Local AWS communities are a vital resource for cloud professionals around the world, and many of these are hosted by APN Ambassadors. Members of local communities look to their leaders to provide guidance and mentorship on how to build AWS skills, solve technical problems, and grow their careers.

Here are several examples of the technical expertise shared by APN Ambassadors across the world.

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EMEA

INDIA

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JAPAN

LATAM

KOREA

GREATER CHINA

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Welcome to Our Latest APN Ambassadors!

We are excited to introduce more than 50 new APN Ambassadors! Our program recently launched in three new markets: Latin America, Korea, and China.

We also expanded the program to include APN Ambassadors who are from AWS ISV Partners.

INDIA

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1. Deepak Dhall (Umbrella Infocare)

Deepak is Lead Cloud Solutions Architect at Umbrella Infocare. He has 16+ years of experience, from running cables in data centers, systems administration and engineering, to architecting large-scale solutions for enterprise customers. As an architect, Deepak is curious by nature and passionate about engaging with customers on solutions for their complex application setups.

2. Giten Mitra (MothersonSumi INfotech and Designs)

Giten is a dynamic, versatile, hands-on cloud architect with 15+ years of experience in technology planning, strategy development and implementation, leadership, and operational transformation. He specializes in cloud-native technologies, app modernization, DevOps, and automation. Giten loves working with customers to build secure, high-performing, cost-optimal, and resilient infrastructure using the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

3. Dhaval Soni (Infostretch Corporation)

Dhaval is a seasoned Cloud Solutions Architect with expertise in designing, implementing, securing, and managing enterprise cloud computing solutions for different sector customers. His deep expertise in security and governance helps customers accelerate their cloud journeys. Dhaval holds nine AWS Certifications in addition to 10 Red Hat certifications and other industry-recognized certifications, including PCI-DSS Implementer and ISO 27001 Lead Auditor.

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GREATER CHINA

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4. Jun Li (Shenzhen Bosicloud Tech)

Jun is the technical leader of the architecture delivery team of Shenzhen Bosicloud Technology. He has 10+ years of experience in enterprise system architecture design, containerization practice, and database management. As an AWS solution architect, Jun has multiple AWS Certifications and provides professional technical guidance and AWS best practices to customers in finance, ecommerce, HPC, and other industries.

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NAMER

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5. Yann Stoneman (Smartronix)

Yann is a Cloud Solution Architect with 11 AWS Certifications and is an AWS Authorized Instructor. He specializes in serverless cloud-native development and cloud security. Besides writing technical articles and making cloud demo videos, Yann also sits down to play Chopin now and then, having a Bachelors from the Juilliard School. If you want to discuss your cloud not only in English, but also in German, then Yann is your guy.

6. Nicki Hames (Pariveda Solutions)

Nicki is a Technical Manager and Architect who specializes in DevOps and system architecture. She has been focused on AWS since 2017 and has achieved all of the AWS Associate and Professional Certifications. As a delivery lead, Nicki enjoys the opportunity and challenge of solving interesting problems and has managed large-scale projects within highly complex enterprises. She is passionate about enabling and teaching others about AWS.

7. Peter Meulbroek (Risk Focus)

Peter is a seasoned leader with 30+ years delivering technology solutions. He has worked in the public cloud and DevOps since their early days and in organizational transformation since the beginnings of Agile. Peter’s cross-functional expertise enables him to define, design, and deliver the changes that unleash innovation. He is particularly interested in solving challenging Brownfield problems and designing scalable processes and applications that can be quickly adapted to meet changing business requirements.

8. Anthony DiMarco (ScaleSec)

Anthony is the VP of Cloud Security Engineering at ScaleSec. He has been designing and building cloud-native applications with AWS for 10+ years and building software professionally for 25+ years. Anthony has a passion for serverless architectures, automation, and infrastructure as code. He is one of the founders and primary authors of the AWS SDK for Rust – Rusoto.

9. Roger White (World Wide Technology)

Roger is a Practice Lead specializing in cloud security and networking. He has 20+ years of experience architecting, designing, and delivering secure solutions to customers across multiple industries. Roger holds an MS in Network Security, seven AWS Certifications, and multiple industry certifications including CCIE, CISSP, and CISM.

10. RJ Jafarkhani (Candid Partners, McKinsey & Company)

RJ is an experienced cloud leader having worked with AWS since 2007. He focuses on enterprise cloud migrations, cloud adoption, native cloud development, and modernization.

11. Jason Dyke (ScaleSec)

Jason is a Security Consultant helping startups and Fortune 500 companies stay secure in the cloud. He has over a decade of experience applying industry-standard best practices to protect data and keep users safe.

12. Eric Evans (ScaleSec)

Eric is a Principal Cloud Security Consultant at ScaleSec, advocating for cloud security in AWS and multi-cloud solutions. He has over a decade of IT experience with recent roles in software engineering, DevSecOps, and container security. Eric has worked with a variety of companies from local startups to Fortune 10 enterprises. A community leader, he sits on the board of a global cybersecurity non-profit organization and leads several cloud security user groups.

13. Mike Preston (Rubrik)

Mike Preston is a Senior Developer Advocate at Rubrik focusing on all things automation and cloud. Prior to joining Rubrik, he was in the customer/partner space for 15 years, focusing mainly on Microsoft, vSphere, backup, disaster recovery, storage, PowerShell, and automation. Mike is a 10-time vExpert, the Toronto VMUG Leader, and author of Troubleshooting vSphere Storage, as well as an avid blogger.

14. Robert Belson (Verizon)

Robert joined Verizon’s corporate strategy team in 2019 and is principally focused on leading developer relations for 5G Edge, Verizon’s edge computing portfolio. He has a passion for 5G networks, distributed systems, serverless architectures, and can be found working with customers on designing cloud-native solutions, maintaining the Verizon 5G Edge Blog on Medium, and engaging the developer community through educational materials and meetups.

15. Joseph Morais (Confluent)

Joseph started his career as a network/solution engineer working for FMC Corporation and then Urban Outfitters (UO). At UO, he joined the ecommerce operations team, where he focused on agile methodology, CI/CD, containerization, public cloud architecture, and infrastructure as code. This led to a greenfield AWS opportunity working for a startup, Amino Payments, where he worked with Kafka, Apache Hadoop, NGINX, and automation. At Confluent, Joseph serves as Cloud Partner Solutions Architect and AWS evangelist.

16. Christian Romming (Etleap)

Christian founded Etleap in 2013. Before that, he was the CTO of an ad-tech company where he recognized the available solutions for building data pipelines required monumental engineering resources to implement, maintain, and scale.

17. Chase Douglas (Stackery)

Chase is a deeply experienced software engineer and long-time engineering leader. As CTO at Stackery, Chase steers engineering and technical architecture. He’s a frequent conference speaker on the topics of serverless, instrumentation, and software patterns. Prior to founding Stackery, Chase led engineering teams at New Relic and Canonical. In September 2019, AWS named Chase an AWS Serverless Hero.

18. Michael Lewis (Slalom)

Mike is a Principal in the cloud enablement practice at Slalom Consulting in Atlanta. He’s a seasoned IT professional with 25+ years experience in large-scale, complex distributed enterprise environments. Mike has extensive experience with operating systems with a focus on Linux, storage, networks, containerization, virtualization, DevOps, and security with a passion for leveraging AWS to help organizations on their journey to the cloud.

19. Rajkumar Murugesan (Aspire Systems)

Rajkumar leads the cloud solution practice at Aspire. He has 16+ years of industry experience and is responsible for consulting in cloud security, migration, and DevOps at Aspire. Rajkumar is passionate about technology and regularly contributes to automation, serverless, and cloud security forums. He’s an ardent technology lover who likes to read and write about new technology initiatives and updates.

20. Sivaprakasam Chandrababu (Aspire Systems)

Siva is a Technical Architect at Aspire. He has expertise in consulting and solutions architecture in AWS, and has been involved in transforming many enterprise customers workloads to AWS. Siva has deep experience in supporting, automating, and optimizing infrastructure management, DevOps, and mission critical deployments on AWS.

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LATAM

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21. Roberto Reyes (Orion)

Roberto creates products and services using cognitive technologies such as machine learning. He is also director of the Well-Architected Partner Program and an active member of AWS Community Builder. Roberto is a specialist in governance, costs optimization, and migration of workloads to AWS. He has worked in Peru for 9 years as Head of Infrastructure, modernizing the AWS infrastructure using IaC, serverless, and DevOps.

22. Flávio Rescia (Darede)

Flávio is CTO and Co-Founder at Darede, an AWS Partner in Brazil. He has 20+ years of experience working with IT and 6+ years focused on AWS. Flávio graduated with expertise in computer networks (SENAI) and information systems and has six AWS Certifications.

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EMEA

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23. Colin Barker (DevOpsGroup)

Colin is a Cloud Solutions Architect and Consultant at DevOpsGroup, where he leads migrations into the cloud using the AWS Migration Acceleration Program. Colin facilitates workshops with customers to understand their business goals and technical requirements. Prior to DevOpsGroup, he worked at a large global managed hosting provider in London, and spent 9 years as Manager of Infrastructure and Security responsible for a number of data centers in the UK.

24. Mark Ross (Atos)

Mark is a Lead Cloud Architect with 20+ years of industry experience. Specializing in AWS for the past four years, Mark has multiple AWS Certifications and is passionate about helping customers build, migrate to, and leverage the AWS Cloud. He has worked in a variety of sectors including financial services, consumer goods, UK government, health utilities, and media. At Atos, Mark has created and grown a 400+ person AWS community, supporting colleagues by coaching and arranging events like Immersion Days and AWS GameDays.

25. Steyn Huizinga (Oblivion Cloud Control)

Steyn is CTO at Oblivion Cloud Control and has been using AWS since 2014. He was one of the first all-five certified in the Benelux. Steyn is a tech savvy person and always looking to solve challenges and make an impact. He is one of the few CTOs who likes to get his hands dirty with coding. Steyn’s favorite topics are security, networking, Linux, and automation.

26. Danny Steenman (CloudNation)

Danny is a Cloud Consultant at CloudNation and started using AWS in 2014. He specializes in building high-availability environments using automation (IaC) and migrating workloads. After gaining more experience in the cloud, Danny decided to share what he learned by writing blog posts online. He also found he enjoyed sharing knowledge through workshops and trainings, and in 2020 he became an AWS Authorized Instructor Champion.

27. Deniz Parmaksiz (Insider)

Deniz is a Solution Architect and Machine Learning Engineer at Insider. He focuses on automating and optimizing the ML lifecycle through MLOps to create specialized solutions at scale. Deniz is passionate about creating machine learning and big data solutions for web-scale problems that are powered by AWS products.

28. Durga Prasad Dutta (Infosys)

Durga has 16+ years of experience in IT and 5+ years working with AWS services. He is a Sr. Cloud Architect with Infosys and advises clients on strategies of AWS adoption and usage in their data landscape. Durga cuts across the verticals of manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and logistics while specializing across the performance, cost optimization, and operations pillars of AWS Well-Architected Framework.

29. Jason Oliver (KCOM)

Jason is an accomplished principal cloud architect and builder with 25+ years of transformational IT experience working with organizations of all sizes and complexity. He’s an evangelist of innovative technology, best practice, concise operational processes, and quality documentation. Jason is a SME with strong domain knowledge in central government.

30. Vyacheslav Gorlov (ClearScale)

Vyacheslav is Lead Data Science Solutions Architect at ClearScale. In this role, he has delivered 50+ successful AWS projects over the past two years, ranging from modernizing applications to launching containers. In addition to his pre-sales and delivery tasks, Vyacheslav also promotes AWS’s ability to make organizations’ cloud journey successful by providing acceleration transformation sessions for customers.

31. Ruben Garcia (Everis)

Ruben is an AWS Evangelist and Cloud Architect that has been using AWS since 2015. He has developed several projects in different companies in Spain, from IBEX35 companies to startups. Ruben has created architectures for big data and media projects, and laid the foundations of several companies on AWS, focusing on security and performance.

32. Volker Tjaden (Databricks)

Volker is a Partner Solutions Architect at Databricks. Having started out as a PhD quantitative economist, he worked in finance, industry, and retail, and led complex digital transformation projects focusing on the operationalization of machine learning solutions. At Databricks, Volker focuses on helping customers implement data lakehouses on AWS as the next generation of data architecture.

33. John Walker (CirrusHQ)

John is a Professional Services Team Lead, Solutions Architect, and keen technology enthusiast with a software development background (C/C++/Python/Perl and more). He works to help customers make the most of cloud infrastructure and has a passion for cloud technology. John works with the AWS Well-Architected Partner Program, Guided Onboarding program, and AWS Immersion Days to help customers gain the most out of their cloud journey.

34. Basssel Al Annan (Zero&One)

Bassel is a DevOps Lead at Zero&One with 8+ years of diverse experience in cloud, IT infrastructure, and DevOps deploying applications across a multi-tier architecture based on AWS. He has worked across networking, cloud architecture, cloud migration, security, DevOps, systems, and release management. Bassel is the first AWS Community Builder in Lebanon. He is also Well-Architected Proficient and 6x AWS Certified.

35. Bruno Amaro Almeida (Fortum)

Bruno works as Head of Technology and Architecture at Fortum, a leading energy company developing clean technologies and sustainable solutions. He advises and helps organizations in areas such as cloud, data, and security. Throughout his career, Bruno has worked in a wide range of positions, from senior management to deep technical roles, and is passionate about culture and digital transformation.

36. Dirk Michel (MYCOM OSI)

Dirk is SVP of SaaS Technology and Solution Architecture at MYCOM OSI. He has 20+ years of experience in the telecommunication industry, focused on mobile and fixed network engineering, operations, and service assurance. Dirk joined the company in 2006 to create and run various functional departments across the business. Prior to joining MYCOM OSI, he held wireless engineering roles at Star21, Bechtel Telecommunications, and Nortel Networks.

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ANZ

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37. Guy Morton (Versent)

Guy is a Principal Consultant at Versent. As a long-term fan of OSS and the philosophies that underpin it, he was drawn to AWS in 2009 and has been using and learning more about it ever since.

38. James Bettany (WOLK Technology)

James is a Director at WOLK with many years’ experience as a senior systems and network engineer. He ensure that WOLK provides the best IT solutions for clients migrating to the cloud. James is highly qualified in AWS and what drives him is a passion to make continuous improvements, enabling people to develop, and WOLK and its clients to grow with them.

39. Scott Baldwin (Telstra Purple)

Scott is a Managing Consultant at Telstra Purple and passionate developer who loves all the agility and scalability of developing on the public cloud. He is focused on developing serverless applications in .NET, but is also enthusiastic about DevOps and helping teams become more productive.

40. Gerald Bachlmayr (Hostopia Australia)

Gerald is the Chief Architect at Hostopia Australia. He focuses on AWS cloud-native solutions and is passionate about solving business problems with strategic serverless solutions to enable quick release cycles. As a public speaker, Gerald is keen on sharing insights and learnings with the community to make the cloud an even better place.

41. Matthew Merriel (Cevo Australia)

Matthew is an AWS Architect at Cevo Australia. He has been working for AWS Partners since 2012, and currently holds 11 AWS Certifications.

42. Allan Denot (DNX Solutions)

Allan is the Co-Founder of DNX Solutions and specializes in container platforms. He is constantly looking for ways to improve the developer experience in the cloud.

43. Matthew Kerrison (Itoc)

Matthew is a Solutions Architect at Itoc. He was the AWS Sydney Summit DeepRacer League champion in 2019, and is passionate about helping clients adopt cloud native solutions.

44. Chris Cormack (Datacom Group)

Chris is a Principal Consultant at Datacom. He is highly experienced in design and digital transformations, and has enabled many organizations to investigate and adopt the benefits of AWS over the last decade. With 25+ years of commercial experience in IT, Chris has worked for multi-national corporations, super-regional organizations, and small startups.

45. Chris Watson (Datacom Group)

Chris is a Cloud Architect at Datacom. He has many years of experience delivering improved operations, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization for AWS workloads. Chris holds a large number of AWS Certifications, has been an AWS Public Sector Warrior, and is on the committee for the AWS Aoteroa User Group.

46. Sagar Donthineni (Deloitte)

Sagar is a Cloud Architect at Deloitte on the cloud engineering team, based in Wellington, New Zealand. He specializes in SAP on AWS, data center migrations to AWS, and building serverless applications. Sagar currently holds six AWS Certifications.

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47. Akihito Kitamura (Fujisoft)

Akihito worked at a university for about 9 years after graduating and started his career as a computer anything-gooder rather than an infrastructure engineer. He joined Fujisoft in 2009 and has been working on network, VMware, and internet infrastructure projects. Since 2017, Akihito has been in charge of AWS at Fujisoft.

48. Akira Shibata (Fenrir)

Akira has been building systems using AWS at Fenrir since 2016. He works with co-workers and clients to build secure and scalable cloud infrastructure, migrate applications to the cloud, and implement infrastructure as code and DevOps practices. Akira values continuous learning and loves to learn something new every day.

49. Hideto Haraguchi (SEEDS)

Hideto is a CTO at SEEDS and has built a lot of customers’ systems consisting of AWS solutions for 10+ years.

50. Keisuke Usuda (Classmethod)

Keisuke has in-depth knowledge in security consulting and has provided a wide range of security-focused support in AWS environments, from architecting organizational governance to implementing SIEM and security monitoring. He has actively engaged in various community events as a speaker and has strived to advance the security practices of AWS engineers all over Japan. Keisuke is a leading member of the Japan AWS User Group for Security (Security-JAWS).

51. Kuninori Kunimoto (MMM)

Kuninori is the Chief Executive Officer of MMM. As a technical partner specializing in cloud native, he supports digital transformation of many companies. Kuninori is familiar with DevOps culture and practices and has been certified as an AWS DevOps Competency Partner.

52. Masaya Arai (NRI)

Masaya is a leader in the field of full-stack AWS architecture at Nomura Research Institute. He has 9+ years of experience in the IT industry and eagerly applies his broad expert knowledge across all layers of customers in the financial services. Masaya enjoys learning new technologies and discusses a variety of themes with engineers. He also loves to share his experience and knowledge in his blogs, local meet-ups, and conferences. Masaya holds all 12 AWS Certifications.

53. Masayuki Goto (Hitachi)

Masayuki is a Solutions Architect in charge of the public sector at Hitachi. He understood the characteristics of the public cloud at an early stage, proposed its effectiveness to local governments, and contributed to the introduction of AWS to local governments in Japan. Underpinning him is a high level of knowledge about AWS, which is evidenced by eight AWS Certifications. Masayuki is diligent and constantly updates his knowledge. He will continue to safely guide his customers’ cloud journeys.

54. Shuichi Takahashi (iret)

Shuichi is a Software Developer at Iret and has been developing and operating systems that automate and assisted the MSP business since 2016. He is mainly using serverless architecture, and uses the knowledge he gains to disseminate information internally and externally. As a Well-Architected Lead, Shuichi is responsible for reviewing and improving AWS workflows.

55. Takafumi Miki (Hitachi)

Takafumi is a Cloud Solution Architect and AWS Guru at Hitachi. He started his career as a Linux engineer and leverages edge of technology to contribute social innovation. Takafumi has deep experience with platform, big data solutions, and business planning. He is an AWS Solution Architect Professional, Alexa Skill Builder, SysOps/Developer Associate, and AWS Authorized Instructor.

56. Takumi Tomita (Hitachi)

Takumi is a Solutions Architect with 14+ years of experience in the IT industry. He has been involved in CX/UX focused on solution development on global software development teams. Since 2019, Takumi has supported development teams from a technical perspective for various kinds of industries such as finance, public utilities, railway, and automotive. He is passionate about developing cloud-native solutions in the fields of AI and IoT.

57. Takuya Tachibana (Heptagon)

Takuya is the Founder and CEO of Heptagon and he has been involved in many projects as an engineer, as well as building businesses related to AWS. Heptagon is a unique business that specializes in countryside projects. Takuya is also an active contributor to user groups, organizing and speaking at many community events in Japan and abroad.

58. Tomotaka Kizawa (SCSK)

Tomotaka is a Solutions Architect at SCSK with 20+ years of experience in designing and building IT infrastructure. He has been involved in system development on AWS since 2013, and in the architecture selection of many customer systems. At SCSK, Tomotaka set up the “SCSK Cloud Tech Community” and held 15+ study sessions. He is a core member of the “SORACOM User Group” and is working to spread the IoT system development at AWS. He wants to revitalize the Japanese engineer community by interacting with internal and external engineers.

59. Toshihisa Noguchi (TIS)

Toshihisa is a VMware Cloud on AWS engineer at TIS. His technical strength is developing large hybrid cloud networks with VMware technologies and AWS Direct Connect. He’s also a pre-sales engineer, so Toshihisa often provides presentations, workshops and seminars to his customers.

60. Tsutomu Kamijima (Canon IT Solutions)

Tsutomu is a Solutions Architect of Canon IT Solutions. He supports the promotion of cloud utilization and security and compliance in the healthcare industry, such as medical institutions and medical device manufacturers. Tsutomu is engaged in creating a reference on Japanese regulations regarding the handling of PHI on the cloud.

61. Yoichi Satake (Serverworks)

Yoichi is a Solutions Architect at Serverworks and holds all 12 AWS Certifications. He is a core advisor to the company’s AWS cost-cutting consulting services. Yoichi has been using AWS for business since January 2010, and is in charge of SRE for enterprise companies that mainly use Amazon EC2 and RDS. The company’s blog has many articles and important updates about cost savings he wrote, and in recent years he has also been a webinar instructor.

62. Yui Taniyama (Classmethod)

Yui is a Solutions Architect at Classmethod, where she has built and supports customers’ systems consisting of AWS solutions. Yui wrotes technical blog posts on the company blog and posts videos on YouTube on the topics of AWS.

63. Yuma Sugimura (Serverworks)

Yuma is a Solutions Architect at Serverworks. He has led 100+ AWS projects including on-premises-to-AWS migrations, establishment of AWS guidelines, and system reconstruction into serverless architecture. Yuma plays a role as a solution architect in the sales department and shares AWS insights with his customers using his knowledge derived from the 12 AWS Certifications that he holds.

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How Do I Become an APN Ambassador?

To learn more about the program and see the current APN Ambassadors, visit our APN Ambassador page.

We’re also excited to announce the APN Ambassador program is now open to AWS ISV Partners who hold either Advanced Tier status or are part of ISV Partner Path with at least one solution that has passed a Foundational Technical Review (FTR).

If you are an employee of an AWS Advanced or Premier Partner, hold multiple AWS Certifications, and contribute to the AWS community through public presentations, open source projects, and social media, see if you qualify for the APN Ambassador Program.

If you’re an AWS customer and want to contact an APN Ambassador, we have listed each APN Ambassador’s contact information so you can connect with them directly through their employer. Just click the Contact Partner button to get started!