A self-proclaimed nerd, Brandon Carlson works for Lean TECHniques, Inc., an IT consultancy that helps teams deliver high-value, high-quality products to market. Since starting his career in 1995, Brandon has held positions from development and architecture to management — and he’s still learning. Passionate about developing both people and products, he and his team at Lean TECHniques have helped countless organizations from startups to Fortune 100 companies improve their product development and delivery systems. Brandon can be reached on Twitter @bcarlso and pretty much everywhere else on the Web as “bcarlso.”

Bernie’s career started with a flash and a bang. Literally. His first position was designing devices that protect telephone networks from lightning strikes. A few career pivots later, he had a flash of insight: it was possible to tap into latent potential in every person, every team, and every organization. The teams he’s worked with have grown businesses to beyond $100 million, delivering products from consumer electronics to network infrastructure to services & payments at firms including TiVo, Cisco, Wells Fargo and more. He’s also a Certified Scrum Trainer® teaching private and public workshops, including Agile Leadership at Stanford Continuing Studies. As an Agile Leadership Coach, Bernie helps his clients achieve performance breakthroughs with their teams, organizations and themselves. More, he believes that Humor Trumps All and that Accelerating Genius is possible in every person and business, and leads both to outrageous effectiveness, and a whole lot more fun.

Cheryl Hammond, a.k.a. @bsktcase, has a couple decades’ experience as a software leader in the private and public sectors. She ran her team’s successful adoption of Scrum-ban for a mission-critical regulatory compliance project under multi-agency state and federal government oversight, mentored former COBOL devs into true-believing unit-testing XP evangelists, and turned a threatened software product at risk of litigation into a lean, revenue-generating flagship offering in nine months, all of which leads her to believe that anything is possible. She is not sorry for her many biases, including strong preferences for servant-style leadership and team-based, holistic problem-solving and a strong aversion to agile zealotry. Whether consulting or in-house, Cheryl endeavors to make life suck less for software delivery organizations and the humans who inhabit them.

Doc is passionate about working with teams to improve delivery and building great organizations. Once a dedicated code slinger, Doc has turned his energy toward helping teams, departments, and companies work better together in the pursuit of better software. Working with a wide range of companies such as Groupon, Nationwide Insurance, and Belly, Doc has applied tenants of agile, lean, systems thinking, and servant leadership to develop highly effective cultures and drastically improve their ability to deliver valuable software and products.

Rebecca is President of Wirfs-Brock Associates and Director of the Agile Experience Report Initiative. She helps organizations and individuals hone their design and architecture skills, improve system quality and manage technical debt. In addition to coaching and mentoring she conducts workshops on agile architecture, design heuristics, and pragmatic software design. She invented the set of design practices known as Responsibility-Driven Design (RDD) and by accident started the x-DD meme. Rebecca is also the Agile 2020 and XP 2020 Experience Report Track Co-Chair. She is on the Board of the Hillside Group and writes patterns and essays about sustainable architecture, agile QA, and design heuristics. If you want to share experiences or wisdom in pattern form, Rebecca can help you turn your itch for writing into the written word. Read her blog at www.wirfs-brock.com/blog and find articles and patterns and essays on her resources page, www.wirfs-brock.com/Resources.html

Ellen Grove is the Interim Managing Director of Agile Alliance. Based in Ottawa, Canada, she has been working in software development for over 20 years, moving from software testing to user-centered design to managing development teams to Agile coaching and training. She is an Agile Coach, trainer, and facilitator who works with organizations of all sizes — from startups to multinationals — to help them find more effective ways of working based on Lean and Agile principles and practices. After many years of organizing and presenting at Agile events at home and around the world, Ellen was elected to the Agile Alliance board of directors in 2017 and became the chair of the board in February 2020 before stepping into her current role.

Jessica is a seasoned event planner who has played a key role in helping Agile Alliance create successful conferences for over a decade. As a senior program manager on the events team, she facilitates great speaker and attendee experiences using her superpowers of connecting people, devising smart solutions, and seeing the big picture while mastering the fine details.

Tarah has many years experience as an event planner and has worked on many teams to create successful conferences for nearly a decade. Tarah brings positivity and high energy to every event that she is a part of, combined with her passion for delivering an outstanding experience. She believes in a hands-on, attendee focused approach when organizing each event. She holds herself to a high level of integrity and excellence and it reflects in her events. She looks forward to meeting you at Agile2021!

Check back soon for Pam’s bio.