Meet The VMUG Board of Directors

VMUG Board President | Missouri, USA

Brenda Emerson is from Clayton, Missouri. She is the CIO for Carrollton Bank. Brenda has served on the VMUG Board of Directors since 2021 and currently holds the position of Secretary/Treasurer. Brenda has over 30 years of Information Technology experience and has been a CIO for the last 10 years.  

VMUG Board Vice President | Texas, USA

Justin has over 20 years of professional experience in management and as a technical lead, with significant exposure to public speaking in various settings, including: Development of written and visual material for training, proposals, and business public speaking engagements. Presenting new technologies to business leaders, investors, and end-users from both a business and a technical perspective. 

VMUG Board Treasurer | Illinois, USA

Rizwan is an innovative thought leader and an experienced architect with expertise in building a strategic vision for technology and executing that vision to achieve the organization’s business objectives. He has a broad range of progressive experience in coaching and building high-performing teams and processes. He enjoys mentoring, cycling, and volunteering his time and has been on the VMUG Board of Directors since 2022.

VMUG Board Director | Scotland, UK

Martin Campbell is a virtualisation leader and serves as Virtualisation Lead at The University of Edinburgh, where he provides strategic direction for enterprise VMware platforms. A long-standing community advocate, he has played a key role as a Board Director for the VMware User Group (VMUG), helping shape its global strategy and championing collaboration, education, and knowledge sharing across the VMware user community.

VMUG Board Director | Illinois, USA

An accomplished IT professional with over 20 years of progressive experience in information technology leadership, infrastructure modernization, and cybersecurity strategy. Proven track record of designing, implementing, and managing hybrid cloud environments that balance performance, scalability, security, and cost efficiency across on‑premises and cloud platforms.

Throughout a long‑standing career, has successfully executed multiple enterprise‑wide hardware refresh initiatives, modernizing data centers, end‑user computing environments, and network infrastructure to improve reliability, resilience, and operational efficiency. Adept at aligning technology roadmaps with business objectives, ensuring investments deliver measurable value and long‑term sustainability.

Highly skilled in enhancing cybersecurity posture through layered security architectures, risk assessments, access controls, vulnerability management, and incident response planning. Known for building strong cross‑functional partnerships, leading technical teams through change, and establishing best practices that strengthen security, compliance, and overall IT governance.

VMUG Board Director | Bengaluru, India

Sumanth Gadige is a senior technology leader specializing in cloud and platform engineering for large-scale enterprise systems, with deep expertise in distributed systems, enterprise infrastructure, and information security. He brings extensive experience across IT service delivery, DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and cloud architectures spanning SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS environments. He has a proven track record of building and operating secure, resilient, and highly scalable cloud platforms, leveraging automation, container technologies, and DevOps/SRE practices to support mission-critical enterprise applications and improve platform reliability, performance, and scalability. In addition to technical leadership, Sumanth holds financial accountability for enterprise cloud and infrastructure platforms, including Capex/Opex planning, cost optimization, and governance of large-scale technology investments.

Sumanth has been an active member of the VMware User Group (VMUG) community for nearly a decade and has served as a Board Member since 2021, contributing to the organization’s strategic direction and supporting its global community of cloud and virtualization professionals.

VMUG Board Director | New York, USA

Richard has been a VMUG member for twenty years, a Buffalo VMUG Leader for eight years, a vExpert for eight years, and is a former Regional Champion of US East. Richard is career IT with over twenty-five years of experience across various industries including non-profit healthcare, start-up, finance, Fortune 50, and government. His ability to translate complex systems into accessible knowledge has become a hallmark of his leadership style. Richard has a reputation for bridging customer needs and vender capabilities.

VMUG Board Director | USA

Robert J. Linn is a seasoned Infrastructure Architect with over 25 years of experience designing and deploying secure, high-performance virtual infrastructure for enterprise-scale environments. He remains actively engaged in the technology community through roles on the VMware Customer Technical Advisory Board, VMUG, and the VMware Design Studio product feedback initiative. During his free time, Robert enjoys spending time with his wife Carmen and kids, Robert Jr, and Alyssa. He also enjoys running, watching movies, and obstacle course racing across the country.

VMUG Board Director | Florida, USA

Tamecka McKay is an industry-certified IT executive with over 25 years of experience and currently serves as CIO for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, overseeing enterprise technology infrastructure, digital services, public safety systems, and mission-critical communications. She serves on the Board of Directors for the VMware User Group (VMUG) and champions community engagement and inclusive leadership. Passionate about servant leadership and service excellence, Tamecka is dedicated to inspiring others to leverage knowledge and connection to overcome barriers and achieve their full potential.

VMUG Board Director | California, USA

Eric Nielsen, Director of Communities and Influencers at VMware by Broadcom, working on community programs for over a 40 year career. Eric started his community journey with 1200 baud modems and BBS systems, creating places for IT people to share content. At Sun Microsystems Eric created the share portal BigAdmin and then came to VMware to help build the community eco-system. Eric hosts a weekly community podcast, manages the vExpert program, the VMware{code} program and sits on the VMUG board of directors. Eric shares a passion for home labs, and can be found doing {code} labs focusing on learning through coding at home.

VMUG Executive Director | Tennessee, USA

Brad Tompkins is the Executive Director of the VMware User Group (VMUG). In his role, he is responsible for providing executive leadership for the organization, as well as participating on the VMUG board who is responsible for advancing its mission by guiding its strategic plan and building a vision for the future. Brad has oversight of all VMUG programs and operations and is focused on driving value for all stakeholders, including VMUG’s 150,000+ members around the world, volunteer leaders, Broadcom, and its partners.