Hi guys!
My name’s Ben Leong, and I’m Envato’s new Elite Program Manager - taking @matthewcoxy’s place while he looks after the entire Envato community during @natman’s leave.
I’ve already had a chance to speak with (or email) many of you over the last three weeks, but I also wanted to introduce myself on the forums. I’ve been working on a few projects behind the scenes, like some of the recent Power Elite interviews.
I’m currently based at Envato HQ in Melbourne - though after reading through the latest batch of Author profiles, I really want to take my family travelling some time soon… My background is in online community management, and I’ve been involved in managing various different communities for the last 16 years. More recently I’ve been doing some research into communities of small business owners. I’m a human interaction geek, and I’m fascinated by how groups (and businesses) collaborate online.
The Elite Program is growing rapidly - as of this morning, we now have 1,379 Elites, including 67 Power Elites! That’s just the tip of the iceberg though, as there are many more of you only a handful of sales away from entering the ranks. Part of my role is planning for how the program will grow over the next few years - we want to make sure the program gets better, not just bigger!
If you are waiting on an Elite care package, I realise that this is a source of much frustration for many of you. Thanks for your patience so far - there have been some major delays! We’re currently transitioning across to working with a company that has far more experience at managing the logistics of sending our care packs across the world, and their first priority is shipping out the backlog. Your packs (and for many of you, your first experience of our beloved Australian superfood 
) will be en route soon. I can’t give an ETA on this yet, but will be sharing more information as I get it.
To further complicate things, there were issues with some of the Australia Post tracking codes from the last batch of parcels that were sent from Envato HQ: many of the codes we were supplied with have not worked at all. Fortunately, we’re getting a steady stream of emails from people confirming that their packages are arriving. Rest assured, your packs are definitely on the way!
Looking beyond the current supply issues, there are a few long-term goals that I’ll be working on. For those of you already in the Elite program, I’m here to help you keep refining your businesses so you can keep on smashing your goals. For all the other Authors out there, I’d like to find ways of helping you climb up the ranks to join the Elites. I’ll be posting more about these over the next few months.
That’s all from me right now - I’m looking forward to getting to know you guys, so feel free to introduce yourselves in the comments!
and nice to meet you Ben!