100 WordPress Influencers To Follow In 2016

Last year, I wrote a post on 100 WordPress influencers to follow in 2015. The list was based off who I followed before 2015. All of them, in some way or another, work to improve the WordPress community. I had the pleasure of interviewing many of them over the year.

Several commenters shared their own lists of influencers and recommendations of WordPressers to follow. I connected and followed many of these people in 2015. I also followed some hidden gems in the WordPress community who are contributing to WordPress with their amazing products and services.

2015 was a great year for WordPress community, filled with several milestones:

1. WordPress is used on more than 25 percent of the Internet.
2. 2015 saw four major releases.
3. Automattic acquired WooThemes.
4. WordCamp US became the largest WordPress event with over 1800 attendees from all over the world and even more live streaming the event.

I’m here again with a new list of 100 influencers to follow in 2016. This list comprises people who are working to improve the WordPress community and is not necessarily a collection of the most influential people involved with WordPress.

Let’s take a look at 100 WordPress influencers to follow in 2016.

Note: All names are listed in alphabetical order.

Adam Heckler is a happiness engineer at Automattic.

Adii Pienaar is the co-founder of WooThemes. He is now working on Receiptful.

Akshat Choudhry is the founder of BlogVault.

Alex Cooper is a WordPress fanatic, SEO trainer, and affiliate marketer.

Alex Gustafson is a happiness engineer at Automattic.

Alex Shiels is a developer and code archeologist at Automattic.

Allen Moore is a senior front-end engineer at 10up.

Alx Block is a Store Harmonizer at Automattic. He was the co-organizer of WordCamp US.

Andrew Duthie is a code wrangler for Automattic.

Andrew Wikel is a WooCommerce Ninja at Automattic.

Andy Mcllwain is the community manager at GoDaddy. He also helps organize WordCamp Toronto, WordPress meetups, and WebSpace meetups in Toronto.

Andy Peatling is the project lead and engineer at Automattic.

Brad Griffin builds and manages WooCommerce websites.

Brad Parbs is a WordPress developer at WebDevStudios.

Brian Gardner is the founder of StudioPress and partner at Rainmaker Digital.

Brian Jackson is an inbound marketer at KeyCDN.

Brian Krogsgard is the editor of Post Status.

Brian Messenlehner is the co-founder of WebDevStudios.

Brian Richards is the creator of WPSessions.

Bridget Willard is the marketing manager at WordImpress.

Bronson Quick is a WordPress coder at Human Made.

Caleb Stephens works at Automattic.

Carl Pruitt is a writer and web developer at Long Run Web Consulting.

Chris Burgess is an editor at SitePoint and Marketing.com.au

Damon Cook is a creative front-end developer at WebDevStudios.

Darnell Dibbles is a community guardian at Automattic.

David Louis Watkis is a community guardian at Automattic.

Dion Hulse is a lead developer for WordPress.org at Automattic.

Dre Armeda is the chief marketing officer at WebDevStudios and the co-host of The DradCast.

Dustin Filippini is a web developer at WebDevStudios.

Eric Mann is a lead web engineer at 10up.

Erick Hitter is a VIP wrangler at Automattic.

Lachlan MacPherson is a Senior WordPress project manager at Human Made.

Frankie Jarrett is a senior WordPress product engineer at GoDaddy.

Franz Josef is a moderator of WordPress StackExchange.

Gary Pendergast is a developer at Automattic.

Greg Ichneumon Brown is a data wrangler at Automattic.

Greg Stewart works at Automattic on the Akismet team.

Greg Taylor is the founder of Marketing Press.

Haris Zulfiqar is the co-founder of ThemeFusion.

Hristo Pandjarov is a WordPress and SEO specialist at SiteGround.

Isaac Keyet works on the core UX of WordPress.com at Automattic.

Ivica Delic works on freelancers tools. He gives support to WordPress plugins.

Jacklyn Stachurski is a happiness engineer at Automattic.

James Huff is a support representative and happiness rocketeer at Automattic.

Jan Koch develops WordPress websites. He is the organizer of WP Summit.

Jared Atchison is a WordPress developer and consultant.

Jay Wood is a developer at WebDevStudios.

Jenny Beaumont is the co-organizer of WordCamp Paris and WordCamp Europe.

Jenny Hooks is a happiness engineer at Automattic.

Jenny Wong is a WordPress developer and community junkie.

Joey Kudish is a code wrangler at Automattic.

Jon Ryan is an excellence wrangler at Automattic.

Josepha Haden is a community wrangler at Automattic.

Josh Pollock is a founder and developer at CalderaWP.

Justin Sternberg is a lead designer and developer at WebDevStudios.

Kimb Jones is the co-founder of Make Do Agency.

Kimberly Lipari is the co-founder and director of operations at WP Valet.

Magnus Jepson is the co-founder of WooThemes.

Marc Benzakein is the operations manager at ServerPress.

Mario Peshev is the CEO and WordPress architect at WPDevriX.

Mark Forrester is the co-founder of WooThemes.

Mark George is a code wrangler at Automattic.

Matthew Haines-Young is a WordPress developer at Human Made.

Mendel Kurland is a writer and community evangelist at GoDaddy.

Michael Beckwith is a php and WordPress developer at WebDevStudios and Maintainn.

Michael Tieso is a developer advocate for WooThemes at Automattic.

Michele Butcher is a WordPress evangelist for InMotion Hosting.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen is the senior staff author for Lynda.com at LinkedIn.

Muhammad Adnan is the lead WordPress developer at Analytify.

Muhammad Kashif is the founder and CEO of MeshPros. He is the co-organizer for WordPress meetups and WordCamp of Lahore.

Nick Daugherty is a code wrangler for WordPress.com VIP at Automattic.

Nick Momrik is a human performance engineer at Automattic.

Noumaan Yaqoob is a technical writer and developer at WPBeginner.

Paolo Belcastro leads Automattic’s store team.

Patrick Rauland is the product manager for WooCommerce at Automattic.

Paul de Wounters is a WordPress developer at Human Made.

Paul Gibbs is a WordPress developer at Human Made and lead developer for BuddyPress.

Phil Crumm is a senior web strategist at 10up.

Phil Derksen is a creator of WordPress plugins at WP Simple Pay and Simple Calendar.

Raquel Landefeld is a partner of Mode Effect. She works on WordPress UX and web development projects.

Remkus de Vries is the CEO of Forsite Media and the managing director at Crowd Favorite B.V.

Robert O’Rourke is the senior WordPress engineer at Human Made.

Rocco Tripaldi is a code wrangler at Automattic.

Rocio Valdivia is a community wrangler at Automattic.

Ryan Fugate builds mobile apps using WordPress and BuddyPress. He also works as mobile geek at WebDevStudios.

Ryan McCue is the senior engineer at Human Made. He is also the co-lead developer for the WP REST API.

Sam Berson is a WordPress designer and developer for WPContent.co.uk

Samantha Miller is a front-end WordPress developer.

Scott Basgaard is the technical project lead at Human Made. He is also the co-organizer of WordCamp Norway.

Shane Eckert is a happiness engineer at Automattic.

Shawna Jean is a happiness engineer at Automattic.

Stephane Daury is a core contributor at Automattic.

Stephen Quirk works for Automattic.

Tarei King is a WordPress developer at Human Made.

Thomas Griffin is the founder of Soliloquy and the co-founder of OptinMonster.

Tomaz Zaman is a founder of Codeable.

Troy Dean is the founder WP Elevation.

Wendy Scott is a happiness engineer at Automattic.

Yoav Farhi is a WordPress developer at Automattic.

You can find these influencers as well as the 2015 influencers list on Twitter! Subscribe to the list and see it grow each year.