Hi, my name is Steve Athanas.

If you only read one paragraph about me, read this one. Currently, I have the honor of serving as VMUG President. I like to think of myself as a transformational IT leader. I’m a technology geek - having been nominated as a multi-year vExpert. I’m also a business geek as an MBA who loves reading the Journal. I’m a lifelong learner, and have devoted my career to education both traditionally academic and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. Most important to me, I’m a husband, father, and a guy trying to live with integrity.

Professionally, I have over twenty years of experience managing technology, teams, and projects in IT to maximize organizational effectiveness, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I am an engaging and transformative senior IT leader with deep technical roots and a strong focus on the enablement and business management of higher education. My leadership style focuses on ensuring the IT team is a strategic partner to the organizations we serve and not just the folks you call when the printer is jammed or Salesforce is slow.

I am passionate about finding and developing creative solutions to long-standing or complicated business problems that enable people to collaborate, communicate, and perform their work better than before. I strive to rectify usability and cost issues with scalable, cloud-centric designs that enable flexibility. I particularly enjoy leading teams and helping them reach their full potential. Too often, technologists are offered or accept only technology mentorship or training. I believe in developing all the skills of the team, and I take immense pride in my team's ability to engage our users and stakeholders directly and build strong relationships inside and outside the organization.

My technology expertise spans virtualization, applications, networks, storage, hardware and almost any component you’d find in a datacenter. I have extensive experience with designing and deploying VMware-based cloud solutions and am an evangelist for virtualization and cloud technologies.

Currently, I serve as the global president of the VMware User Group (VMUG) and have led the Boston VMUG chapter for almost a decade. In addition, I am active in the virtualization technical community and speak at and contribute to many industry events and publications including CIO Review, EdTech, Ed Scoop, EDUCAUSE, TechTarget, VMworld, Dell Technologies World, ACUTA Boston, and Campus Technology.

Technology is ever-evolving, which is important because so are the people and organizations who surround us. If any of this sparks your interest, you’re in the right place. I look forward to sharing my thoughts on leadership & tech, as well as stories about my experiences living as both an associate CIO and the president of a 150,000 member organization that spans the globe