The citation reads: "David is an IT professional and author. He's worked in a variety of roles from software developer, systems administrator, and business analyst to IT manager and chief information officer for multinational, publicly listed companies. In addition to his day job, David strives to give back to the industry – he's founded user groups, presented at conferences, taught university courses, and written thousands of technical articles. David is passionate about the field and helping students and newcomers advance their own careers and knowledge. While IT allows us to do all sorts of wonderful things with technology, at the end of the day, David says it's all about people."

The IT Pro Day awards were created to mark IT Professionals Day, and this year went global.

"SolarWinds is committed to celebrating and supporting the global IT community. We established this awards program in 2020 to recognise those individuals who go above and beyond daily as a thank you for the community's hard work and resiliency, especially in a year that continues to be defined by massive transformation and a global pandemic," said SolarWinds head geek Chrystal Taylor.

"Again this year, it's inspiring to see the nominations submitted by supportive colleagues and peers, highlighting the hurdles overcome by tech pros all over the world. These stories truly reflect the importance of IT in modern business, and we hope these awards reinforce the value and commitment tech pros bring to their organisations 365 days a year."

The other IT pros recognised in the 2021 awards were Rookie of the Year Praharshita Gaur (Canada) and Rockstar of the Year Fabrizio Cabianca (US), and in addition Diana Awde (US) received the Trailblazer Award.

SolarWinds recently administered its IT Pro Day 2021 survey: Bring IT On to 287 members of its Thwack community, and "Not only did the survey reveal almost half of tech pro respondents are proud of what they do, 62% of tech pro respondents say they're motivated to succeed in their roles," said Taylor.