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Author's profile photo Mark Finnern

Introducing the New SAP Mentors Fall 2013!

It was, is and always will be a balancing act to select new SAP Mentors. I feel it’s getting harder, with every year the initiative gets more prominence in the SAP ecosystem, and with that it really makes a huge difference for people who’ve been selected. And also for all the amazing SAP experts who didn’t make it…this time.

Sometimes I might get an email that says, “Look how many points I have on SCN, you have to make me an SAP Mentor now.” I think that’s because some people believe mentorship is the pinnacle of what gets measured via the point system on SCN.

It is not.

We SAP Mentors created an SAP Mentor Magic Foundation document as a way for people to better understand the driving force behind being an SAP Mentor.

/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/doug_engelbart_ac2004_2_290796.jpgLet me try to describe it another way. When the inventor of modern computing Doug Engelbart was a young man, he created the following life principle:

     Let me design a professional goal which will maximize the contribution my career can have to mankind!

Doug Engelbart’s life principle translates quite nicely to being an SAP Mentor: As an SAP Mentor I focus on how I can maximize my contributions to the larger SAP community.

Yesterday, for example, Tom Cenens shared his journey of Influencing SAP Certification & Education. There, the spirit of mentorship really comes across. Tom is truly fulfilling the promise of us SAP Mentors. If you read his account, you realize that much of his work is in the background and invisible for most people. That’s true for many SAP Mentors.


Another criteria for selecting someone relate to our mission of being inclusive. We also look to fill gaps in areas of expertise, as well as to find people in locations where SAP Mentors could really add a lot to their local or regional scene. And we’ve tried to balance all these criteria with our new selections.

Without further ado it’s my pleasure to introduce everyone to this year’s new SAP Mentors:

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=17674&size=72Eduardo Chagas, John Deere Brazil

Eduardo has been part of the top three contributors in the Portuguese SCN space for three years in a row. He works for John Deere, which is a very innovative customer of SAP: The company was the first in the world to go live with Business Suite on HANA. He is also an expert in SAP NFE. He has even been invited by SAP to teach the SAP NFE academy classes. He’s not just an expert; he’s also a sharer of his knowledge. His desire to share knowledge goes beyond SCN at ASUG meetings and in SAP Education classes, where he’s an official instructor.

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=30833&size=72Sharon Newton, hyperCision USA

Sharon is the CEO of hyperCision, an SAP and SuccessFactors partner. She has deep expertise in SAP HCM, SuccessFactors Learning and the integration of cloud with on-premise applications. She co-authored the book SAP Enterprise Learning and created popular compliance solutions for customers. She is a well respected thought leader and consistently educates customers via her talks at SAP events including TechEd, FKOM, Sapphire, SAP Insider US, SAP Insider Europe and HR Technology Conference. She has identified gaps in SAP solutions and built key technologies and applications to solve customers problems in the US, Europe and Africa. She has more points on SCN, we are consolidating other users with this new one.

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=23897&size=72Alex Papagiannidis Rivet, Molson Canada

Alex is a Canadian SAP customer working for Molson North America’s oldest Brewery. He speaks French and works from Montreal, representing the SAP Beverage industry and acting as a BI Partner/Liaison with the business side of Molson Coors. They use the full suite of BI products, including Analytics, Mobile BI and HANA. Alex presented at the first BI4 Elite training in Vancouver last year and he spoke at the ASUG annual conference about how BI helps Molson Coors sell beer. He is planning to discuss his HANA story at the upcoming SAP TechEd in Las Vegas. Title: “Looking at one source of the truth with Design Studio Mobile on HANA ” He also took time to present two sessions on Molson’s use of BPC and BI during SAPPHIRE this year.

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=3130&size=72John Patterson, Australia

John works a lot on UI5 and Gateway. He’s among the few who jumped early into these technologies, have a play with them and share their experiences. Some things that John brings: Ease of approach, enthusiasm, being a pioneer and knowledge sharing. He brings passion into discussions and tries to explain whatever he knows. His blogs and tweets reflect that.

John has spent the last 15 years working as an SAP user and system integrator. He started his SAP career in the mid-late 90’s as a web developer cutting his teeth rolling DCOM, CORBA and RMI SAP connectors. Technology and techniques have come and gone but the customers—and their requirements and problems—have stayed the same. John doesn’t just touch new technology: he pushes it beyond the usual boundaries and is happy to share his learning.

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=5376&size=72Nicolas Busson, NB-Conseil France/Switzerland

Nicolas is at heart an application consultant in the CRM space, but is at home on the technical side as well, as attested by his involvement in a couple of code-exchange projects. He has long-standing expertise in CRM and is now learning how HANA will open up new possibilities in the customer relationship area. He is a very engaged member of the community. He did some wonderful work in spreading awareness about the latest SAP CRM technologies in France. He recently left France and took a job in Switzerland.

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=10969&size=72Stephen Lofthouse, Sheffield Hallam University UK

Stephen has taught ERP using the standard SAP University Alliances (UA) curricula for several years. He has helped design SAP UA Business ByDesign and Cloud curriculum. He acted as the UA spokesman on cloud issues and is one of two speakers on our Business ByDesign training video and course. Stephen is not only technically proficient, but he is also an excellent ambassador and spokesperson stimulating young minds to become aware of SAP as a career path. He is skilled as a speaker and presenter as well as an educator.

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=5509&size=72Steve Bogner, Insight Consulting Partners US

Steve is one of the most knowledgeable SAP payroll consultants. Starting in 1994 (and even before that) he spent many years in the payroll field. He has a wide breath of knowledge across a wide range of industries. Steve founded the SAP HR Insights podcast, which in and of itself is a huge contribution to the community.

He is the go-to expert in the area of SAP Payroll, in no small part because of his numerous conference presentations. Moreover, he’s just a good guy. His calm wisdom makes him someone who the community can be proud to consider as a Mentor. He has a newsletter for SAP HR customers and also has a blog following. He works well with customers and is always looking to improve SAP customers’ experience.

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=30914&size=72Wences Lacaze, Argentina

Wences is a functional application lifecycle management consultant and a specialist with SAP Solution Manager and CRM, Enterprise Portal products. He shared several very detailed functional documents on SCN and SlideShare. He’s a very experienced and engaging consultant who many customers know well.

As Blag has left Peru many years ago, our only other South American SAP Mentors were from Brazil. It makes us happy to add Argentina to the list of countries that now have SAP Mentor representation. Interestingly, I found out after speaking with him that he’s working for a Chilean consulting company that has sent him to Mexico on a project focused on transportation. Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico. Wow, looks like we have the South American continent covered. 😉

http://www.hs-lu.de/uploads/pics/Freyburger_Klaus_01.jpgKlaus Freyburger, Hochschule Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany                                            

Dr. Klaus Freyburger, who teaches at Hochschule Ludwigshafen am Rhein, is one of the SAP University Alliance’s most visionary members. His focus is SAP HANA, Analytics and Sentiment Analysis with SAP HANA. Together with his students and SAP he created several amazing applications, such as the SAP Data Base of Dream which was presented at SAPPHIRENOW 2013, and the Sentiment Analysis of the American Election (based on HANA), which was presented at SAP TechEd 2012. He works with a blended learning approach: Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) plus co-innovation projects.

http://scn.sap.com/people/mahesh.kumar8/avatar/46.png?a=17240Mahesh Kumar, Rolta India Limited  India

Mahesh is a BW, BOBJ, HANA expert with more than 10 years’ experience in SAP consulting and very strong subject matter expertise in the business intelligence and analytics domains. Manesh is highly effective in customer interaction roles, and has a solid knowledge of SAP technical and presentation skills. Today he likes taking on challenging roles and projects: one immediate example of this is his current work on SAP HANA proof of concepts. He writes these elaborated blog posts, where you think he has a team of researchers behind him. Like this one Big Data Technologies & Applications where he compares the data structure of SAP, IBM, Oracle, SAS, Open Source. When I asked him about it he said, that the best way to understand is to share, you research deeper. Really cool.

http://scn.sap.com/profile-image-display.jspa?imageID=5192&size=72Aviad Rivlin, SAP Israel

Aviad is a product manager for the SAP Portal. He’s also a driving force behind the new mobile portal product known by the name Portal On. As SAP regained its love of portals, everything with a web-based (HTML5!) UI/UX is touched by portals. This includes Neo, HANA, Cloud, HEC, HCP. Aviad is an expert on UI technologies and mobility. He’s an extremely talented and creative individual who has customers’ interests at heart. Aviad knows tech, but also the functional side very well.

http://scn.sap.com/people/agasthuri.doss/avatar/46.png?a=26747Agasthuri Doss, SAP Australia

Agasthuri is a Senior Integration Architect with SAP Australia. He has more than 15 years of SAP experience in system architecture, planning, development and production support of ERP-based implementation. Agasthuri is very active on the SCN PI forum both as a moderator and as a contributor. He has also completed the mammoth task of cleaning up the PI Wiki space, deleting old/obsolete content, etc. He has been a frequent speaker at SAP TechEd and other SAP events.

I am really excited about them joining the SAP Mentor wolf pack. If you’d like to meet them online, we are having two public SAP Mentor Webinars next week October 8th 10am + 9pm PST, where the new Mentors will introduce themselves and share one piece of advice during that session. Hope you can join. Personally I can’t wait!

SAP Connect Session: https://sap.na.pgiconnect.com/sapmm +1-866-312-7353

Participant Passcode: 170 133 7730

SAP Mentor Monday additional dial-in information

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      Author's profile photo Henrique Pinto
      Henrique Pinto

      Congratulations to all new Mentors, specially Eduardo Chagas ! 🙂

      Well deserved, my friend.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hey my friend Henrique Pinto!!! You inspired me to get here! Thank you!!!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congratulations to all new SAP Mentors!


      Author's profile photo Agasthuri Doss
      Agasthuri Doss

      Dear All,

          I would like extend a note of thankfulness for your congratulatory wishes. It was so nice to hear from you all. I personally felt glad to be surrounded by so many well wishers, it encourages us to do more in SCN community. Thanks

      Cheers

      Agasthuri

      Author's profile photo Sandy Sandy
      Sandy Sandy

      You are welcome Agasthuri,

      We hope more support from you all.

      Regards,

      Cherry.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congratulations to all new SAP Mentors!

      Thanks for the SCN Members & All the viewers for SAP Screens,

      With out 'U' we are not able to reach this mile stone.

      Once Again.... Thanks a ton....TONNNN

      Regards,

      Mahesh

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi mahesh,

      Hearty Congratulations for your achievement 🙂 🙂 .

      You deserve this.

      Congratulation for all the New mentors.

      BR

      Aakash Gujja

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thx Aakash

      Author's profile photo Jose Nunes
      Jose Nunes

      Congratulations to all new mentors, specially Eduardo Chagas !

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thank you Jose! 🙂

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Aaksh , This is not social purpose . Lets u SCN in a better way... you can connect me any other social medium..

      Dont Mind for the Free Advice

      Regards,

      Mahesh

      Author's profile photo Henrique Pinto
      Henrique Pinto

      I've noticed none of the new Mentors have the SAP Mentor's lemon badge in their SCN profiles yet. Ali Samieivafa, I guess that's up to you?

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Henrique ,

      I can see it for me.....Lemon Badge

      Author's profile photo Sarah Kellman
      Sarah Kellman

      Many congratulations to the new SAP Mentors! Gotta give a shout-out here to Stephen Lofthouse, whom I had the pleasure to interview at the last SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando. Steve - can I claim that this interview and SCN blog helped to catapult you to fame, so I can say "I knew him when..."? 🙂 Hope to see you at SAP TechEd Amsterdam in your jersey!

      Watch the video, read the blog: A Visiting Professor at SAPPHIRE NOW Orlando

      Author's profile photo Marlo Simon
      Marlo Simon

      Welcome and congratulations to the new mentors!

      Special shout-out to Eduardo Chagas , The specified item was not found. and our colleague from South America Wence Lacaze

      All the best!

      Marlo Simon

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      congrats to all new mentors ..wish them all the best !!!

      Author's profile photo Harish Allachervu
      Harish Allachervu

      Congrats to Mahesh Kumar CV really deserved this feat many more to come in near future... 🙂

      Thanks & Regards,

      Harish

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thx Harish

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      congratulation to all

      Author's profile photo Aby Jacob
      Aby Jacob

      Hearty Congrats to all SAP Mentors  😎

      Really Glad to see Mahesh Kumar CV

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thx Aby

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congrats to all the new Mentors, welcome and look forward to meeting some of you in Vegas if you make it.

      Josh

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congrats to all of you.

      I am really glad to see Mahesh Kumar CV since I got a chance to work with you in past.

      Author's profile photo Colleen Hebbert
      Colleen Hebbert

      Hi Agasthuri Doss

      Congrats on being made a mentor 🙂 It goes to show your hard work is paying off.

      Cheers

      Colleen

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Welcome and congratulations, so happy to have you join the pack!

      Author's profile photo Martin Grob
      Martin Grob

      Congrats to all of you it an impressive achievement!

      Martin

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congrats all of you.

      Regards,

      Sushant

      Author's profile photo Rajendrakumar Gaikwad
      Rajendrakumar Gaikwad

      Congratulations!

      Regards

      Rajendra

      Author's profile photo Nabheet Madan
      Nabheet Madan

      Congratualtions... 🙂

      Author's profile photo Prateek Raj Srivastava
      Prateek Raj Srivastava

      Congrats all! 🙂

      Author's profile photo Lino Maggi
      Lino Maggi

      Gratz Eduardo !!! Brazilian Pride !!!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thanks Lino!