2023 Conference Keynotes & Speakers |
Keynotes |
| Morning KeynoteIn 2010, Mike formed LeadingAgile as a reaction to the bottom-up, grass-roots approach to Agile Transformation that many in the industry have taken. He knew that the failure modes companies often experience when adopting Agile are well known and can be avoided with appropriate planning and change management across the organization. To this day, LeadingAgile’s core belief is that Agile Transformation is something that can be planned, controlled, and measured. Mike has avoided taking a methodology specific approach and instead believes that we should be meeting companies where they are and helping them to create the conditions for Agile to thrive. Mike has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry and is considered by many to be a thought leader and industry disruptor in the field of enterprise-focused Agile Transformation. LinkedIn Twitter |
| Afternoon KeynoteRyan and Todd bring a conversational and funny approach to the very serious topic of measuring an agile transformation. They run Agile for Humans, LLC with Evidence-Based Management and have seen the impact of measuring the right things. They are passionate about this topic and are considered to be two of the top experts on this topic in the field today. LinkedIn Twitter LinkedIn Twitter |
Rita Emmons |
| Rita is a Business Agility Leader with over 20 years of experience leading large scale organizational change initiatives with Fortune 50 Companies leveraging a unique style that targets culture and mindset shifts, blended with a pragmatic approach to foster innovation from strategy to idea generation to product delivery. Rita believes in a ‘human first’ approach to product development and change leadership. In partnering with business leaders at all levels of the organization as a Product Strategist, she specializes in the full product lifecycle to ensure alignment to organizational strategy and goals while hyper-focused obsession with Customers to achieve highest value outcomes. Rita’s portfolio spans a myriad of industries including retail, oil & gas, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and biopharma. LinkedIn |
Speakers |
| Brian Allison has 20+ years of experience within different business and customer facing Product Life Cycle environments. He is a Senior BA for eimagine providing business solutioning to help companies reinvent outdated - inefficient processes, procedures and products to drive efficiency and improve their outreach and effectiveness to their customers and constituents. LinkedIn |
| Kim is the Founder of Agile Brain Group, a Consulting, Training, and Agile Talent organization. Kim is a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST). Kim is committed to helping clients implement the right Agile practices that best suit their specific needs. Kim forms a partnership with clients to tackle challenges companies face when transitioning to Agile. Kim provides clients with a seamless coach, learn, and sustain model using Agile techniques, principles and values, drawing from frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, Lean Thinking, and psychology. Kim’s fusion of real-life stories and her conversational techniques connect her with people of all walks of life. LinkedIn |
Rita Breen
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Kat Daugherty
| A hungry learner with a radical growth mindset, Kat Daugherty's superpower is challenging the assumptions and doubts that hold back individuals and teams. She specializes in global transformation, business agility and organizational psychology. She has helped transform international companies from Europe to Wall Street at team and executive levels, with a passion for igniting individuals. She has spoken and presented at the global Agile 2019 conference, Agile Indy 2019, Agile Games West, Agile PDX (Portland), Agile Marketing Indy and various events in Chicago, Ohio and New York. She is on the board of Agile Marketing Indy. LinkedIn |
| Bill Fairfield is a trainer, coach and speaker who has been helping teams learn and adopt the Engineering Practices necessary for Agile software development since 2005. He has worked on a wide variety of applications, including financial, health care, telemetry, data visualization and semiconductor equipment. LinkedIn |
| Gary is an agile coach, software crafter, and systems thinker. His main hobby is to try and help companies to build better software in better ways. Sometimes this is by helping them with the messy human communication side of agile, sometimes its helping them reflect on their processes, and sometimes it's through teaching better software crafting practices - usually some of each. Coaching, mentoring, teaching, and showing; whatever helps in the context. You'll find him at various local meetups and international conferences trying to both share what he knows and learn from his peers. LinkedIn |
Andrew Gosnell
 | Andrew Gosnell is Director of Corporate FP&A for Wyndham Destinations where he administers benefit tracking for 8 Agile Value Streams. Andrew’s experience with Agile goes back to 2017 at which time IT made the transformation from Waterfall to Agile. Prior to Wyndham, Andrew held various roles in FP&A at both Sensient Technologies and General Motors Corporation including an international stint in The Netherlands. He has a Six Sigma Green Belt and extensive background in master data management, financial modeling, profit analysis, and budgeting/forecasts. LinkedIn |
| Michael is a Senior Agile Coach with 17 years of transformation experience. He has practical experience in leading enterprise scaled Agile transformations (SAFe), Agile process creation for startup companies (Lean Startup), program-level coaching, team Scrum/Kanban coaching, individual mentoring, and developing/delivering Agile training. |
| Laura has 15 years of experience managing programs and projects, growing teams and delivering value to clients. In her current role as Vice President of Delivery Solutions at eimagine, Laura and her team have led the implementation of numerous state and local software systems and applications. As a member of the leadership team at eimagine, Laura drives process improvements and value add activities centered around best in class project management, business analysis and quality assurance at eimagine. She is focused on the successful delivery of development and implementation projects for the state of Indiana as well as commercial clients. LinkedIn |
| I’m a renaissance man trapped in a specialist’s body. My degree is in biologist. That’s why I’m IT. I’ve worked as a software developer, with an elegant language for a more civilized age. I became a QA guy, because breaking things is therapeutic. I became a process specialist because it’s easier to negotiate with a terrorist than a Methodologist. I’ve been a Scrum Master and Agile Coach for the last few year. I have drunk the Kool-aid and it tastes good. Agile is really a philosophy, not a methodology. I’m often asked how long have you been agile? Always. LinkedIn |
| Robert Herbig is passionate about leading teams that can deliver products that users love. He is a Lead Software Engineer at SEP, a private software consultancy. In his 10+ years in the software industry, he has worked on products ranging in size from small apps to enterprise systems; embedded, desktop, web, and cloud platforms; and in a variety of markets and domains including aerospace, medical, agriculture, construction, and secure communication. He currently lives in Carmel, Indiana with his wonderful wife, three rambunctious sons, and two dogs. LinkedIn Twitter |
| Tina Hignite has over 20 years’ experience delivering customer-focused technology projects. She has a strong background in project management, business analysis, and quality assurance. In her role as project manager for eimagine Technology Group, she and her team are implementing a new software system for a large government client. LinkedIn Twitter |
| Driven by courage, curiosity, and compassion, Becca Hiller knows valued people deliver value. As an Agile Coach and ScrumMaster, Becca helps humans reach agility potential. Her agility shines through sharpened improv skills, a mighty pen, a hungry brain, a passion for teaching and coaching, and applying mud run lessons to clean up challenges. LinkedIn Twitter |
| David Horowitz is co-founder and CEO of Retrium, a platform for agile retrospectives. Prior to co-founding Retrium, David spent nearly a decade between The World Bank and International Finance Corporation as a software developer turned agile coach. While there, he experienced firsthand the importance — and difficulty — of effective retrospectives at scale. |
| Ebenezer Ikonne works for Cox Automotive (a business unit of Cox Enterprise) where he provides support and guidance for teams which develop and deliver software solutions that are transforming the automotive industry. Ebenezer has held a wide range of senior leadership positions in different types of organizations such as software product organizations, services organizations, and startups. Ebenezer is passionate about engaging individuals in delivering products and services that make a difference in society. Ebenezer is an accomplished speaker and has spoken on leadership, organizational design and strategy at various conferences and meetups. LinkedIn |
| Jessica is an agile trainer, mentor, and coach. She works with individuals, teams, and organizations to help them dig deep into self-discovery and move forward in the Agile Mindset. Jessica sees a world where all work environments can be a safe space for employees to bring their full selves without judgment allowing purpose to drive decisions at all levels. LinkedIn |
| Aaron Kopel is the CEO and founder of Project Brilliant, LLC, co-founder and past Chairman of AgileIndy, and one of only 45 people worldwide to achieve the top two Scrum Alliance certifications of Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) and Scrum Certified Trainer (CST). Mr. Kopel primarily focuses on training and coaching executive management teams to lead true transformation within their organization. Aaron holds an BA from Wartburg College and an MBA from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and lives in Carmel, IN with his wife and their two children. LinkedIn Twitter |
| John Krewson is the founder and president of Sketch Development Services, a St. Louis based software development studio and clinic. Since 2015, Sketch has been helping companies get better at delivering value for their customers through the adoption of Agile and DevOps approaches. John is a frequent speaker at events like this and likes to use his past career as a professional actor to point out similarities between knowledge workers and entertainers. It turns out there’s a lot we can learn from each other, as you will see from John’s presentation today. @johnkrewson @sketchdevelops LinkedIn Twitter |
| Michael Krug is a passionate Agile enthusiast who finds great satisfaction in helping organizations and teams gain the benefits of Agile philosophy adoption while having a bit of fun in the process. He has helped teams from several organizations and is currently serving as a Scrum Master/Coach for 2 teams. LinkedIn |
| Mark Mack: I have nearly 30 years of experience in Information Technology. Coming from a development background I've worked at a variety of Fortune 500 companies in the Financial, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Insurance, Marketing, Manufacturing, and Retail industries in Chicago and Indianapolis. Five years ago I started my Agile journey as a Scrum Master for a major bank making an Agile transformation, which convinced me to get my CSM. Since moving to Indianapolis in 2017 I've been attending AgileIndy Conferences and monthly presentations and I've been working for Fusion Alliance as a Scrum Master for various clients. LinkedIn |
| A professional Scrum trainer with Scrum.org, Ryan Ripley has experience as a developer, manager, director, and Scrum Master in the Fortune 500. He hosts “Agile for Humans,” the top agile podcast on iTunes, and lives in Indiana with his wife, Kristin, and three children. He blogs at ryanripley.com and is on Twitter @ryanripley. LinkedIn Twitter |
| Dimple Shah is an optimist go-getter who is passionate about helping people achieve their goals by creating a better version of themselves. She entered the world of Agile coaching unexpectedly and after she learnt about how being agile aligns with her goals and ethics, she's been making leaps into the Agile world. She loves seeing the AHA moments when the people she is working with, realize their self-worth and feel valued. Now, she's on a journey to combine her passion to make world a better and a happier place to live in, with her servant-leadership philosophy... all while being agile! LinkedIn |
| Chris is a practitioner and maker. He is a thought leader and continually initiates new ideas and continuous improvement at SEP. His experience comes from building products with many large clients in a wide variety of industries. He introduced and guided SEP's adoption of Agile in 2004 followed by Lean and Kanban in 2007. Chris’ dedication to the Agile and Lean communities led to his induction as an inaugural member of Indiana Techpoint’s Tech 25. LinkedIn Twitter |
| Wayde is an Agile Coach at World Wide Technology. He has a passion for developing Great Team Players using the same techniques as Improv and Mindfulness teachers. Wayde has developed software for over 20 years, concentrating on Java since 1999. He is an XP practitioner and former ScrumMaster of the 2nd team to achieve Gold level certification at AT&T in 2012. Wayde is a Certified Java Programmer (SCJP 1.1, 1.2, 6) and Certified Scrum Professional (CSP). His hobbies are cycling, chess, improv and introspection. LinkedIn Twitter |
| Bret is an innovative, Agile Technology and Product Development Leader with 17+ years of experience driving disruptive change using emerging technologies. He is also adept at leading and managing cross-functional teams, along with large-scale, enterprise-level projects. Additionally, he has a strong background in Application Development. Data Engineering, Machine Learning, AI, and Business Intelligence. |
