Unlock the Adobe Champion Advantage: Who It’s For, What It Takes, and How to Apply

Transcript

Welcome everyone to today’s webinar, Unlock the Adobe Champion Advantage, who it’s for, what it takes, and how to apply. My name is Jenna Feldman. I’m an Adoption Marketing Manager at Adobe, leading the Adobe Experience Manager Champion Program. I am joined today by Kelsey Beyondich. Kelsey, would you like to introduce yourself? Yes. Thanks, Jenna. Hi, everyone. I am Kelsey Beyondich. I’m a Senior Manager on the Adoption Marketing team. I’ve been with Adobe about seven and a half years now by way of the Marketo acquisition, and that’s really where we started the concept of a Champion Program and brought it over to the rest of Adobe’s ecosystem. So we’re super excited to share more about the program with you all today. Thanks for being here.

Thanks, Kelsey. So today’s session is all about familiarizing you with our Adobe Champion Program. What it is, how to get involved, and the benefits you’ll receive from participation. We’re gonna dive into some tips and tricks for submitting a standout program application, and then you’ll have the unique opportunity to hear from actual Adobe champions about best practices for submitting an application, as well as their overall program experience.

But before we get to meet them, I just have a few housekeeping items that I wanted to run through. First and foremost, this webinar is being recorded, and we will send out the link to the recording, as well as the link to these slides in a follow-up email after the webinar. We also would love to make this interactive, and we’re excited to see that a lot of you already have figured out the attendee chat. We will also be doing a panel during this conversation, and we will have a dedicated Q&A section at the end of that panel. So there’s actually an Ask the Presenters box at the bottom. That is different than the attendee chat. So the Ask the Presenters is more asking questions of our actual presenters from this presentation, but if you’d like to connect with your other fellow practitioners during the call, you’re welcome to use the attendee chat. We also have a resources section, which I really encourage you all to check out before the end of the webinar. There are some very important links related to the champion program, including the link to actually apply for the 2026 to 2027 Adobe Champion Program. So make sure you check out those links, but if you don’t get the chance, we’ll also include those in the wrap-up. And then last but not least, as I mentioned, we want to keep this interactive, so we will be launching some polls during the conversation, and make sure you’re paying attention because the polls at the end are all about testing your knowledge to see what you learned.

All right.

So, so excited to get to introduce our four incredible Adobe Champions who are here with us today. We’ll get to hear from them in just a little bit, but just to kick it off, we are here with Alicia Khan, AI strategist at All Good, a three-time Marketo Engage Champion, Katie Guborchik, a Manager of Omnichannel Analytics at Becton Dickinson, a five-time Adobe Analytics Champion, Monique Evans, a Content Operations Specialist and part of our inaugural class of Workfront Champions, and Vitti Rametra, Senior Product Lead of MarTech Solutions at Telus Digital, a first-year AEM Champion. So, so excited to have you all here, ladies. We’ll hear from you in just a bit, but for now, it’s time to actually meet all of you. So we are gonna launch our first poll. So before we dive into the content today, we wanna know a little bit about what champion program you’re most interested in. So we’re gonna launch a poll here, and I’m excited to see what you guys are all interested in.

I have to watch all the numbers increase. Wow, okay, great. So we have a lot of interest in all the programs, amazing. Seeing a lot of AEP interest and AEM, which is great.

Honestly, I mean, for all of them, it seems like we have a lot of interest, which is wonderful. I’d love to see that. Well, that’s great because all of the content today will be around your programs and the programs that you’re interested in, so you can learn some good tips and tricks and also submit a strong application that will carry over to any program application that you submit, so.

Awesome, great. All right, well, let’s dive right in because we’ve got a lot to cover.

Kelsey, I’m gonna kick it over to you to get started in talking about the champion program.

Sounds great, thank you, Jenna. All right, so more about the champion program in depth. At its core, this is an application-based program that recognizes Adobe’s most knowledgeable customers and partners, but honestly, the best way that I would describe it is much simpler than that. It’s the people that are in your organization, or maybe this is you, people in your network who live in Adobe products. They’re the ones that colleagues go to when they’re stuck on something, the ones who are always sharing tips and always pushing the platform further. So this program was built for those types of people.

Can go to the next one. All right, so let’s talk about what you actually get out of this program because this is where it gets really interesting. Champions get a real platform for thought leadership, and it’s not just a badge on LinkedIn for your profile. It’s a genuine opportunity to build that personal brand within the Adobe ecosystem and outside of the Adobe ecosystem. You’re gonna get direct collaboration with Adobe itself. You’ll be sitting in on product feedback sessions, exclusive time with leadership, and honestly, the best part is joining a global network of other CX Enterprise experts, people that are at your level, solving similar problems or different ones, and just really excited to share their expertise with everyone in the program.

In terms of time commitment, this is a question we often get. It’s about four to six hours a month. So think content creation, events, networking, mentorship. It’s meaningful, but it’s built to fit around your real job.

All right, and who is eligible? Any Adobe CX Enterprise practitioner with at least three to five years of experience with their solution. If that sounds like you or someone on your team, I encourage you to keep listening.

So getting into what this actually looks like for the program and the day-to-day because the opportunities here are really differentiated. And it’s not just perks on a list. So one of my favorite parts of this program and what I kind of consider the centerpiece is our Adobe Champion Forum. This is a two-day in-person event at Adobe HQ, and it’s not just a virtual happy hour or Zoom networking session. You’re actually on our campus. You’re sitting across from Adobe product leaders, you’re connecting with champions from around the world, and you’re doing real professional development together. As we all know, that kind of access is extremely rare, but that’s something that we provide to our champions on an annual basis, and it’s honestly an epic, epic week.

Additionally, there are so many speaking opportunities for you as a champion, and these are big stages. So we’re talking about Adobe Summit, Skill Exchange, webinars, AI Forum, insider tours. If you’ve ever wanted to share out more about what you’ve built, your expertise, what you’ve learned, what’s went wrong, and how you fixed it, this is the chance to do that. So champions get that platform to do that in front of thousands of peers and other industry leaders.

And then the last one that I think practitioners get the most excited about, understandably, is definitely beta access. So our champs partner directly with Adobe product teams. You’ll be the first to get access to new features that you can test before they even go live. You’re not just waiting for the release notes, you’re actually actively writing them with the Adobe product teams. So you’re influencing that roadmap, you’re building the future of the tools that you use every single day. And in my opinion, that’s a super meaningful seat at the table.

All right, so right now you’ve heard a lot about the program, but let’s talk about application criteria. How do you actually apply, and what are we looking for at Adobe, so let’s walk through it. The first is true experience, specifically thought leadership experience and how you’re creating content. Have you spoken at a webinar? Have you led a user group? Have you participated in experience like community? We wanna see that you’re already showing up for the community in some way. So you’re not just waiting to become a champion to have a title on your LinkedIn, but you’re actively giving back to others and really starting to contribute.

The second thing that we look for is authenticity. So this one is one that we really emphasize with the program. Adobe wants your genuine voice, your story, your perspective on the product. And we’re pretty direct about this on the application. You probably saw the call out about being mindful, using AI to really fill it out. We wanna hear from the real you. We wanna hear about your genuine passion for the platforms and how you can help others succeed. And that’s what gets you into this program. It’s not just a perfectly polished paragraph. It’s real people reading your applications. It’s real people that are gonna be engaging with you in the program. And that’s where we really wanna see the real you come through.

All right, and then some bonus points that are worth flagging. If you’ve attended Adobe industry events, if you’ve been recognized with an experience maker award or you’re active in experience league, contributed to blogs or LinkedIn, mention it for sure. These aren’t deal breakers by any means, but anything else that you have in your arsenal that can really bolster your application and make you stand out is definitely worth mentioning. So the through line across all this is that we’re looking for people who are already leading, already sharing with others and really showing up and wanna do that on a bigger stage. So if that’s you, we are really excited to read your application.

All right, let’s chat through the application timeline because we are currently in the middle of it. I can’t believe it’s already May 14th. So applications launched on April 19th and we have a few milestones worth calling out. So we do have application workshops happening across several solutions from May 18th to May 22nd. We’ll be providing additional information and resources for that. These are hands-on workshops where Adobe can answer questions about things you’re thinking about putting in your application and it’s very solution specific.

Applications close on June 5th. So I highly recommend getting to work, getting those applications in as soon as possible. I know we all love a good procrastination session, but highly recommend doing it as soon as possible. Then mid or early July on the 8th, we’re gonna be sending out a status update email. So we’ll be starting to comb through those applications. Like I mentioned, these are real people reading every single application that comes through. So it does take time and we appreciate everyone’s patience there. And we’re really hoping that our judging will kick off around the 14th to the 21st. And Adobe judging is pretty intense. We have a panel of cross collaborative stakeholders from product, from CSM, from our adoption marketing team and community, reading every application and talking about who really has what it takes to make the next class.

And then in August, we will finalize the classes and get everything approved. And then end or mid August on the 17th, we will notify all applicants of whether you’ve been accepted or if this is not the year for you, but we’ll also be providing various ways for you to continue to stay engaged and really bolster your advocacy and your champion profile if you’re looking to become a champion in the future. And then we’ll host a welcome call on September 2nd.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Kelsey. That was a great overview. If anyone has any questions for Kelsey or anything we just shared, feel free to put them in the attendee chat if you’d like. We also have program managers on this call who can answer your questions for the greater group. So now that you’ve heard from us about what the program’s all about and how to submit a strong application, it’s time to actually hear from some real Adobe champions who have been in your seat where you are right now and wanting to apply. So we’re gonna transition into the panel portion of today’s conversation. So I’d like to welcome Vitti, Alicia, Monique and Katie.

So, so excited to have you all here, ladies. Thank you for being here. I’m excited to kick off this panel and just wanna hear from each of you a little bit more about yourself and tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming an Adobe champion. So Katie, because you’ve been a champion the longest, I’d love to start with you. Yeah. Hi everyone. I’m Katie Geborsik. I’m very humbled and thankful to be a five-time Adobe analytics champion.

It’s really been a journey. I’m in healthcare. I’ve been in healthcare for many years now and just love learning all the tools and connecting with other champions.

Awesome. Alicia, I’ll have you go next. Hi folks. My name is Alicia Khan. I am an AI strategist at Allgood, three-time champion, not near Katie’s level quite yet. I have been lucky enough to have some fantastic mentors throughout my career journey who encouraged me to get on that public speaking train. So by the time I was thinking about becoming a champion, I had already built up a little bit of a repertoire of material that I had been speaking, I’d been writing, I’d been engaging in the community. So when it came time to apply, I had stuff to talk about and to reference.

And then, since becoming a champ, it’s honestly just been a really fantastic experience.

So glad to hear that and so glad to have you with us. And Monique, I’ll have you go next. Yeah. This is the first year for Workfront. I was super excited to apply and get accepted. And before then, I have been heavily in the community doing user groups and community advisory and so many speaking engagements that I’ve kind of lost track at this point.

Awesome. Thank you. And then last but not least, Fiddy.

So my journey has been, it’s pretty Adobe saturated, I would say. Like I’ve been working on AM for about five years, but I’ve been in the Adobe ecosystem longer than that. And being part of a consulting firm and then moving into as a product assets manager at a partner, sorry, on the consumer side, on the customer side, I think right now, I feel that I’ve gotten to see Adobe tools from pretty much all the angles. And champion program especially came through one of my former colleagues. She’s also another AM champion. Her name is Priya. So shout out to her to having introduced me to this program. I researched a bit about it. And then I found that it’s a program for practitioners who genuinely live and breathe these tools and are willing to give back to the community through the different opportunities Adobe creates. So fast forward, I applied to the program and when the acceptance came through, I didn’t fully realize what exactly it is until I started living it. And I’m pretty excited to share about that part today with everybody. Oh, thank you, Vidy. Well, it’s been wonderful to get to know each of you, whether that’s at Summit or Champion Forum or also Vidy and I have gotten to work really close together since she’s in my champion program. But we’re so excited to have you here today, all of you. And I feel like all of your expertise is very different and even though you work in different industries and you have different amounts of time in the champion program, you definitely have so much to share. So we’re really excited to dive in and hear from each of you. So let’s go ahead and do that right now. All right, I’d like to start with Alicia and Katie as two of our champions who have been in the program for over a year. You know, as you know, there are so many ways to get involved as a champion, whether that’s speaking at events like Adobe Summit and we’re at the Virtual Skill Exchange, writing articles on perspectives or creating in-product guides, working on our community and helping answer questions or participating in community AMAs. I mean, the list goes on, there’s so many opportunities. So I’d love to hear from each of you a little bit about what has your experience been like so far and the activities you’ve participated in as a champion and what have meant the most to you. So Alicia, I’ll start with you. All right, fantastic. I have really enjoyed all the speaking opportunities that I’ve had. I recently spoke at a small panel at Adobe Summit and I’ve done Skill Exchange in the past year.

I’m based in Chicago, so we do have a mug over here.

What’s really great about the speaking opportunities is that it gives you a chance to give the world a content that you wish you had earlier in your career, that like, hey, I wish somebody had explained X to me like this, or I wish I knew Y, or I just like, there has to be a better way to explain like a really complicated technical concept. So for me, a lot of the work that I do, it’s almost, it’s a letter back to my younger self of like, this is the content I know you wish you had at some point and I am just hopeful that somebody in the future can benefit from it along the way.

I love that. I love that you feel like you’re able to kind of exactly like you see yourself, like even though you’re now a champion, like you still see yourself as everyone else, you’re still also learning, but like you’re able to take the content that you want to share with everyone and it’s just able to, it’s like you’re teaching yourself, it’s like you’re teaching the rest of the community. So we love that. Katie.

Yeah, I would agree with Alicia. The speaking opportunities have been fantastic. If nothing else, it’s a great opportunity to hone those skills. I’ve never been on the summit stage, but I love seeing other champions who are, and special shout out to Andy, who’s our photo on the screen right now. But across that as well, I think for me, the fact that there are different opportunities is what makes it great because not everyone wants to be a speaker, not everyone can be a writer. I’m certainly not a great writer. So really focusing on that and then connecting with people literally across the world has been so fantastic. That’s awesome. And I want to double down what you said about, not everyone’s a speaker and that’s okay. Especially in my champion program, I see champions that some of them are like, oh, give me any speaking opportunity you have, I’ll take it. But some are like, I kind of just want to do more writing. I’m more, that’s more of my skills. So I think that’s one of the great things about the champion program is that it’s kind of choose your own direction. And it’s something that you get to really take, we want to take your skills that you’re really good at and have you hone in on those. Or if there’s something that you want to get better at, we want to help you work toward that. So I have a lot of champions who come to me and say, I want to become a better public speaker. And so then I can work with them and say, hey, we have this opportunity to host a user group meeting or like something on a smaller stage to help them get comfortable to their goals. So love that you both have been able to kind of, you know, really hone in on your interests and also, you know, get better at practice at skills that you’ve been wanting to achieve. So thank you so much for that.

All right, I’d love to transition over to Monique and Vidi, hear from our first year champions. So the first year in the champion program, I imagine can be a little overwhelming. There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of new people to meet. There’s so many ways to get involved. It’s kind of like being in a college fair, you know, your first day of college when you go and there’s like all these different, you know, clubs to join and there’s like so many things to do. And you’re like, how do I manage my time? So there’s a lot going on, but you know, I want to hear from each of you, you know, what has your experience been like as a first year and how have you made the most of it? And Monique, I’d love to start with you. And I’m excited to hear your experience, especially because it’s not only your first year as a champion, but it’s also the first year of the Workfront Champion Program altogether. So I would love to start with you. Yeah, it’s one of those where at least it felt more like going from middle school to high school. So I still had all of my friends from middle school, AKA the lion pack of work frontiers that we were all kind of into this new world together. So we had that to kind of rely on, but the first day at forum, it was just like, oh my goodness, not only are there just so many people and other folks are like, oh, I haven’t seen you in so long. And you’re trying to remember every name, but there’s also just so many ideas. Like if you’ve ever sat at a table, whether it’s summit or just like a wug or user group or anything like that, you know, that when you get practitioners together, they’re always going to start talking and sharing ideas. So I was just sitting there wishing I had like a notebook or something that’s taking notes, trying to remember names, but also trying to remember what everyone said. But then after things kind of calmed down after forum, it was like right back to work. So we’ve been meeting with the product team, giving them ideas, sharing things, doing a couple of like focus groups sort of things. And then I have done so many speaking engagements. I think this is my third one this month. So I am one of those people that’s like, you want someone to have a microphone, and they’re like, I’m going to give it to me. I have no problem with that. I do not want to sit there and write a perspective. So that’s kind of how I’ve spent my first year. I love that. I’m so glad we were, honestly, everyone, I’m so glad we were able to lock Monique down because she’s been so busy in such a great way. And that’s wonderful. I love that you’ve been able to make the most of your experience for the first year. You totally rocked it. Thank you. Viddie. So I’m going to continue on the analogy of the school and then moving to college. So for me, it was more like starting a new college. And then honestly, the year has been a lot in the best way. I still remember it kicked off with us flying to Adobe headquarters in San Francisco. And I was awestruck by the amount of people there. Like I went downstairs and then there were so many people. And it was a bummer that I only got to connect with a handful in such a short time. But one moment that really stuck with me was meeting Melanie. She’s another AEM champion. And she said something like, Viddie, here we work as a team, not people from different organizations. Everybody looks out for everyone. And for a first year champion who hadn’t built those relationships yet, I think that really meant a lot for me. What stood out the most has been the product collaboration sessions with the AEM product engineering and marketing teams. We’ve shared feedback from our experience, our clients’ experiences, and then Adobe got us to walk us through their roadmap, which often so far has lined up with exactly the limitations we’ve been dealing with on the ground as consultants.

I remember we also got hands-on with new products. LLM Optimizer was the one that I just kind of went through at my time during the forum, going through the UI, everybody walking us through that, the AI agents. And generally these new releases are hard to keep because of the amount of features being released every now and then. And being in this program has made it easy for me to learn and access these latest releases before it’s available for public. So that’s even cool. And what I’d really highlight though is the breadth of opportunities that I’ve got. And it’s not like I’ve grabbed all of the opportunities, but I’ve been a participant to a number of them. Like I got to learn about some cool tips and tricks through the Skill Exchange program, the sessions that we have. Then I got to attend user groups, champion office hours if I wanted to brainstorm on more technical issues. And then that could eventually be fed as a feedback to Adobe. But some place that I personally got involved was writing a perspective article, participating in sharing questionnaire for the AI podcast that Adobe released. And then I also got to be a W speaker at Adobe summit for this year for our real time trigger solution with our telecom client. So what I’m trying to say is that there is a plethora of opportunities and you pick what fits your strength. So that’s important. And then on the networking side, I think I’ve added more than 100 people on LinkedIn, like meaningful connections, people I can reach out to if I have any questions about features, strategy. So definitely been a big year. It has been a big year for you. Thank you so much, Vidy. And again, closing note, like what Melanie said, like the champion program, like whether your class will be people who’ve been in the program maybe for five years and then you have first years, but everyone’s treated the same. And it’s all a big, everyone’s looking out for each other. It’s all big family, right? Like everyone’s given the same opportunities and a lot of our more senior champions love to kind of mentor some of the first year champions too. And they use it as an opportunity to like partner together on different user groups and like meetings, for example. And it’s just a lot of times they’ll work together, which I love. Thanks. Thank you guys. That was great. So let’s move on. This one I’m excited cause you kind of talked about this video a little bit with like career growth professional network. But one of the most exciting things I hear from champions is that being in the program has really helped supercharge their career. They actually get the opportunity, whether that’s a promotion at work or they get to do more leadership opportunities in their role. They felt like it’s a great way for them to build their professional network and just grow their career in general. So I’d love to hear from Katie and Monique. And Katie, I’ll start with you here. Talk to us a little bit about how you feel like being in the program has impacted your career and professional network. Yeah, absolutely. You probably saw me smiling because when I applied for the company that I’m with now, obviously I put this on my resume and I would love to think that, you know, that wasn’t the only thing they loved about me. Obviously I’m here, but I will say it was definitely noted in the interview process. And my fantastic boss, who’s still my boss today, brings it up as well, which I love to hear. And it’s also just something that I’ve been able to share with others in my company and then others in my network of like, hey, I have a friend, a colleague who is very good at Marketo. I’m like, hey, you need to apply or get started with some user groups and things like that.

So from that side, it’s definitely helped on the job hunt, as obviously Vidi alluded to as well. The career growth, but the network has just been incredible. I have friends and acquaintances from the last five years that I’m so, so thankful for, not just for the aspects of, you know, they’re helping me with problem solving, but they’re just truly fantastic and wonderful people. So just that across the board has been just so wonderful. Thanks, Katie. I love to hear that this came up in your interview too, and congratulations with your role. And I think all of us, like, and you also hit on something that I love, which is like beyond just our champions being incredible professionals and incredibly smart people, they’re just great people in general. And that’s something we, you know, we’re so passionate and we’re so proud of our champions for just generally being these, you know, great people who just want to give back to the community. And that’s their sole purpose for being in this program. Right. And like a big driver for them. Thank you. Monique, I’d love to hear from you. Yeah. So, you know, the difference between five years and one year in, so no big promotions or anything like that yet, but I was able to really tap into that network. So I mentioned in LinkedIn, so many LinkedIn ads, but also at Summit, I ran into a former manager of mine and she mentioned that she was interested in AAM and I was like, oh, I know a person, right? And before I was like, I don’t know anybody, but now because I’ve met so many other champions, I can refer folks to other products that I might not have any expertise in, but I know someone that’s going to take good care of them and show them the ropes and give them all of the information that they need and kind of like do that handholding that we’re all looking for. So that’s probably the biggest way that it’s kind of impacted my ability to flex a little bit and be like, oh, I know, I know a guy, I know a girl for that.

Thank you, I really appreciate that. It’s always nice that we get to like, again, it’s the networking beyond just your own program too, but also being able to know other people from other solutions as well is really beneficial because even if you’re a champion for one, of the Adobe CX Enterprise Solutions, you probably are using other ones as well, or maybe you’re using multiple. So it’s nice to be able to help like have that community outside of just your champion program, for example.

Lovely, all right, let’s keep going. So, you’ve all mentioned this, like I feel like there’s been so many ways in which you’ve been able as a champion to give back and impact Adobe in a meaningful way. And whether that’s again, a speaking opportunity or responding to someone’s question on the community, or just mentoring someone, doing a knowledge sharing call, for example. And I’d love to understand like what has been an activity you’ve done or multiple or few that you’ve done that has really helped you contribute to Adobe in a meaningful way. So Vidy, I’ll start with you. Sure, I have a few instances, but shorter ones.

So one instance was when I was testing the, and I love the feedback program, especially because it just kind of helps me a lot to understand what Adobe’s roadmap is, what our product team’s working on, how we can kind of help our clients better. So I was testing the experience production agent in the Adobe, the AM playground. And this agent, it lets you create forms with simple AI prompts using the AI assistant. And then I remember I hit a snag where the AI wasn’t really recognizing my form inputs. And this was during the time when we were on one of the product feedback sessions with the AM product teams. And then I shared this feedback with them and I’m like, hey, I really need to show my client this feature of experience production agent. But somehow this AI assistant is like, it’s not really helping me resolve my use case. And I think they literally took that feedback. And the same day I got a reply from the Adobe product teams, or I think it was the engineering team, and they resolved the issue. Like the next release had that fix and I was able to demo the feature live to a client. So I think feedback program really is something that works for me and also helps Adobe. And then I also wrote a perspective articles that’s basically like a framework for migrating into AM assets.

It’s aimed at both practitioners and non Adobe folks. Think of it as like a starter gate to kind of migrating into AM assets. And I wrote it because when I started as a consultant, I learned the hard way that when teams set things up without really understanding what marketers need day to day, the tool doesn’t scale properly. So this playbook has helped people get the foundation right from day one, hopefully, which ultimately means that they get more value out of the product and the investment they’ve made in Adobe.

And yeah, lastly, like I also met with a Telus Digital Prospect who’s also an Adobe customer. They recently got AM in their infrastructure. And I told them about the champions program that they’ve actually signed up for this webinar. So I think in a way that is also a win for Adobe because new practitioners can now be brought into the fold because I think that’s how the product keeps getting shaped around real customer problems and challenges. I love to hear that. And you have been such an amazing product champion. Like you’ve been able to help our team so much and I love to see how you’ve dove in right in. And that’s something just for everyone in general. Like we as a champion program team feel so proud of the relationships we’ve been able to build with our product stakeholders because it’s, they love working with the champions and I find that they come to the champions as like their first line of communication when it comes to, they wanna release something new and want feedback on it, or they just wanna share something that they’re working on and get some just initial thoughts. And I think that’s something they love as well. And it’s really wonderful to see how much the champions are receptive to that and want to participate as well. So I love to see that you’ve been able to participate in that. Alicia.

Yes. So I really enjoy being part of the Alpha Beta programs. One of the ones that I’m participating in right now is for Marketo’s MCP and their AI agents. And it is such a great opportunity to get early access and behind the scenes and start to just tinker around with things and like, I think like all the script was mentioned, just get that really early critical feedback into the Adobe team of what users need, what is actually gonna make the product sticky in the longterm, how to make sure it’s actually solving the problems that we know need to be solved. And also like maybe slide in a few wishlist items of like, you know, wouldn’t it be so cool if it could do X, Y, and Z? And I think, yeah, those have honestly been just some of my favorite opportunities. I love that you both answered about product and like how that has helped you feel more connected to Adobe through this whole program as well. And we love to see that because it’s really, that truly you are making an impact and being a champion, you do actually get to have real world impact on solutions that are used by millions of people around the world, which is very cool. So we’re really grateful for all of you and your support there and more to come.

All right, let’s keep going. So now I’d like to kind of transition a little bit over to the actual application best practices portion of this conversation.

So something I hear a lot as a program manager, I know my other program managers hear it too, as we get a lot of people with imposter syndrome and feeling like they’re like, I’m not sure if I have enough experience or if I’ve done enough yet, or like, is my title, you know, not high enough to be in this program. And I think we are here to quell those, you know, those thoughts or, you know, try to squash any kind of narrative that that might be the case. So we wanna be able to hear from our champions and Vitti, I’ll start with you and would love to just know, what would you tell someone if they don’t think they’re qualified enough to apply? So first of all, I’m glad I’m answering this question because I’m first time champion and I had the same hesitation myself.

When Priya introduced me to the program, she was a tech lead, like she’s a tech lead. So I automatically assumed champions had to be really hands-on with the tools. And I’ve heard similar feedback from folks in my organizations when they reached out to me about the program, like I’ve only been in the product for two years, I’m not hands-on like a developer. But what I wanna say is that the reality is so much broader than that. The champion community has directors, lead piece, product owners, marketers, consultants, people whose day jobs are like sitting with the business clients, making sense of their environment, figuring out how to make Adobe tools actually work for them. So the program needs folks who can give back at all levels is what I would say, product, engineering, customer side. I don’t know if sales should also be there, but yeah, maybe sales. So if you’ve got perspective from any of those angles, I think there’s a place for you. And even if you think you don’t have the bandwidth to kind of contribute tangibly, I think like tangibly like speaking, writing or mentoring, you can still be the voice of the customer through product feedback sessions. And I think that alone is like a real contribution. Adobe really needs real world voice as much as they need the deep technical ones. So maybe the reframe that I would make instead of asking, am I qualified enough? You can ask, am I willing to contribute and to grow? And lastly, if this helps, like we’ve got a huge Adobe practice at Telus Digital, my organization with a ton of talented folks and my leadership, my boss, my boss’s boss, both amazing women have been pretty stoked about getting more of our team into this program because they’ve seen the real value of it. So this isn’t just an individual move. I think it’s the kind of investment every organization want their people making.

That’s awesome. I love how you reframed that question. I actually think that’s great. It’s like, are they, it’s not necessarily, are you qualified enough? It’s are you willing to contribute enough? And that’s huge. I mean, we want people, this is a year long experience, right? And because it’s only a year guaranteed that you’ll be in the program, we wanna make sure that you are actually engaging and making the most of your experience. And that’s, when we look at who comes back, the previous classes, we wanna see people who are actually have made the most of their year really dove in in and like worked with us on certain kinds of content that they wanna produce and work on. And I love to see that. So thank you for that. And Katie, I’ll also turn it to you. Plus one, no notes.

Definitely agree with Vidy. I would also just say, do it anyway. We all have that imposter syndrome as was mentioned, but I also do wanna hone in on, I believe Wilson just put it in the chat. You don’t have to be a tech developer or a tech lead, like Vidy said, I am not that person. I am very much, I’m providing insights and I’m doing the strategy and things like that. Of course, I’m still looking at the data, but I’m doing so much more. And my perspective is different than someone who is on the development side or a little bit more in the weeds. Both are valid perspectives I would also like to say, when I was just a baby champion five years ago, I was almost primarily working in Adobe analytics and a little bit in AEM. Now I’m working in so many other Adobe products as well as other products across the board. And being a champion has helped me learn a lot of those products because I’m checking out Experience League. I’m diving into my network of people who know more than I do.

So really the gist of it is apply anyway. If you don’t get in, okay, the worst they can say is try again next year.

We’re all just trying our best over here. So really just keep going for it. Thank you for saying that. That’s so true, right? Like you never know. So just try. And the Champion Program, it’s a year long thing. So if you don’t get in this round, you have a whole year to work on an application. And that’s where I recommend if you’re working with customer success, you have like a team at Adobe you work with, like talk to them about it and say, I wanna get into this program. Please help me figure out what I can do better this year to really build myself up for next year. So that’s another great, great points, ladies.

All right, so Alicia and Monique, I’d like to hear from you both on this, but like when it comes to your actual application, what were some specific skills or experiences you highlighted? And Alicia for you, I’ll start with you, especially as someone who’s applied multiple times and has reapplied for the program. What are things that you, cause I know there are definitely people on this call who are current champions or have applied in the past and didn’t get in and are looking to reapply. What are some specific skills that you’ve included in your or experiences in your application that you believe made a difference? Yeah, I think having a story to tell about why you is the really crystal clear part. And to piggyback on what Katie and Vidya have been saying, my entire first application was completely about the fact that I am at best a medium technical person and the world needs more medium technical people to explain the super technical stuff to all of the regular folks, right? And that has been, and I have no shame in admitting that about my skill level. So having a concrete story to tell about, this is who I am, this is the kind of advocacy I do, this is the kind of advocacy I’m passionate about, having a track record of that advocacy, right? Like with LinkedIn, with the experience link, it’s so easy to put out content that supports your application and helps drive that storyline of, this is who I am, this is why I’m doing this, and this is why my perspective is helpful to the program. Building that sort of cohesive application, and then year over year, sort of just building on those things, right? So the first year it was a lot about, like I said, Marketo for non-technical people, and then building into, well, now that I am a champ, I wanna start to add more structure to the champ program as well to help first year champs. And then now really, my role is very AI focused, so I’m super interested. I think what I’m gonna write about this year is basically like, hey, my entire job is AI, but I’m seeing this entire perspective of AI where some people wanna build it themselves, and a lot of people just do need a lot of handholding because this stuff is kind of wild, right? And there is a place for all of these kind of voices when you’re applying for the champ program.

100%, thank you. I think there’s the diversity of skills and experiences and things, and especially with AI, like that is something we definitely are looking for. As our products tend to start innovating with AI, we definitely would love to know what you’re thinking about AI and how you all are using AI as well is gonna be important for our application review. So Monique.

Yeah, I love this question. I have not done my application for this year yet, but it’s okay, I’m attending this. I’m picking up tips from everybody else as well. But for my first year, and it being Workfront’s first year, a lot of my application was around not only would I bring it to the table, I took my Lorax duties very seriously. And I was like, I can speak for the customers and just the experiences that I’ve had, the other things that I’ve heard, but I also relied on what my skillset is. So I am someone that is very opinionated and have no problem sharing that and getting that heard. I’m not bossy. Yeah, that’s not a, they’re different, but it was one where I could say, I am able to talk to the product team and tell it in a way similar to what Alicia said, a way to don’t understand it and hear it because I am super technical, but I’m also human where I can fully understand and grasp what are the true issues. So a lot of my application had things like that. And then of course I took every opportunity I could to just kind of flex on what I had already done. So speaking at Skill Exchange in the past, being an experience maker, finalist, didn’t win, but you know what? I was like, I got to top three. So I’m gonna put that on there as well. So be your authentic self and just really put the things that you’re passionate about, the things that you know that you can bring to the table and also the ideas that you have that you think Adobe could benefit from because you might be able to bring something new that none of us have ever thought of before.

Yeah, that’s a great point. And it’s something that I love that you called out because a lot of times people think that being, applying to the champion program will help them, they wanna get into thought leadership. They wanna start sharing their voice more and this is like a way for them to do it, which in some respects is true, but it’s really more about like, we wanna see what people are, what you guys are actually doing, what steps you’ve already taken to contribute to the community, give back. And we just wanna help you amplify that. So I love how like Monique, you talked about in your application, what you already have been doing and you’re using the champion program as a way to take it to the next level, help amplify your voice. So that’s a really key point. So I’m glad you hit home on that.

All right, and then my last question for the whole group that I’d love for you each to answer, maybe just in like a sentence or two, and then we can get into some audience Q&A cause I see we have some questions that have come through, but what is maybe one piece of guidance or advice you would give to a first time applicant? So Katie, I’ll start with you.

I would say if you are like me and have a hard time tooting your own horn, talk to your advocates that you work with that know you day to day and can really kind of help you put to paper what you’re good at, especially with this. I think it’s hard to think back on what we do, but I know that was more than a sentence, but yeah. That’s great, thank you. Vedi.

So I would say, like I can talk more from the application form perspective because I stress a lot when I write applications or I just need, like I wanna be really talking about a lot of the things in detail. So I would say like, try to be specific, like narrate actual examples, how you’ve helped the client, the thought process you bring, the kind of problems you’ve been solving with the products or integrations you’ve been doing with non-Adobe tools. And also be clear about what you want from the program too. So it’s a two way street, I would say, like tell what your goals are and then try to kind of, and especially if you don’t have a lot of presence in Experience League or you haven’t really contributed much externally. So just say that, okay, I’ve been to Adobe Summit, for example, and these are some of the cool new things that I’ve learned that kind of spending my time contributing to some of these MCP technology or the AI agents. So just mention anything and everything with clear examples. I love that, thank you. Alicia.

So this was a tip that was given to me by, she’s now a former champion.

It was before you apply is to create a tracker for yourself of everything you have done in terms of speaking, writing, advocacy, everything. Writing it all down for yourself, and just helps you organize your thoughts, but also to create a really clear track record for yourself and helps you form a narrative around, oh, this is all the work that I have been doing. And honestly, make it a stretch. I definitely remember sticking internal presentations that I asked for permission to put on YouTube. Cause I really liked the presentation I did. It was like, I think there were some like internal town halls, there was some like client meeting stuff where it was like a really great presentation. And I was like, does anybody care if I put this on YouTube as like a private link so I can put it with my application? So think about all the ways that you’ve been an advocate, write it all down. And then once you have that list, then start writing your application because then you’ll have a much more clear picture of who you are, what you’ve been doing. And to Jenna’s point, how Adobe can help amplify what you’re already up to.

Awesome. And then Monique.

Yeah, someone actually asked me this recently and what I told them was similar to your imposter syndrome question is the world tells you know enough, like don’t tell yourself no. So if you think even slightly, like maybe I could be a champion, submit your application.

I love that. Mic drop. Mic drop, yeah, the mic has been dropped. Thank you so much ladies for your insight. This was awesome. I wanna turn our attention over to some questions that we’ve received that I know I can answer and I know all of you will be able to answer as well. So I do see a question that I definitely can answer after that. Thanks Raph and hi, nice to have you here. So the application include the knowledge sharing that is done within our organizations too. 100%, yes. Your community, the community is still even people at your organization. So share everything. Even if you don’t think you should share it, honestly share it. We wanna hear what you’re doing. Like, I wanna know what kinds of things, if you’re leading lunch and learns at your company, for example, with other practitioners, or you’re presented about some innovations you’re doing at one of your company town halls or something, like that stuff is really valuable for us to know because you are educating. It shows that you are an educator, you want to be a better educator, and we can basically take you and put you on a broader stage and you’ll have that same impact. So definitely please include stuff that you are doing internally at your organizations. Good question.

I’d like to move to one that I think, let’s see, I think it may have gotten signed to Monique because, Monique, did you get to sign one of the questions? Cause I know one you had mentioned you wanted to take. I did. So it was a question on just having a strong technical background and how best to kind of showcase developer oriented contributions. And I feel as though I am highly technical. That’s kind of where all of this came from was just being a mega nerd of all things work front and just wanting to learn it. So I would point to, if you have posted anything in community, whether it’s an idea or asking questions or answering other people’s questions, that’s a prime A grade place to kind of pull a lot of your expertise. And then also any of those ideas are like fun, weird things that you’ve kind of come up with and was able to execute. I’m sure you trained others on it. It could be in your company or yourself or the community. And you can also highlight that as well. If not only did I implement this very technical thing, but I also educated folks on how to do it for themselves or how to do it within your organization.

Thank you.

This is an interesting question too.

How much is it important to have experience in advocating the platform, like posting content on social media or speaking at events and putting that in kind of your application? I mean, that stuff, again, as I mentioned, is all great. We want to see any kind of platform that you are on is valuable to us, even if it’s a platform that’s not directly related to Adobe. So for example, like if it’s not necessarily the Adobe Experience lead community sharing that you are posting on social media, or you’re posting on LinkedIn, or you have your own blog, for example, that stuff is also really valuable to us because we again are seeing all of the expertise that you have and just, you know, and that actually goes to, and also another point I want to make, we want, you can tell us that you have all this experience. We’d love to actually see it. So if you have links to things, URLs, like downloads, like PDFs, send them over because we want to actually be able to see the work you’re doing and actually see it in writing. So they’re actually in the applications. I think most of them have a place where it’ll actually ask you, like, what are some examples of which, in which you have, you know, participated in sharing your experience in the past and share, you know, feel free to just copy paste URLs in there so we can actually look at those. Would be very helpful for us.

All right, I’m just looking through to see if we have any other questions I want to get to.

We actually have a question that came to me from an internal person, but do champions get special access to alpha and beta programs? So I, Alicia, I believe that’s kind of directed to you. Basically, Brad’s just here.

No, the alpha beta access is literally my most favorite part about doing all of this. And what’s even better, I don’t even know if there’s a stage before alpha where people just have Figma files. They want to show somebody and talk to somebody about it. So especially once you’ve been a champ for a year or two, product people will start reaching out to you as you get more involved in alpha betas to show you even the early stages of like, we don’t really have anything much past a few fancy Figma slides, but we’re still interested in feedback on what we have. And then seeing that full cycle is ridiculously cool to finally get to get anything in the product when it goes out to people using it. And then you get to say, you just, you know, you had a little hand in it.

Exactly. I love that. Well, we are running a little bit tight on time and we just have a few quick poll questions I want to get through, but definitely we’ll share resources following this webinar and how you can get in contact with us if we weren’t able to answer your question.

So let’s test your knowledge. Let’s wrap up this webinar by making sure we know, you know, all the right dates and tips and everything that we share. So let’s get started with our first question, which is how many champion programs currently exist? Two, three, six or 12.

I’ll give it just a little bit more time, but I see there’s a pretty clear winner, which is the right answer.

Yes, it is six programs. So we do have six programs. We have Marketo, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Analytics, and then this past year we launched Adobe Workfront, Adobe Commerce and Adobe Experience Platform and Apps. And those are the six programs that you’ll be able to apply for this year.

Awesome. All right. So what are some benefits of being an Adobe champion? Is it direct collaboration with Adobe on feedback opportunities, an invitation to our champion only forum event at Adobe headquarters, exclusive perks at Adobe Marquee events, or all of the above? All right. I am not seeing a ton of movement on this one, but that might be just an error or a part. But if that is the case, then it is all of the above just to confirm that you get all those wonderful benefits by being in the program.

And then let’s move on to our final poll.

So this is important. So what day do applications close for this class of champions? Is it May 15th, June 5th, August 3rd or December 31st? Here we go. Now I’m seeing some responses.

All right. I am seeing a pretty unanimous vote for the right answer, which is June 5th. So June 5th, which is coming up in just about three weeks. So you definitely have some time left to submit your application, but definitely keep that date in mind.

All right. Well, I think with that, we can go ahead and close the poll.

And we can probably go ahead and wrap up since that was a really wonderful amount of information. I want to thank our panelists so much for your time and your expertise. This was super valuable. And we’re so grateful to all of you for being in the program. And I want to thank everyone who joined us today and for all your questions and your engagement. We’re really excited to read your applications. As a reminder, as I just said, June 5th is the application end date. So in the meantime, please reach out to your networks. If you have any questions, we’ll have information in the follow-up email on how to contact us. And we’re really excited and looking forward to hearing from you all. So I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of your week. Have a great weekend and we will talk to you soon. Thank you so much.