Speakers

Sarah has over 12 years experience across Project Management, Testing and PMO. Her role for the last 7 years has been leading a PMO supporting a multi-million pound credit risk portfolio. With a strong focus on developing capability, Sarah has taken her coaching passion one step further by becoming a certified Life Coach. Her mission now is to open the doors to understanding and embracing the role that the PMO can provide in Coaching the next generation of Change experts! Sarah is also a practising coach, writer and speaker.

Author and international keynote speaker David Dye gives leaders the roadmap they need to transform results. David works with leaders around the world who want to achieve breakthrough results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. He gets it because he’s been there: a former executive and elected official, David has over two decades of experience leading teams, building organizations, and working with Boards of Directors to transform their effectiveness. He is the award-winning author of: Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul, Courageous Cultures (Harper Collins 2020), The Seven Things Your Team Needs to Hear You Say, and Glowstone Peak – a book for readers of all ages about courage, influence, and hope. Known for his optimism, for making difficult concepts understandable, and for moving leaders to immediate, practical action. David’s keynotes and training programs help leaders across industries to increase their influence, solve common leadership frustrations, and improve productivity through practical leadership inspiration. David has a BA in Political Science from the University of Colorado and a Masters Degree in Management from Regis University. He and his wife, Karin Hurt, are dedicated to their philanthropic initiative, Winning Wells, which provides clean water wells to communities struggling with access to safe water throughout Southeast Asia. David lives outside of Washington, DC. He loves the meditation of a hiking trail, the reward of high mountain peaks, and is proud of the impact his children are having around the world.

Author and international keynote speaker Karin Hurt inspires transformational change. Recently named on Inc’s list of 100 Great Leadership Speakers and American Management Association’s 50 Leaders to Watch, Karin Hurt helps leaders from around the world achieve breakthrough results without losing their souls. Karin has over two decades of experience in customer service, sales, and human resources. She’s the award-winning author of: Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results-Without Losing Your Soul, Overcoming an Imperfect Boss, Courageous Cultures (Harper Collins 2020), and Glowstone Peak – a book for readers of all ages about courage, influence, and hope. A former Verizon Wireless executive, Karin transformed customer service outsourcing (96M calls/year) to reach parity in quality with internal centers and developed a leading sales team that won the President’s Award for Customer Growth. Her keynotes inspire leaders with proven and practical leadership techniques developed over her rich career as an executive, speaker, and strategic advisor. Karin has a BA in Communication from Wake Forest University, an MA from Towson University in Organizational Communication, and additional graduate work at the University of Maryland, where she teaches in the Executive Education program. She and her husband, David Dye, are dedicated to their philanthropic initiative, Winning Wells, which provides clean water wells to communities struggling with access to safe water throughout Southeast Asia. Karin lives outside of Washington, DC. She knows the stillness of a yogi, the reflective road of a marathoner, and the joy of being a mom raising emerging leaders.

Marquise Vilsaint, MBA, PMP® is known for partnering with organizations to help them find clarity in the midst of chaos. As featured in the online published profile “Celebrating Women in Project Management 2020”, her superpower is Harmony. Harmonious Project Management is an approach which factors emotional intelligence, leverages soft skills, and the fostering of genuine relationships with project teams. Her method of leveraging productive personality traits has resulted in the success in the deployment of several complex and involved enterprise initiatives across the nation.

Anu is the President and Founder of Capala Consulting Group, LLC where she specializes in Executive coaching and Agile Transformations. She is also an Enterprise Agile Coach and Certified Scrum Trainer® – providing education and coaching, consulting services to clients across the United States. An IT professional with over 25 years of industry experience, Anu holds a Master’s degree in Psychology from Osmania University in India and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Bowling Green State University, Ohio.

Donna Fitzgerald managed her first IT program more than a decade before the 1996 version of the PMBoK was published. In the mid-90s, she became active in the nascent agile development community and later wrote for Tech Republic as the Nimble PM. In 2007, she joined Gartner’s equally nascent PPM research group, where she spent ten years. She’s the founder of Nimble PM and probably the most opinionated person when it comes to project management! While she’s occasionally accused of being an iconoclast, her commitment to helping PMs deliver successful projects and programs has never wavered.

Imagine how great it would feel to land your next customer with the confidence they’re going to become long-term, loyal, and lucrative. No matter how you bring in revenue, Ali Cudby can help you achieve your goals because she wrote the book on customer retention – literally. The author of the #1 bestselling book Keep Your Customers, Ali brings her engaging training to companies around the globe. From Fortune 500 to pre-revenue start-ups, Ali has spent 20 years refining her craft. After graduating from Wharton Business School and joining The New York Times Company, she had stints at the Golf Digest Magazine Group and Animal Planet TV Network before embarking on a journey as an award-winning entrepreneur. Now, Ali teaches Entrepreneurship at Purdue University and works with clients worldwide to help companies keep their customers through her company Your Iconic Brand.

Ruth has been called an executive coach for people who don't consider themselves to be executives because she is passionate about personal development for all. She coaches groups & individuals - it aligns with who she is. But Ruth was not always a coach. Before that, she was a program manager - for more than 25 (TWENTY-FIVE) years! A quarter-century. "That's a very long time" as a friend said to her recently. In 2016, she quit project management. Ruth was burned out. After 25 years in project management, she couldn't say the word “project”. She was done - exhausted, disconnected, cynical, useless. Now Ruth lives AND coaches by the motto BE HOPEFUL; BE STRONG; BE BRAVE; BE CURIOUS. She embraces the dark and light sides of life. Being a coach informs everything Ruth does: Everything is about you the client, the audience, the student. She listens deeply and helps make sense for you of what she hears. She plays back and retells your story from a different perspective to help you see a new step. She is 100% in your corner – and at the same time she tries to challenge you She rides the rollercoaster of life, just like we all do. Its dark side is just as valuable as its light side. VIA strengths: Appreciation, Bravery, Curiosity, Fairness, and Gratitude MIPI competencies: Motivational Self Efficacy, Motivational Influence, Perseverance Accreditations: ICF ACC Coach; Certified Coach Trainer; Certified Inclusion Coach; Certified MIPI Coach; PMI PMP & ACP; Institute Of Coaching Fellow; BetterUp Distinguished Fellow Coach Speaking Ruth has been privileged to address audiences totaling more than 150,000 including Project Managers, HR professionals, Coaches, Leaders, Managers, Teams, Interest Groups, Legal Professionals, and more.

April is an internationally known organizational change management expert who has implemented change for government, health care, higher education, and corporate clients. She’s the author of the #1 Amazon bestseller READY, Set, Change! Simplify and Accelerate Organizational Change. April is the leader of Springboard Consulting and one of the "First 100" Certified Change Management Professionals (CCMP™) and a Change Ignitor for Association of Change Management Professionals.