5 things to consider for this year’s Tableau Ambassador Nominations

7 min readJul 15, 2025

Community Leaders at Tableau Conference in San Diego 2025

It’s that time of year! Tableau Ambassador nominations are open. At time of writing, there are about ten days left to submit yourself and/or others for the upcoming cohort. [2025 Deadline is July 25, 11:59 pm PDT]

I’ve written in the past about the nomination process — before I get into my thoughts this year I’ll link those below:

I’d also like to take a moment to highlight perspectives from other women in the Ambassador program:

Anyways, it’s a new year, and time for a new cohort. Here are this year’s things to consider!

What do this year’s changes mean for the application / nomination process?

What’s changed

Previously, Tableau Ambassadors were split into 7 branches: Forum, Social, User Group, Public, Academic, DataDev, and CRM Analytics.

This year, the title is being simplified to one title — Tableau Ambassador.

I think this a good change — while my community contributions are largely in the Tableau Public sphere, I know many people’s contributions don’t fall neatly into one bucket. Previously you could only nominate someone for one branch — which could be awkward if you weren’t sure where to nominate someone (or even apply yourself!)

Instead of applying to a specific branch, you can now instead choose your primary audience as an ambassador. This year I’ll be choosing “Tableau Community Leader.” When nominating someone, you do not need to select how they participate — they will get the option to choose this on their own.

What’s the same

While the branch specific designations are gone, one key part of the application remains the same. If you’re submitting your own application, you’ll be asked how you’ve been active in the community over the past year, and why you want to be an ambassador. If you’re nominating someone else there is an optional field for writing a note on why you think they’d be a great one.

When applying yourself:

Required questions: Briefly describe how you have been active in the community over the past year and why do you want to be a Tableau Ambassador

When nominating others:

Optional question: why would this nominee make a great ambassador?

What does it take to be a Tableau Ambassador?

For this question, I think it’s important to put aside my own conceptions (or misconceptions!) and go straight to the source. From the Tableau Ambassador page, Tableau Ambassadors:

Lead and evangelize with kindness and respect. They engage with others and highlight diverse voices and perspectives.
Nurture creative and technical growth. They lead by example and teach by their actions.
They’re accessible and amplify connection. They encourage inclusive behavior within the community.

What really stands out to me is the emphasis on professional skills. Yes, being “good at Tableau” is important. But when you put together your application, don’t neglect the ‘non-technical’ skills.

This may be a good time to check-in with what your (or your nominee’s) social media presence is like. Tableau Ambassador nominations only take into consideration public facing work. What does the selection committee see when they look at your social accounts? Do they see someone that’s treating others with kindness and respect? Or do you have a social presence at all? You could create the most technically complicated vizzes — but if no one can figure out how to contact you online, or none of your Tableau Public work is available for others to download and see how you did it, then it may be hard to make the case for why you should be in the next cohort.

What doesn’t it take to be a Tableau Ambassador?

I think just as important as what it takes to be a Tableau Ambassador is what isn’t listed. You know what’s not listed?

Posting every day on LinkedIn
Achieving Viz of the Day
Participating in all the community projects
Having hundreds of followers
Mastering every corner of the product

Now, if you find joy in any of the above, that’s great. But I want to call out that none of these are requirements for the program. Being accepted as a Tableau Ambassador does not mean that all of a sudden you need to publish a viz every week, and publishing a viz every week does not mean that you’ve got an easy ticket to becoming an ambassador.

By all means, highlight your technical accomplishments in your application, but remember to refer back to the posted qualities when applying and nominating others!

Does being a Tableau Ambassador matter?

The reason I pose this as a question to consider, is because of this question on the application:

Why do you want to be a Tableau Ambassador? / Why would this nominee make a great ambassador?

In my opinion, being recognized as an Ambassador is not just a one time recognition —it’s a commitment to continued participation and leading in the community for the following year. If you’re hoping to be an ambassador to just add a title to your resume, or get a ‘free’ t-shirt…I do think this attitude is to counter to the spirit of the program, which is to help others see and understand data through Tableau.

Personally, some of my proudest moments participating as an Ambassador include nominating others for Viz of the Day and seeing them get the spotlight for the first time, and opportunities to give product feedback directly to folks working on new features.

Throughout the year I try to participate in such a way that if I didn’t have the title — you wouldn’t see much change from me. I’d still be making vizzes about things I find interesting, and writing tutorials so that others (including future me!) can make polished visuals using Tableau.

And one last note on titles — I do think they matter. They might not matter to everyone, and that’s okay. If you’re reading this and thinking “I don’t think the title matters at all” — that’s fine if it doesn’t matter to you! But you may be in a position, whether professionally, socially, or financially that it wouldn’t mean much. But for someone else, it could be the thing that opens the door to the next job, next promotion, or even just greater confidence.

Who should I nominate?

If being a Tableau Ambassador is something you’re interested in — submit an application! You are your own best advocate, and can speak best about your technical and professional contributions to the broader community.

When nominating others, look for who fulfills the values listed earlier: do you know someone who not only has technical chops, but also…is nice? And already helping others in public forums? I try to look for the quiet leaders — maybe the next Ambassador isn’t the one posting every day on socials or cranking vizzes every week but is keeping their local TUG running smoothly, or answering questions in the new Slack Community

If you’re asking others to nominate you — I totally understand. Throwing your own hat in the ring can feel uncomfortable, but choose who you reach out to carefully. If you read the fine print, you’ll see that the number of nominations are not a factor in the decision making. So make sure that if you’re reaching out for a recommendation, that person can give a good answer for ‘why’ you should be in the next cohort.

Last but not least — consider nominating folks from underrepresented groups. I’ve greatly benefitted from seeing folks like myself represented in leadership, and I hope as the Ambassador program continues, more and more aspiring data leaders can see folks like themselves to look up to.

Closing Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far — thanks for reading! I’m going to repeat my closing from last year, as my feelings remain unchanged:

At the end of the day, your worth as a member of the Tableau and broader data community is not determined or quantified by a title.
That may sound easy for me to say as someone that is currently an Ambassador! I’m sure as always, the next cohort will result in celebrations for those who make it, and disappointment for those who don’t. No matter the outcome of this year’s nominations, I plan on continuing to viz what I enjoy in Tableau Public.
Many folks who I have learned the most from have not been formally recognized as an Ambassador, and may never be. This could be due to a myriad of reasons: maybe their contributions are not public facing, perhaps their work doesn’t fit neatly into one of the existing branches, maybe they don’t want to be part of the program, perhaps it’s just bad luck.
I can’t control who get’s picked — but together we can choose who there is to pick from by submitting our best nominations.
I hope you found this helpful — best of luck on your nominations!

2025 Application/Nomination form: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/tabambassadors