Meet Leaha, Phoenix’s Broadcom Knight

From curiosity to career 

Leaha’s route into IT wasn’t linear. She began studying maths at university before realising that what she loved was technology. So she pivoted. 

She began her career in an IT apprenticeship, working on the service desk of a national vets. But things really started to accelerate once she joined Phoenix. Within months she’d moved into third-line support, specialising in infrastructure. Two years after that she was a consultant specialising in VMware technologies, the area she’d been quietly obsessing over in her personal time. 

“Whenever I see something, I go for it,” she comments.

“I’ve started to collect badges. When I heard about vExpert, I figured, well… that sounds cool — so I went and got it.” Leaha is now a certified vExpert. 

It comes out so casually, but there’s nothing casual about her achievements. Leaha is now the first woman in the UK – and one of the youngest overall – to earn the Broadcom VCF Knight (NSX) certification. That doesn’t happen by accident. 

“Big chunks” of enthusiasm in action 

Leaha’s Home Lab is the physical proof of her curiosity: two complete VMware environments, a server rack that looks more like a miniature datacentre, and a steady rotation of new hardware. 

The blog she runs, which is packed with long-form technical guides that each take about a month to write, began as a place to document her experiments. Today, Phoenix consultants use those same guides to help customers understand complex VMware concepts. It’s become an ecosystem: the more she builds, the more she writes, the more she learns. 

No substitute for hands‑on experience, and a good team 

When the conversation moves to certifications, Leaha is very clear: 

“I’m proud of my certifications, but on their own they don’t tell the whole story,” she says. “They’re a great compliment to real-world experience, but the real magic happens when you get hands-on. Certifications open doors, but practical experimentation is what makes you actually good at what you do.” 

It’s this philosophy — learn it, break it, fix it, rebuild it — that gives her such an edge as a consultant. She doesn’t just understand VMware on paper. She understands it in motion. 

Leaha also reminds that her success comes from being in a team of likeminded experts. “There is a lot of us internally that make up the VMware team, and a lot of work goes on behind the scenes. I certainly couldn’t have gotten as far as I have without the continued support of Vicki Sammons, Sam Woodcock, Phil Holmes, and Siobhan Rastall supporting me all the way.” 

What’s next for Leaha? 

Leaha’s already completed the Knight requirements for Networking and is now pursuing Operations, with Kubernetes lined up after that. Eventually, she says, she wants the full set — every Knight specialisation Broadcom offers.  

And based on what we’ve seen, that feels less like ambition and more like inevitability. 

UPDATE – It didn’t take long for Leaha to throw another surprise our way. Just as we were preparing this blog post for publication she announced she has successfully joined the Veeam Vanguards, Veeam’s top‑level influencer community made up of recognised experts across diverse technical fields. Why stop at Broadcom? Keep it up Leaha!