MVP Global Summit is an event exclusively for MVPs, Regional Directors (RDs), and, for the first time this year, a few Gold Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors held March 12 to 14, with additional pre- and post- days hosted by Microsoft Product Groups. Continuing as a hybrid event delivered last year, we welcomed over one thousand attendees on Microsoft Redmond campus and many, many more online.
With over 350 Microsoft confidential technical sessions and more than 150 additional opportunities to connect, learn and share, participants provided feedback to product groups, learned from other MVPs in community sessions, and interacted with various Microsoft leaders and program team members.
Microsoft Product Leader Presence at MVP Summit
Annie Pearl, CVP of Ecosystems, and Scott Guthrie, EVP of Cloud + AI, appeared in the keynote session, welcoming attendees with high expectations for the event. Annie, attending the Summit for the first time, emphasized the importance of MVPs and RDs as partners in Microsoft’s ecosystem. Then Scott took the stage, conveying messages from leadership about Microsoft’s current and future direction and answering questions from participants in an interactive session.
In featured sessions, Microsoft engineering leaders included Jeff Teper, Charles Lamanna, Mark Russinovich, Arun Ulagaratchagan, and in breakout sessions, each product group unveiled exclusive information in their respective areas. MVPs and RDs provided feedback, fostering discussions for better product development and deepening interactions with the product groups.
On the third day, sessions exclusively for RDs were held. Starting with RD Connect, sessions facilitated deep discussion between Microsoft leadership and RDs.
Community on Microsoft Redmond campus
For participants who traveled to the Microsoft Redmond campus from around the world, a variety of unique events were held that went beyond session participation.
Networking opportunities were abundant, with lively hallway conversations, exchanges at the Product Group Showcase, and plenty of selfies.
At the Microsoft Redmond Reactor, participants gathered for custom t-shirt printing, exchanging community stickers and postcards, to take a quick work call or tune into a session online, and networking.
Tours of Microsoft facilities on the Redmond campus were particularly popular! Four tour destinations were available: Azure Cloud Collaboration Center (ACCC) Tour, The Garage Tour, Inclusive Tech Lab Tour, and Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Lab Tour. Participants were eager to get the behind-the-scenes Microsoft experience.
One MVP Global Summit highlight was the first-ever MVP Authors Meet and Greet where MVPs and RDs who published books on Microsoft technologies brought them to the Microsoft Library at the Redmond campus and engaged with each other and signed their books. The books will be used in the Microsoft Library collection to enhance Microsoft employees’ learning and recognize authorship.
Virtual event experience on Microsoft Teams
As a hybrid event, most technical sessions from MVP Global Summit were made available live online and on-demand after for virtual attendees around the world.
Regional sessions were delivered fully virtually in seven languages—Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish—during the daytime hours of each region. This enabled many participants attending sessions to engage in their familiar languages. Other online sessions included community sessions on topics important to community leaders, such as mentorship and thought leadership.
To build community online, Community Program Managers hosted Ice Breakers on Microsoft Teams with prompts as “What is your best prompt for Copilot?” or “What’s the most impactful community activity you have done in 2024?” Attendees were also invited to create an avatar using Microsoft Designer, resulting in numerous posts of unique avatars representing the characteristics of each MVP.
Community response
Many participants posted their experiences before, during, and after the event on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn, which you can see using the hashtags #MVPSummit and #MVPbuzz.
“What a week! I'm back from the Microsoft #MVPSummit and I can't wait to share all the new things that are coming (the ones not under NDA). there were 4 days in which I saw the upcoming news, the roadmaps and spoke with the various Product Managers to understand Microsoft's vision in the coming months.”
(LinkedIn post from Silvio Di Benedetto, Security, Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP, Italy)
“I had a great time at the #MVPSummit last week. The best part was meeting my friends and fellow MVPs from all around the world. Thanks for the great memories and I hope to see you all again soon.”
(X post from Vukasin Terzic, Microsoft Azure MVP, Czechia)
“Thank you #Microsoft for making #MVPSummit inclusive and enjoyable for all of us who attended virtually #MVPBuzz”
(X post from Victoria Holt, Data Platform MVP, United Kingdom)
“I have made happy memories with wonderful friends. And I made new friends. Learning is important, but more than that, participating in-person is more meaningful than the cost of the trip. I have fun even if I don't speak English. I would like to participate again.”
(X post from Taichi Nakamura, M365, Business Applications MVP, Japan)
“Last week was all about learning and inspiration. #MVPSummit in Redmond on Microsoft campus is a highlight, meeting so many incredibly talented RDs and MVPs as well as Microsoft executives in person.
Thank you all RDs and thank you Tina Stenderup-Larsen for setting this up and allow us to learn, grow and be inspired! It is a true honor to be part of this #Microsoft #RD”
(LinkedIn post from Erik Åsberg, Regional Director, Norway)
“Had a great time presenting at the #MVPSummit in Redmond last week, showcasing Azure Network Watcher's capabilities in preview - Virtual Network flow logs & Resource Topology. The opportunity to connect with Azure MVPs and gain their perspectives provided deep insights on roadmap features as well as customer scenarios and it was an enriching experience!”
(LinkedIn post from Harsha CS, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Azure)
Thank you for making this event so memorable!
We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who participated in this year’s MVP Global Summit. And the dates for the next MVP Global Summit have already been announced: March 25-27th, 2025. Join our Microsoft MVP Communities group on LinkedIn or follow us X - MVPAward.
