Welcome to the MVP show . My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills . If you have not checked it out already , I do a YouTube series called how to Become an MVP . The link is in the show notes . With that , let's get on with the show .
I'm excited to be talking to today's guest , as he comes from Greece . He works at Node4 as a cloud . He works at Node 4 as a cloud integrator . He's the sublead and senior Microsoft Azure architect . He was first awarded as MVP in 2024 .
He does a lot with the Power Platform as part of his role and he is the cloudopzonecom founder and one of the moderators of the Microsoft Wiki community and Microsoft Q&A . You can find links to his bio social media in the show notes for this episode . Welcome to the show , George .
Yeah , thank you . Thank you so much , Mark . I feel very honored to be invited and to be part of today's MVP show hosted by you . It's great to be here .
Thank you . Thank you . I always love exploring the lives of the guests that come on the show and I have not had many people from Greece , so I'm very excited . Greece is one of those countries on my bucket list both my wife and mine to come and live for a month to six weeks . We're hoping that 2026 is the year we do that .
Next year it's going to be Italy for a month , so Greece is our next stop after Italy . So , looking forward to that , Tell me , before we get into the area of technology that you specialize in and what you do technically , Tell us about food , family and fun . What do they mean to you ?
Yes . So family here in Greece is something important , and I assume that for everyone in this world . In terms of my personal life , I'm a single , I don't know if that is good or bad I'm a single . I don't know if that is good or bad , but thank God I have two amazing nephews , two boys , to which I literally devote a lot of my time in my life .
So , you know , we go on trips , we watch football games , we play basketball football , many , many , many other activities . I teach them and I'm mentoring them a lot . So , for example , I teach them useful stuff such as computer science . Let's say stuff such as computer science . Let's say I'm talking about clouds , potential dangers on the internet In general .
I'm trying not to be just a rankling , but something more . When you think of Greek food and your favourite dish , what is it ?
I think I'm blessed to have been born and raised and living till now in Greece . It's a Mediterranean country with loads of history and famous cuisine . For example , it combines fresh seasonal ingredients .
Greek cuisine includes a variety of dishes , such as seafood squids , shrimps , sea basses and also I don't know if you know it , but I'm saying that because you are you want to travel in Greece . Greece has around 6,000 islands and small rocky islands . So yeah , and bear with me , I haven't finished yet . Greece produces feta cheese .
I don't know if you have feta cheese in New Zealand .
Yes , yes . In my refrigerator I have feta cheese . Yes , yes , yes , yes .
We have delicious meat such as lambs , goats I cannot say chickens , because they are all over the world and other dishes I could mention are the famous spanakopita . Have you ever heard about this ? It's a savory spinach pie with feta cheese wrapped in crispy phyllo dough . I don't know very well that .
Yeah , yeah , that's correct . We call it phyllo pastry .
Yes , Living in Greece makes me a person who loves good and tasty food , but I also tend to taste food from other countries . But in the end , you know , I end up being lucky , because I consider Greek cuisine is one of the best , if not the best .
So I live , my closest town to me is 40 minutes away , and the number one restaurant is run by a greek person and it's called acropolis is what they call the restaurant , and it is the best food , absolutely the best food , in our region , and and it's all Greek .
Typical tourist name for a restaurant .
Yes , yes , yes , yes . And , of course , all the artwork is islands and the famous places of Greece . But yeah , just the food is amazing . The host and owner of the restaurant she is just amazing . The host and owner of the restaurant , she is just amazing . She is the epitome of an outstanding host , as well as serving amazing food and amazing cocktails .
Really , I wish someday I can visit New Zealand and come and find you and we can come and visit . We can go and visit the restaurant .
A lot of Greek people have left reviews saying best Greek food they've ever had outside of Greece . So tell me , how did you get into technology ?
I never had in my mind to be a technology professional , to be a technology professional , but you know the life , for example I don't know if this is correct , but the life here in Greece . It's not that easy and you cannot find a very easy job with good money . So I sat down and discussed this with my parents when I was younger .
We decided to start looking at training about technology , computer science especially . So here I am . I've started my . Actually my background is technical because my first job was to assemble computers , hardware .
So I started from hardware and then I moved to networking , because I got CCNA , and then , yeah , cisco , and then databases , sql , and now no , there is another step , azure , and my last step , which is business apps . So it's a chain .
Yeah , yeah , how did you specifically get into business apps ?
about six years ago , I left Greece for business reasons to work remotely for Tisky . Now it's Node4 , which was yeah . So , in terms of Node4 , now it's a company that focuses in providing IT services , specializing in hybrid cloud solutions , data center hosting , connectivity , cybersecurity .
It's an opportunity for me to start working with newer technologies , because here in Greece , new technologies and ideas are not so easily adapted , so that's why I decided to work abroad to get actually a flavor of other markets , like UK's . I was helped in the beginning of this career .
I was helped a lot by my team members , especially by a person who is the director of the Power Platform practice and he's an active , fast-tracked , recognized solution architect in Power Apps and he's a best friend of mine . His name is Kos Belis and I'm telling you this guy is amazing and I think you should invite him on a podcast . Trust me .
Trust me , yeah .
We'll get him on , so is he UK-based ?
He is UK-based . I'm Greek-based , Greece-based .
How do you find it working for a company in another country working remotely ?
It's not bad , it's very good . The only thing that bothers me is that I'm working from home , so I spend the most time of my life at home .
I spend the most time of my life at home , I mean , here is the place where I'm sleeping , I'm eating , I'm working , I'm doing everything , but it's it's good , because sometimes I'm traveling to UK for customers , for or for visiting friends . So so it's good for someone to choose to work remote .
I mean , for me , it's the best , because I live in Greece , I have the sun , I have the good food , I have my friends , my family , and sometimes I can move on and go to the UK to visit customers , colleagues , friends .
Yeah , I like it . I like it . It sounds amazing actually . How did you first find the job there ? Did they come and find you ? Did you just apply for a job ? How did that original relationship start ?
I was looking that time . I was looking to find another job because , as I mentioned earlier here in Greece , technology is not . It's not the best part for the businesses . So one of my friends and colleagues went to UK and find a good job in T-Sky . So he told me a morning that they are asking for a new Azure engineer .
So I just applied , passed the interviews and here I am . But I've started doing Azure , but now most of my time I spend most of my time doing business apps .
What do you in the past year ? What have you been doing in the area of AI ?
In the area of AI . Not much . I couldn't say that I did a lot of things . But I've read a lot of of things . But I've read a lot of pdfs on my computer and I'm on my personal tenant , on my personal azure tenant . I'm trying to to do some demos to see how these services are working .
But hopefully in the next weeks , months , years , I don't know we can get a project in my company and we can work more with AI .
Yes , so on the BizApps side of things , are you more doing development like NET development or are you more building solutions directly in PowerApps ?
PIM , azure Storage , vnets for security , azure Front Door , and that's it . And on the business apps part , I'm working a lot with Power Automate . I really love doing flows yes , with Power Automate , I really love doing flows . Flows yes , and maybe not .
Maybe I'm not a developer , but I have started writing code on Power Apps because I think low code , no code , is for everyone and even if someone has nothing to do with the computer science field and it's just , for example , an accountant that can use Excel functions , it can learn instantly to write in Power Apps code . I mean , yeah , that's great .
You mentioned VNet and are you very focused on that security element of what you do as well because of your Azure background ?
Yes , yes , I'm MVP . I think this is the sixth year being an MVP . I nominated in two categories Azure and business apps . I don't know why , but for some reason , I don't know why , but for some reason , I've been selected only for the business apps nomination . So , but I'm doing both . I'm doing both . I mean , I'm good . I'm good on Azure .
I have more experience , obviously , but I really love to do a lot of work with business apps and I'm telling you that you can imagine that it's the best thing on the work field is to combine knowledge from different technologies . I mean because you can understand better a customer customer needs .
You know how to secure , for example , let's say that someone wants to use Power Pages , so you can very easily know what the customer needs in order to secure these Power Pages .
Good , this is very interesting . Tell me , you know and this is my final question , because we're at time is , if you look at the next six months , what is going to be your focus as in for your personal career development . What are you going to be focusing on ?
I want to focus more on business applications because I think that this is the to learn more things and to get better .
But I don't want to leave my other background , which is the technical and it has to do with Azure technologies , because I spent 10 years of my life on this technology , but I really love to do things and work in projects and business applications .
So I love doing both and in the future future I wish I could work more with AI technology , because I think it's great to have AI on our lives , and sometimes I spend time playing with chat CBT . I'm doing some very appropriate and inappropriate questions and I'm just expecting for the response . It's yeah , it's a good game , nice to play .
Hey , thanks for listening . I'm your host business application mvp mark smith , otherwise known as the nz365 guy . If you like the show and want to be a supporter , check out buymeacoffeecom forward slash . Nz365 guy . Thanks again and see you next time time . Thank you .