The Citrix Technology Professionals (CTP) Program recognizes the contributions of individuals who have invested significant time and resources into becoming experts in Citrix products and solutions. Each year, we receive and evaluate scores of applications and nominations for entrants vying for the opportunity to  e awarded entrance into the Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) program.

CTP applicants (as well as current CTPs) must demonstrate that, in addition to workplace accolades, they’ve also selflessly shared their expertise with others in a wide variety of Citrix technical communities.

If you think this is an easy award to achieve, think again. All CTP candidates (new and existing) go through a rigorous evaluation process each year. This year, we received and evaluated more than 30 applications for the Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) program award.

Being selected for the CTP program is no mean feat, and we have just a few Awardees each year. We are pleased to welcome these 7 new IT professionals into our CTP family. Please join me, Citrix, and the CTPs in congratulating our newest Citrix Technology Professional awardees:

Carsten Bruns

14 years ago, Carsten Bruns started his career in IT. He works as an IT Architect with Sepago GmbH, a company that specializes in Citrix and Microsoft technologies. He has a wide breadth of knowledge in Citrix technology, and more than 14 years of experience in this area. Carsten has a strong focus on NetScaler, XenMobile, XenApp, and XenDesktop, and he designs and implements solutions for enterprise environments (scaling from 2000 seats and above). Further, he is working with Microsoft technologies, like Azure. In 2016, Carsten became one of part of the inaugural class of CTAs (Citrix Technology Advocates) and, since early 2017, has been one of the myCUGC Networking SIG Leaders and a Login VSI VIP.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/carstenbruns
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carsten-bruns/
Website: https://www.sepago.de/carstebr

Country: Germany
Industry: Finance, Government, Manufacturing, Public Sector, Security, Technology
Technology: Apps, Networking

Christiaan Brinkhoff

Christiaan Brinkhoff is Senior Workspace Consultant for one of the largest IT companies in the Netherlands. He primarily focuses on Workspace, and Cloud Compute & Infrastructure for larger enterprise customers. Designing, migrations, helping customers with cloud strategies and building workspaces in cloud­-based environments are what fit him best. He is a Microsoft Azure MVP, Citrix CTP, former Citrix CTA, VMware vExpert, Networking SIG Leader for CUGC, IGEL Community Insider and Citrix Subject Matter Expert program (SME) for writing and contributing to new Citrix education exams. Next to his work, he writes for the Citrix Blogs, vendors, as well as his own website, christiaanbrinkhoff.com. If that’s not enough, he also speaks at conferences, user groups, and webinar events to share his passion about cloud innovation. Christiaan is also a Citrix Certified Expert – Virtualization (CCE-­V), Citrix Certified Professional – Networking (CCP-­N), MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure, Microsoft Azure Specialist and MCSA Windows 10 and Office 365.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Brinkhoff_C
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiaan-brinkhoff-18298740/
Website: https://www.christiaanbrinkhoff.com/

Country: Netherlands
Industry: Education, Finance, Government, Public Sector, Retail/Wholesale
Technology: Apps, Cloud, Virtualization

Gareth Carson

Gareth comes from a support and consulting background. His passion is to achieve best practices and the best experience for the user. He specializes in proactive tasks and Citrix Cloud. He shares his insights on his blog, http://citxen.co.uk, and has contributed to the CUGC community, as well as on Twitter @citxen and DABCC and provided useful insights over webinars.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CitXen
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth­carson­8638301
Website: http://citxen.co.uk/

Country: United Kingdom
Industry: Education, Finance, Healthcare, Oil & Gas / Energy, Retail/Wholesale, Technology
Technology: Apps, Cloud, Mobile, Networking, Virtualization

George Spiers

Working for Novosco, a major managed cloud provider in the UK, George shares his expert consultancy, architectural, and professional support knowledge of Citrix and Microsoft products mainly in the Healthcare sector. Besides Healthcare, George has worked across other sectors, such as Government and Industry. George is a Citrix Certified Expert in Virtualization, Citrix Certified Professional in Networking, Citrix Virtualization Specialist, former Unidesk (now Citrix) Certified Professional, and Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert. George has worked all over the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Dubai, UAE.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JGSpiers
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jgs10/
Website: http://www.jgspiers.com/

Country: Ireland
Industry: Education, Finance, Government, Security, Technology
Technology: Apps, Cloud, Networking

James Rankin

James is a Solutions Architect and Strategist focused mainly on end-­user computing technologies, cloud capability, automation, monitoring and directory services. He is also a well-­regarded technical blogger, journalist, and speaker, writing for several online publications, as well as the HTG blog. James is also frequently found speaking at user groups, vendor conferences, and in online webinars.

James is passionate about providing the best possible user experience, always looking to design solutions that are simple, sustainable, and easy­ to ­use. He works extensively with technologies from both large and small vendors and is always looking for new ways to enhance and extend the capabilities of the solutions that HTG provides to their clients. He was recently named a Citrix Technology Advocate (CTA), he’s a VMware vExpert, and an AppSense Community Advisor (ACA) in recognition for his contributions towards the EUC community and thought leadership within the virtualization space

Twitter: https://twitter.com/james____rankin
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james­rankin­6094607
Website: www.htguk.com/blog

Country: United Kingdom
Industry: Education, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Public Sector, Security
Technology: Apps, Cloud, Virtualization

Patrick Coble

Patrick Coble is an independent Security and EUC Consultant, and is one of the Nashville, TN CUGC Leaders. Patrick has more than 20 years of experience in the IT space, focusing on Virtualization, EUC solutions, and Security. His work as both a Citrix customer and as a Partner has given him the ability to see hundreds of deployments and help design and build new solutions along with working in many verticals. He has presented at many venues around the Southeast and within his local CUGC chapter, along with some Security and Virtualization Conferences. He has a passion for sharing and presenting information for EUC, IT Solutions, INFOSEC and Penetration Tests. As an Independent Consultant, he is working to give back to the community that has given so much to him. You can find Patrick on his blog, VDISecurity.org, where he dives into where VDI and Security meet.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/VDIHacker
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/VDIHacker
Website: http://www.patrickcoble.com

Country: USA
Industry: Education, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas / Energy, Public Sector, Retail/Wholesale, Technology
Technology: Apps, Networking, Virtualization

Rory Monaghan

Rory Monaghan is CTO of the Americas for Algiz Technology and is responsible for pre-­sales, overseeing operations, architecture, and design for enterprise service offerings. Rory has been in the IT industry for over 10 years, amassing a wealth of knowledge in the application space. He has been a co-­author of the Application Virtualization Smackdown whitepaper for 4 years and has been a speaker at numerous conferences around the world. Rory also has extensive experience working in EUC, including desktop management, mobile management, and VDI. Rory is originally from Galway, Ireland and currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Rorymon
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rory­monaghan­37914b14/
Website: https://rorymon.com

Country: USA
Industry: Construction, Finance, Healthcare, Retail/Wholesale, Technology
Technology: Apps, Virtualization

Please join me, Citrix and all of the CTPs, in giving them a warm welcome!