This has been a tough post to write but I am also excited to share this news. It’s with a little sadness that I tell you all that I am leaving my role as Head of Community. Although I move onwards with my career, SuiteCRM and the people of the community will always have a space in my heart. It has been a privilege to have played a role in the community for a number of years and welcomed 1,000s of members to the project. The community have and continue to achieve amazing things and I’m positive that this will only accelerate under the management of my colleague Gillian @g.martin who will be taking over things. Please welcome her to the community.
Gillian has been in the software industry for many moons (25+ years) with experience as a software developer and then transitioned into a more consultancy role and product ownership later in her career. Her position within the community is to be the middle “man” between the community needs and SuiteCRM’s roadmap acting as the project’s product owner. As well as participating with the community to gather, refine and schedule in your feedback to the development team she will also communicate and celebrate new releases and project announcements. As you can imagine this role is demanding considering the size of the community and history of SuiteCRM, so I will kindly ask that you, the community, give Gillian your encouragement and share your knowledge whilst she learns the ins and outs of SuiteCRM.
Lastly, I want to thank you all, the past and present active members, moderators, super members and SalesAgility itself, for making SuiteCRM what it is today. There’s always work to be done but as with open source, the opportunity to improve is always there and open. I hope y’all continue to make the community a special place.
Thank you @samus-aran for the introduction – I can see I have big shoes to fill!
I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you a little more about myself. With over 25 years experience in the technology industry, I started as a Software Developer but realised I enjoyed talking with clients to understand what their requirements were, more than coding! I therefore moved into a Software Consultancy role before being tasked with the responsibility of Product Owner, to align all enhancement requests with the delivery of the product roadmap.
In my spare time, I enjoy spending time outdoors walking our 1 year old Hungarian Vizsla, Mabel or in the garden trying to grow vegetables, both of which have been challenging but very rewarding. I also enjoy live music, which could be anything from indie, jazz, pop or even a little bit of classical.
I look forward to getting to know more of the SuiteCRM product and being part of the community, to continue to build the world’s leading open source CRM system.
Having been around for so long myself, and having had the opportunity of working in SalesAgility for a few years (and actually visiting beautiful Scotland and getting know the team personally) I just want to leave my note of appreciation for Ashley’s irreplaceable and awesome contribution to SuiteCRM.
Hard-working, determined, knowledgeable, always keen to listen to the Community, always on the side of opening up more and trusting the Community more. I learned the true spirit of open source (something that honestly I didn’t have some years ago) from her and the rest of the SalesAgility team. I’m also thankful for her humor, humanity, positivity, kindness and understanding. I publicly confess to sometimes pushing her patience when she was my boss. Sorry Ashley .
And since Ashley quoted Mother Theresa I feel entitled to quote other more oriental sources of wisdom:
@samus-aran Don’t know you in person but I can say you were kind to me the few times we interacted on the forum. Thanks for your work and my best wishes for you in your career and family.
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