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MVP Article

<hr /> It’s tradition for sports teams to celebrate their “Most Valuable Player” at the end of a championship run. They’re the individuals who go above and beyond, exemplifying the very best attributes – from athletic performance to sportsmanship. The same is true in certain enterprise software circles, and in <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore’s</a> expansive community of certified developers and over 30,000 active community participants, the MVPs – “Most Valuable Professionals” – are an elite cohort of digital innovators, technical experts, and industry ambassadors. Sitecore MVPs are special, cut from the red cloth that makes this brand one of the most well-respected on the planet. They're a passionate, deeply committed group of dedicated builders and thinkers, working bi-directionally with the Sitecore team and contributing time, experience, and insight to help advance the future of marketing and strengthen its community of digital leaders.I’ve said it before: Sitecore’s people power is one of its most potent assets. And today, the company announced its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mvp.sitecore.com/Directory?fc_year=2026">MVP Class of 2026,</a> recognizing 213 individuals from around the globe as part of this exclusive outfit.<figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:32.93%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/02/image-1770163468847.png" /></figure>“Congratulations to the 2026 MVPs on their achievement,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/sitecore-taps-veteran-eric-stine-as-ceo-to-lead-next-phase-of-growth-and-innovation">Eric Stine,</a> Chief Executive Officer at Sitecore. “Learning directly from customers, partners, and practitioners has guided Sitecore through 25 years of innovation and partnership, from the first websites to AI-driven experiences. The breadth, longevity, and capability of this ecosystem reflect the strength of the Sitecore platform and brand as our customers face new opportunities in the world beyond their website.”<h3 id="celebrating-the-‘best-of-the-best’">Celebrating the ‘best of the best’</h3>Sitecore MVPs are drawn from a collective of customers, partners, and independent practitioners, with the express goal of strengthening the Sitecore ecosystem. These are some of the most active Sitecore community members from around the world who provide valuable expertise back to the ecosystem, both online and offline. The Sitecore MVP program is about recognizing excellence, but it’s also about making the lessons learned by professionals extensible and impactful for others. It creates a medium for sharing real-world successes – and bumps in the road – from actual projects, providing reusable playbooks and assets. The goal is to help others attain knowledge and adopt new capabilities with confidence.Sitecore MVPs aren’t just meeting a sales quota or wearing a jacket with a sweet logo. They’re publishing documentation, socializing reusable code snippets, and responding to questions in public channels.One of the most important roles that MVPs play is as the test pilots for new Sitecore capabilities. Leveraging their deep expertise, they’re often tasked to break, assess, and help work out the kinks in pre-production cycles. This helps shorten the shipping cycle, reduce risk, and speed up problem-solving for teams adopting solutions like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sitecore.com/platform">SitecoreAI.</a>The benefits of this sharing and collaboration are clear: customers launch faster, upgrades are less finicky, and teams can execute with greater confidence. A win-win thanks to the work of these talented individuals.<h3 id="sitecore’s-class-of-2026-mvps">Sitecore’s Class of 2026 MVPs</h3>A Sitecore MVP recognition is a year-long program that includes private forums, regional meetings, and the exclusive MVP Summit, along with early product access and direct dialogue with Sitecore teams. MVPs undergo a fairly thorough vetting. There’s a two-month review in which more than 100 community reviewers evaluate nominations that examine a candidate’s real contributions and influence. The 213 MVPs are distributed across three categories: 120 Technology, 37 Strategy, and 56 Ambassador MVPs. This year, 11 MVPs hit the 10-year milestone, including: <ul><li>Adam Wolf, US</li><li>Akshay Sura, US</li><li>Alex Washtell, UK</li><li>Chris Staley, US</li><li>Corey Smith, US</li><li>George Chang, US</li><li>Gert Gullentops, Belgium</li><li>Hishaam Namooya, Mauritius</li><li>Martin Miles, US</li><li>Per Manniche Bering, Denmark</li><li>Rob Ahnemann, US</li></ul>“Sitecore has one of the strongest ecosystems in the market, and it's a strategic advantage customers experience,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellebb/">Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek</a>, Chief Marketing Officer at Sitecore. “The MVP program is where that advantage becomes visible. It brings together leaders from across our customer and partner community who extend what’s possible with Sitecore, advance agent-based capabilities within the platform, and help the broader market move faster. As SitecoreAI accelerates that progress, our community turns new capabilities into business outcomes at scale.” One note with this year’s announcement: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/vargat/">Tamas Varga,</a> Director of Community Programs at Sitecore, has been the glue that’s helped shape and scale the MVP program. An institution at Sitecore events, he’ll be stepping away from his role later this year. To say he’ll be missed is an understatement.<h3 id="an-mvp-conversation-with-hexagon’s-george-chang-">An MVP conversation with Hexagon’s George Chang </h3>I was recently treated to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgechang/">George Chang’s</a> brilliance at the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/beyond-the-gate-cms-kickoff-26-explored-the-ai-frontier-while-focusing-on-fundamentals">Boye &amp; Company CMS Kickoff 26</a> in St. Petersburg, where he spoke about grounding AI with your CMS to support the management of your content supply chain. It was a compelling presentation, and reflected his deep expertise as a practitioner working at the edge of agentic transformation.As the Senior Director of Digital Experience and Technology at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/hexagon-ab/">Hexagon AB,</a> a global leader in measurement technologies, George has his hands in Sitecore almost daily. As a standout MVP and bona fide expert, he sat down with me at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/seasons-of-love-sitecore-symposium-2025-sings-putting-ai-and-marketers-in-the-spotlight">Sitecore Symposium 2025 in Orlando,</a> where we discussed the announcement of SitecoreAI and the evolution of the product ecosystem. You can watch our interview here: <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://youtu.be/kZamPgTBhHI"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kZamPgTBhHI" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> <h4 id="reflecting-on-a-decade-as-an-mvp">Reflecting on a decade as an MVP</h4>With his recognition as a 2026 Sitecore MVP, George is among the 11 MVPs notching a decade of being a “Most Valuable Professional” on this esteemed list. We sat down to chat about it, and I asked him what that longevity meant to him – and how his colleagues in the ecosystem have made a difference.“Some of the people I talk to and engage with all the time are friends that I've known for 10 years now,” he said. “They’ve really inspired me, and I've had a lot of opportunities to learn from them.”I also asked George how the Sitecore MVP program translates for newcomers who are joining for the first time. He emphasized the community’s openness, curiosity, and willingness to share its wealth of knowledge and experience as being an example of why it’s so valuable.“Anytime someone new joins the ranks, they really kind of get embraced by the community as one of our own," he explained. “They can be someone new to Sitecore, and they don’t even have to be an MVP, right? We invite them in as one of us.” <h4 id="harnessing-the-mvp-advantage-in-ai-transformation-">Harnessing the MVP advantage in AI transformation </h4>As George told me, the disruption of AI has been a crystallizing moment for the value of the Sitecore community. He shared how the his knowledge base with Sitecore has helped fortify his strategy at Hexagon as they embrace more of the capabilities that the ecosystem is introducing. "We’re really leaning hard into AI, like most companies,” he said. “We realize we can’t bury our heads in the sand, because we know that AI is going to be the future. How Sitecore looks at its product roadmap is very pragmatic, and there’s a lot of conversation with customers and MVPs alike on the best use cases for AI. They're not adding AI for the sake of adding AI to check a box for analysts or anything like that.”This focus on unlocking utility and value is something Sitecore has been pursuing for quite some time. In 2025, the company partnered with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us">Microsoft</a> to launch a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/sitecore-partners-with-microsoft-to-launch-industrys-first-ai-innovation-lab-for-marketers">first-of-its-kind AI Innovation Lab</a> targeted at marketers. Providing a sandbox for exploring the potential AI use cases is one place Sitecore has excelled – but as George said, MVPs have also played a key role in providing feedback and evolving the product frontier. “This is where the MVP community really shines, right?” he stated. “Because we’re very much honest with the product teams at Sitecore. And we really feel like they take [our input] into consideration when developing their product roadmaps. They've treated the MVP community as a test bed, in a sense. They might reach out and say, ‘Hey, we're thinking about doing this kind of thing, what's your feedback?’"  <h4 id="tapping-the-role-and-spirit-of-an-mvp">Tapping the role and spirit of an MVP</h4>Is an MVP a vocation, or an advocation? After a decade as an active participant, I asked George to shed a little light on his relationship with the work itself. “I wouldn't call it a job, because I feel like that's too formal,” he said, laughing. “But it is a dedicated expectation to help evangelize the platform." I dug into what inspires George – and his fellow MVPs – to keep working at this. I wanted to know how he fostered inspiration as an ambassador of Sitecore. His answer was clear, and it spoke to the continued emphasis on innovation and the spark it creates for community members.“From an MVP perspective, you have to be excited about the platform to really evangelize it,” he said emphatically. “If the product is good, you're going to be excited about it. You're going to want to talk about it, to tell stories about it, right? And from that storytelling, that's where the evangelization piece emerges.” <h4 id="attracting-new-practitioners-to-the-sitecore-fold">Attracting new practitioners to the Sitecore fold</h4>Sitecore’s community has nearly unrivaled reach in the commercial DX realm (open source projects still hold the gauntlet). This growth has been nothing short of impressive, but I asked George about the potential erosion that all software communities face – from competition, expanding choice, and the potential for platform fatigue. And of course, the impact of AI on the entire software model.Are these factors deterring new interest? Not from his vantage point. That enduring enthusiasm that he and other MVPs champion continues to be magnetic."Really, it becomes a kind of a natural byproduct of just being excited about the platform and what we’re building,” he said. "Digital experience is such a fluid thing these days, with AI coming in and kind of changing everything, I think things are going to change at a very rapid pace, and it's kind of who's doing the cool thing at that moment that’s really helping dictate where people are going to have interest.”Clearly, he continues to see Sitecore as a draw – especially as AI evolves the roadmap.“As SitecoreAI accelerates innovation, this community will help turn new capabilities into practical patterns teams can apply with confidence,” George emphasized. “I’m excited to keep engaging with an amazing community of practitioners and strategists who help shape the future of digital innovation.”To learn more about Sitecore’s MVP program and SitecoreAI, visit <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sitecore.com/">sitecore.com</a> <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:34.15%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/logo_jday_hor.png" /><h4 id="joomladay-usa-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/">JoomlaDay USA 2026</a></h4>April 29 - May 2, 2026 – Delray Beach, FloridaBe part of the Joomla community in one of the most iconic cities in the world! JoomlaDay USA 2026 is coming to Delray Beach, and you can join us for a dynamic event packed with insights, workshops, and networking opportunities. Learn from top Joomla experts and developers offering valuable insights and real-world solutions. Participate in interactive workshops and sessions and enhance your skills in Joomla management, development, design, and more. And connect with fellow Joomla enthusiasts, developers, and professionals from across the world.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/"> Book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:36.69%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

MVPs Assemble: Sitecore Recognizes 213 Digital Innovators as ‘Most Valuable Professionals’ for 2026

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MVPs Assemble: Sitecore Recognizes 213 Digital Innovators as ‘Most Valuable Professionals’ for 2026