The trophies have been given out, toasts have been made and the canapés have been eaten. After four fantastic global events recognizing the work of organizations and individuals across the cloud industry, the Digital Revolution Awards 2023 season has come to a close.
Throughout the Digital Revolution Awards 2023 events, we saw many outstanding winners take the stage, receiving a round of applause for making a positive impact on our world through the use of cloud technology.
Now it’s time to shine a spotlight on some of those worthy victors and showcase the fantastic work that made them winners in the Digital Revolution Awards.
In this Meet the Winners blog, we’re getting to know our Outstanding Contribution to the Salesforce Community (UK) winner, Keir Bowden.
The Salesforce community is growing fast, offering exciting opportunities to people from all walks of life. But that community wouldn’t be what it is today without the generosity and dedication of the incredible Salesforce professionals that give up their time to help both their peers and budding Salesforce professionals alike.
That’s why we created the Outstanding Contribution to the Salesforce Community award. This prize recognizes the people that are driving the innovation of Salesforce products, sharing their knowledge with the Ohana, and supporting others on their own career journeys. These are the people that make the Salesforce community the welcoming, rewarding, innovative place we know and love.
In this category, our judges were looking for a trailblazing organization or individual in the Salesforce space whose achievements enable, inspire, and empower users and businesses of every shape and size to accomplish more.
And who we found was the inimitable Keir Bowden.
Keir is a Salesforce professional with an unmatched and consistent dedication to sharing his deep technical knowledge of and passion for Salesforce. By investing time and effort into reaching people both inside and outside of the Salesforce ecosystem, he has made a phenomenal impact in the Salesforce space.
Whether he’s organizing user groups and community events, taking on speaking engagements, or writing, Keir’s enthusiasm for the tech shines through and inspires others to join in the fun.
And as a result of this hard work, he has made an immeasurable contribution to the community through the sheer number of people he’s informed, supported, and encouraged to power up their Salesforce careers over the past decade.
Chief Technical Officer for almost 15 years at award-winning Salesforce Consulting Partner, BrightGen, Keir has an enviable resume of professional and extracurricular achievements. A ten-time Salesforce MVP, he has made a name for himself as a pillar of the Salesforce community—or more accurately, two names.
Through his online alter ego Bob Buzzard, Keir shares his wealth of Salesforce knowledge through blog posts, on social media, and via his substack newsletter; all done in his spare time.
He’s also a familiar face on the Salesforce community events circuit, having co-led the London Salesforce Developer Group for several years. Here, he works to make sure local Trailblazers have a space where they can consistently and regularly learn from each other, either virtually or in person. This group was especially valuable to its participants during the pandemic lockdowns.
A driving force behind Salesforce community group mega-meets, it was Keir’s suggestion to host these events at Omnicom (BrightGen’s parent company) HQ in London, which quickly became highly anticipated gatherings that racked up considerable wait lists.
He can often be found on the stage too, as well as behind the scenes. From London’s Calling to Dreamforce, Keir has a reputation for making complex Salesforce developer topics engaging and entertaining with his popular talks. One of his best-known works as a speaker is his quarterly release webinars, in which he condenses hundreds of pages of release notes from Salesforce into a digestible and accessible highlight presentation.
As well as building up the Salesforce talent pipeline through his after-school efforts, Keir also contributes to talent development at BrightGen. For the past decade, he has managed a scheme for recent tech graduates, training up around ten budding Salesforce professionals every year through a robust six-month, Trailhead-based course. Through this program, Keir has created a considerable number of new, certified Salesforce professionals that have hit the ground running and made a big difference for their customers.
Oh, and somehow he’s also found the time to write a book, aiming to help Visualforce developers level up their skills. Our judges were incredibly impressed with the impact of Keir’s work, with the panel praising his “incredibly technical, incredibly up-to-date” blog that regularly reaches over a million readers.
We caught up with Keir at the UK ceremony to find out how he felt about his big win.
“Overwhelmed, humbled; given the caliber of competition I was up against, I wasn’t convinced that this was going to be my night. So it’s a lovely surprise.
“The award is for Outstanding Contribution to the Salesforce Community. I’ve been in the Salesforce community for coming up to 15 years, and I contribute in a number of ways. I help people who’ve got issues with their technology, I post blogs, I run a developer group, and I also run an initiative called Speaker Academy where we take underrepresented speakers and try and get them used to standing up on stage in front of people.
“It’s been a brilliant night so far, I’m really enjoying it and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the other winners and hearing their stories.”
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