Microsoft Business Apps Profile: MVP educates others on the full potential of Power Platform and Fabric

For Alex Rostan, a Microsoft MVP isn't someone who knows more than others, but someone who knows and shares more with others.

"It's an honor to be recognized as an MVP, because it's a recognition for my engagement with the community,” says Rostan, who received his MVP award in 2020 for his work in the Power Platform community.

Originally from Uruguay, Rostan is currently working at Slalom Consulting's Toronto office leading the Canada Power Platform practice for Slalom's Microsoft Center of Excellence. Before joining Slalom in April 2022, he had held a range of positions over the previous few years with other firms.

"Slalom called me and said they wanted me to work for them. I thought they wanted me to work remotely but they said that I should move to Canada. They started the process, and here I am with my family," he explained.

Rostan spoke with us about the evolution of his work with Microsoft technologies and his community involvement.

MSDW: Can you tell us about your career evolution?

Rostan: I've been involved with Microsoft technology for about the past 14+ years. I started out working with SharePoint as a SharePoint developer and then I became a SharePoint solution architect and consultant. Then we started moving to the cloud, so [I switched to focusing on] Office 365 and SharePoint online. Then I started getting more and more involved in process automation with a focus on trying to solve problems with artificial intelligence. Then I became involved with Azure Cognitive Services, and I became more of a cloud advocate and started working with Power Automate and Power Apps. And then I started adding other Power Platform tools.

What does your job consist of at Slalom?

It depends on the client engagement. My role can be Principal consultant, gathering requirements and proposing solutions to different problems they need to solve and even doing presales. I also guide my team as the leader of the Power Platform practice and advise them on personal development and help them learn the Power Platform.

What have you done with custom AI models so far? Where are you excited about the opportunities here?

I worked as an AI lead a couple years ago so I have been involved and working on some solutions using custom AI models, more on the Azure Cognitive Services with OCR and natural language models. So thinking of my particular area, which is process automation and optimization, the new models are a game changer. We really have the tools to make life easy for everyone. And I always mention to my clients that this is not a matter of replacing people, it's about helping people really bring value to their organizations. I think we are in the right moment to really take advantage of using AI. I'm trying to get involved with OpenAI and AI Builder on the Power Platform side of things. And we are going to have more and more models and improvements and I'm super excited about that.

How has your focus on Power Platform evolved over time? For instance, has your use of certain tools or tech changed?