Blog SADA celebrates first Insight Distinguished Technologist and a wave of NVIDIA AI certifications
By Insight Editor / 19 Sep 2025 / Topics: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Computer vision Modern infrastructure Cloud
SADA, An Insight company, is celebrating a major dual achievement. We’re proud to announce that Simon Margolis, our Associate CTO AI & ML and a prominent voice in the Google Cloud community, has been named SADA’s first Insight Distinguished Technologist. This prestigious honor is a testament to his technical leadership and significant contributions to the industry.
This remarkable accomplishment is complemented by the rigorous efforts of our dedicated engineering team, who have recently secured a series of NVIDIA Certified Associate AI Infrastructure and Operations and NVIDIA AI Advisor – Technical Sales certifications. This collective achievement shows our deep commitment and expertise in AI.
Honoring a visionary and our deep AI expertise
Simon’s recognition as an Insight Distinguished Technologist highlights his role as a technology visionary and a trusted expert. This award, one of the highest honors within Insight, is given to people who have deep technical knowledge and also shape industry conversations and drive innovation. As a Google Developer Expert, Simon embodies SADA’s culture of curiosity and hands-on learning, a philosophy he describes as “learning by doing.”
“I stay curious about all things happening in AI, and I try things all the time with the expectation that not everything will work,” says Simon. “And that’s OK because I want to learn by doing. That’s how I remain relevant.”
Additionally, the engineering team’s success in earning the NVIDIA Certified Associate AI Infrastructure and Operations and NVIDIA AI Advisor – Technical Sales certifications is equally significant. These certifications, earned by a group of dedicated engineers, are a rigorous validation of their ability to design, deploy, and manage complex AI workloads. They signify that our team possesses the in-depth knowledge required to work with the NVIDIA AI Enterprise stack, a platform-agnostic technology that is a cornerstone of modern AI deployments.
People behind the awards
- Simon: He embodies SADA’s culture of curiosity and hands-on learning. He puts that into practice by turning new technology into real business results. For instance, he developed an internal AI-powered sales tool to streamline information sharing and created an AI architecture for a major media and entertainment customer to automate marketing content creation from their vast video catalog. His work ethic and passion for sharing knowledge through blogs, podcasts, and public speaking have made him a pillar of our technical community.
- NVIDIA AI-certified team members: George Alonge, Asfar Shah, Shadi Shehtou, Onkarjeet Singh, Manoj Sasankan, Jon Chen, and Yoonsoon Chang have all completed their NVIDIA Certified Associate AI Infrastructure and Operations certification. Additionally, Asfar Shah and Robert Teller received their NVIDIA AI Advisor – Technical Sales certifications.
“All these team members have invested significant time and effort to earn these complex and specialized certifications,” says Pashtoun Youssof, SADA, Senior Director, Cloud Platform Engineering, Professional Services. “Their work builds on SADA’s rich foundation of skills in infrastructure modernization, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). These certifications prove our team can configure complex AI systems to run at their best, avoiding common and costly setup mistakes.”
Delivering business impact and solving tangible problems
These achievements solidify SADA’s position as a leader in AI, with a direct and meaningful impact on our customers. Our collective expertise means that we can help businesses implement AI to solve real-world problems and drive revenue.
For example, Simon contributed his AI expertise to the SADA team that worked with The Sherlock Company, an early SADA AI customer, to deliver an AI-powered video production system using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform and Gemini large language model (LLM). Within six weeks, The Sherlock Company had a working prototype, and two weeks later, they started demoing the new video production system to their clients. The system is now in full production.
“SADA’s work with The Sherlock Company on their AI-driven pipeline allowed them to reduce thumbnail selection time from one day to 10 minutes and create scalable content generation,” says Simon. “This project demonstrates how AI can redefine the economics of creative production, offering unlimited variations at minimal cost, and letting the customer gain deep expertise in AI for future innovation.”
Deploying, scaling, and operating AI workloads anywhere
The NVIDIA AI Enterprise certifications mean we can help customers deploy, scale, and operate AI workloads anywhere—whether on-premises, in Google Cloud, or in hybrid environments. For many companies, the biggest hurdle is moving from “AI curiosity” to concrete, revenue-generating projects. SADA has prepackaged AI solutions that decrease time to revenue.
“We package the NVIDIA AI capability into industry-ready AI blueprints, or AI packs, which are pre-built, fixed-fee solutions for customers in industries including healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, telecom, and retail,” says Pashtoun. “These solutions are designed to deliver immediate value by increasing revenue velocity and reducing costs.”
The NVIDIA AI Enterprise stack and SADA’s industry-ready AI packs offer a powerful, platform-agnostic foundation for AI workloads. With their NVIDIA AI training, SADA engineers make sure customers get the most benefits out of their AI packs by:
- Configuring systems for peak performance: Our certified experts set up AI hardware to run at its most powerful and efficient, so customers get the most from their investment.
- Accelerating time to value: Their certifications let our team deliver AI packs that are virtually plug-and-play, allowing customers to start using the technology almost immediately.
- Derisking AI: The cost of running large-scale AI workloads raises the stakes for customers. SADA’s expertise derisks the financial impact of AI workloads and acts as a crucial safeguard, ensuring that customer systems run effectively.
As an example, in manufacturing, an AI pack can be used to automatically identify safety violations, a task that would be much harder and slower for a human to perform. “This demonstrates that SADA is focused on applying AI to everyday problems, delivering immediate value for customers,” says Pashtoun.
Continuing commitment to excellence
These achievements are not just a celebration of past successes but a commitment to your future. They show our dedication to being a trusted adviser, helping our customers work through the complexities of AI. SADA will keep investing in our team’s growth and using our strategic relationships, like the one with NVIDIA and our parent company, Insight, to deliver transformative results for our customers.
We’re incredibly proud of Simon and our NVIDIA-certified team for their dedication and for setting a new standard of excellence. We look forward to helping our customers do more with AI and grow their business.To learn more about putting AI to work, view SADA’s Ground School AI-focused sessions on-demand. Ground School is SADA’s premier Google Cloud learning event.
