Dana Pylayeva is a Certified Enterprise Coach, who excels at navigating complexity, creating learning communities, infusing playfulness, and unleashing innovation in teams and organizations she coaches. Dana brings a unique blend of exceptional facilitation skills, diverse technical background, 20+ years of Agile/ DevOps consulting experience, and a strong professional coaching mindset (rooted in Co-Active and ORSC). A business games designer, the author of “DevOps with LEGO and Chocolate” and “Fear in the Workplace” games, Dana is an international speaker (80 conferences in 18 countries), an organizer of several local meetups in New York, and the conference chair of Agile2024 conference.
Semira Allen has played a role in planning and facilitating tech meetups since 2017. She was involved with both Cyber Security Non-Profit, an organization that aims to make cyber security education attainable for all people as well as Chicago Agile Open Space which was a collaborative community for Chicago based agile practitioners. Most recently she was a Program Chair for Agile2023. In her spare time Semira mentors young people in college towards their professional goals.
The work Chris Murman is most focused on is connecting the dots in tech companies. Finding the most human aspect of technical solutions. Coaching, training, and transformation are about removing the friction organizations unintentionally create. Leadership is a bag that can be heavy and should be shared appropriately. The things that teams create can be amazing. His part of that recipe is helping them do so in the best and most fun environment. He is also the author of a book on mobile applications. A contributor to the Agile Uprising Podcast. Blog writer of his namesake. Speaker and organizer at over a dozen conferences around the world. A proud husband, father, runner, chef, and as an advocate for the marginalized in the world.
Mariya Breyter is an IT executive holding key product and delivery roles at Goldman Sachs, UnitedHealth Group, and Amazon, and a frequent presenter at global conferences. Mariya’s passion is helping others in achieving professional growth while promoting diversity and inclusion. She holds a combined BA /MA degree in Linguistics and Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Computer Linguistics with a post-doctoral scholarship at Stanford University. In her spare time, Mariya teaches students at NYU. Her book, Agile Project and Product Management, published in 2022, was added to the list of the top 100 books on Agile by Amazon. Mariya’s professional motto is “Lead with Passion, Guide with Purpose, Inspire with Innovation.”
Kathi Paquet is an Information Technology professional with over 20 years of expertise in coaching, designing, and delivering cross-functional improvements and integration efforts across diverse industries. Her strategic planning, project management, and risk analysis skills have consistently ensured compliance and operational excellence. With a PhD in Information Security Assurance, Kathi specializes in agile transformations within Identity Access Management by successfully defining strategies and leading modernization efforts. Her proficiency spans Authentication and Authorization, Privilege Access Management, Identity Lifecycle Management, and Identity Governance and Assurance. Known for her collaborative approach, Kathi excels in facilitating effective communication and teamwork, essential for successful IT initiatives.
Emma Armstrong started out with a Computer Science degree and still enjoys technology and granularity of details. She has moved through different domains and job titles but was lucky enough to come across Agile, and loves the people element and when she met the wider community she was hooked and felt like she belonged.
Kerri Sutey brings a transformative approach to enhancing organizational agility, focusing on organizational design, development, and diversity, as well as leadership coaching. Her work is pivotal in steering organizations and leaders to lead effectively, grow sustainably, and thrive in challenging environments. Kerri envisions a future where adaptability, resilience, continuous learning, open communication, and diversity form the cornerstone of organizational success. Committed to fostering environments that thrive on collaboration and innovation, she guides teams and leaders to not just navigate today’s complexities but to anticipate and shape tomorrow’s opportunities. Her coaching approach emphasizes trust, continuous improvement, and strong relationships, making her instrumental in guiding through challenges and embracing change for personal and organizational growth.
Cheryl Hammond, a.k.a. bsktcase, has a couple decades’ experience as a software developer in the private and public sectors. She led her team’s successful adoption of Scrum-ban for a mission-critical regulatory compliance project under multi-agency state and federal government oversight, and mentored former COBOL devs into true-believing unit-testing XP evangelists, 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 a strong aversion to agile zealotry. Whether consulting or in-house, Cheryl endeavors to make life suck less for organizations and the humans who inhabit them.
Omar McNeil uses his energetic and passionate personality to support programs and teammates in all things Agile as a Learning and Development Program Manager with GitHub. He thrives in his position by leading, coaching, and mentoring programs, managers, and teams. Prior to GitHub, Omar rocked the Red Hat Fedora as an Agile Practitioner supporting internal programs and teams. He has a passion for helping teams create a collaborative and safe environment, participating in Agile Communities, and coaching.
As an Agile and leadership Trainer & Coach, I help organizations go beyond agile practices to address the root causes that make or break organizational success with agile and lean. I help teams reach high performance. I help organizations deal with the challenge of competing priorities and leadership team growth and challenge organizations to go beyond the simplicity of yesterday’s best practices. Integrating ideas from multiple schools of thought is required to succeed in today’s world, and to that end, I draw on my experience with professional coaching, agile, Scrum, Spiral Dynamics, facilitation, lean, transformational leadership, improvisation, psychological safety and theory of constraints (to name a few) to provide comprehensive guidance.
LinkedIn
Allison Pollard is a coach, consultant, and trainer who brings the power of relationship systems intelligence to go beyond tasks, roles, and frameworks to create energy for change. She engages with people and teams in a down-to-earth way to build trust and listen for signals to help them learn more and improve. Allison focuses on creating alignment and connection for people to solve business problems together. Her experience includes working with teams and leaders in energy, retail, financial, real estate, and transportation industries to help improve their project/product delivery and culture. Allison currently volunteers as program director for Women in Agile’s mentorship program. Her agile community focus is championing new voices and amplifying women as mentors and sponsors for the next generation of leaders. Allison earned her bachelor’s degrees in computer science, mathematics, and English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), a foodie, and proud glasses wearer. Allison is a prolific speaker at professional groups and international conferences, including Scrum Gatherings and the Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. Allison is the co-owner of Helping Improve LLC.
Emilia Breton is a natural-born Agile thinker who managed to swim out of the PMI waterfall over a decade ago. As an Agile coach, she is constantly looking for new ways to build better software and make the world a better place. As a passionate gamer she believes that teams who play together can accomplish anything.
Eric Rapin’s career took a markedly different direction when he discovered Scrum in 2008 and after his group learned how to be effective with Agile, he has been helping people, teams, leaders, and organizations use Agile methods to deliver better customer value ever since. His company, Lucid Agile, is focused on enabling client success using coaching, facilitation, and training. Eric is also a Certified Scrum Trainer through the Scrum Alliance and has trained over 5000 people in-person and remotely. Eric also takes advantage of skills gained through board game design to make events livelier and engaging.
Melissa Boggs is a leadership coach and executive with a background in leadership, business, and product development. A certified enterprise coach with an MBA, she blends education, experience, and enthusiasm to work with leaders on their most challenging business problems.
Over 20+ years, Matt Barcomb has served in roles from product executive to principal engineer. He now focuses on helping people and companies as a consultant. He enjoys helping leaders willing to dig deep and commit to real change and challenge the status quo. He uses a systems-first, people-centered approach when applying my deep knowledge of strategy, product management, change, and leadership. Matt enjoys connecting with people and nudging teams of all kinds towards growth.
I write about and practice software product management in a variety of industries including retail, fintech, agriculture, financial services, health insurance, nonprofit, and automotive. I practice my craft with a variety of product teams and provide just-in-time resources for product people at insideproduct.co. When not writing or product managing, I’m #ubersherpa for my family, listen to jazz and podcasts (but not necessarily podcasts about jazz), and collect national parks.
LinkedIn
Holly Bielawa is the head of Product Coaching and Consulting for Jeff Patton and Associates, where she and her team help companies put Product Thinking concepts into practice. As an international tech start-up founder, sales and marketing executive, and transformational strategist, she brings a unique wealth of experience and industry knowledge to technology product development. She and her team work with organizational leaders and teams to help them evolve to a product-oriented culture that empowers the practices and ways of working that are essential to deliver real business results.
Holly Hester-Reilly is the Founder of Product Science Group, a product management coaching and consulting firm that teaches the principles and practices of high-growth product development, and the host of the Product Science Podcast. Holly is a former Columbia University research scientist and has spent over 15 years leading product initiatives at startups, high-growth companies, and enterprises like FalconX, MediaMath, Shutterstock, GTreasury, The Lean Startup Co, Unilever, Fitch Solutions, Capital One, and Weight Watchers.
Faith Peterson is a senior product leader in enterprise applications/UX and internal/IT. Faith uses high-impact, low-overhead methods to improve outcomes. CUA, CSPO, CSM.
Jennifer Dyni has had many roles throughout her 24+ years on software projects, from developing to project managing to coaching and beyond. She is currently guiding engineering teams as a Senior Director of Engineering at UKG and in her 8th year serving her Cadettes as a volunteer Girl Scout Troop Leader. Her passion is helping teams of all shapes and sizes foster highly collaborative and creative problem-solving environments.
Chris ‘Cp’ Richardson has spent the last 15 years in software development and risk management focusing on providing teams with the knowledge and tools to become the best version of themselves. From being a software developer doing the work to being a program manager leading the progress, Chris ensures people have what they need to be successful. Chris uses his past experience as a firefighter to metaphorically put out fires as well as inspire others to fight through the flames that are challenges in their professional environments. Though this is Chris’s first time as Track Chair for the Agile Alliance ‘Energizing People and Teams’ track at Agile 20XX, his is no stranger to the Agile Alliance community as he is the co-founder and Vice President of Agile in Color. Agile in Color’s mission is to create spaces for and spotlight global POC coaches, trainers, and thought leaders in the Agile community. Agile in Color also hopes to inspire the next generation of global POC Agile leaders.
Elena Aminova is an Enterprise Agile Coach and Strategic Transformation Leader at the US Central Bank, wields a dynamic blend of leadership and coaching prowess. With an MBA in Technology Management and a rich background in Scrum since 2011, Elena is a Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise and Team Coach, and Organizational System Relationship Coach (ORSC). Renowned for fostering self-organization, building trust, and removing impediments, she excels in Agile adoption. Elena’s impact extends beyond organizations as she organizes Agile Conferences, Coaching Retreats, and local meetups. As the Lead Reviewer for the Agile Alliance ‘Energizing People and Teams’ track at Agile 20XX, her passion and expertise have an opportunity to shine.
Dayo Adelowotan started her career as an accountant, she has passion for numbers, details and love serving the community through sharing of learnings and experiences while helping others succeed. She transitioned into project financial management and got hooked with Agile. She is an Agilist that has worked with the different financial institutions in Canada with their Agile transformation and coaching teams. She is keen on helping the Agile team to be high performing as she believes that Agile transformation should start with the individual. She is co-host of Agile Brigade, a meetup group that brings Agilist together to learn and share their experiences.
Christine (‘Tine) Zekis is an educator turned software engineer, international speaker, and bestselling author of “Overcoming Imposter Syndrome at Work: The Black Woman’s Guide to Conquer Perfectionism, Stop Overthinking & Thrive in Your Career.” She is the Founder and CEO of Getting Black Women Paid, which empowers Black women professionals to accelerate their careers and soar past the six-figure mark. ‘Tine is a sought-after speaker on panels and at tech conferences where she discusses salary negotiation, career changers, imposter syndrome, and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging in the industry.
Millie Ryba is a dynamic leader, skilled in steering tech and business strategy; she excels in evolving industries and embraces change to deliver tangible results. With a history of pivotal roles in Big 4 and multinational IT firms, she’s driven digital growth, achieved over $100M in savings, and led major, Agile-based restructurings. Adept in Agile practices, she now shapes national conversation as Track Chair for Agile2024, Technology for All track. Valuing collaboration and fun, she’s committed to fostering inclusive, mindful workplaces and is an active advocate for neurological research.
Deena McKay is a dynamic Agile advocate and transformation catalyst. As a certified Scrum Master, Deena has led numerous successful Agile transformations, empowering teams to adapt quickly to change, deliver value incrementally, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. With over a decade of experience in the tech industry, Deena has honed her expertise in Agile methodologies, guiding teams to embrace agility and achieve unparalleled efficiency and innovation.
Kate Donaldson is an accomplished technologist with expertise in implementation, architecture, and strategy, and a history of leading teams to build technology to create positive change. Her philosophy centers on fostering supportive and inclusive engineering departments to develop great software. With experience in various industries, she has created numerous high-performance, blameless cultures through initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and collaboration.
Chris Li is the Founder of SparkPlug Agility. With over 20 years in the consulting space, Chris’s extensive work in both commercial and Federal organizations gives him a unique perspective on organizational change and technical delivery in some of the most challenging environments. In addition to helping teams and enterprises improve their work through Scrum adoption, Chris frequently speaks at professional events and supports initiatives of the world’s top agile organizations. Based in the Washington, DC area, Chris has a passion for supporting and building the next generation of agile leaders. He is a Certified Scrum Trainer®. and the first Path to CSP Educator approved in North America, Chris recently launched the Trainer Immersion Program (TRIP), designed to help instructors design and deliver impactful learning experiences.
Jason Adelmann is a high-energy Agilist based in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area. He is passionate about helping improve the performance of individuals, executives, teams, and organizations. Jason’s work has provided him with experience in departmental and organizational Agile transformation efforts. Jason has worked as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach with technical and non-technical teams. Including Business Intelligence, Software Engineering, Enterprise Cloud Platform, Finance, Marketing, and Human Resource teams. And has run multiple political campaigns using Agile. Jason has an entrepreneurial spirit and utilizes his company Effective Agility Evolution for consulting and coaching engagements.
Nick Yingling is an Agile Coach and Scrum Professional in Pittsburgh, PA. As a former QA Engineer and IT Manager, he is passionate about training leaders and teams focusing on Agile adoption, development, and delivery. With a Masters degree in Organization Development & Change Management, he’s adept in driving organizational and digital transformation within large or small-scale enterprise environments. Within his local community, Nick is a co-organizer for ProductTank Pittsburgh, helps local small businesses apply Agile approaches, and enjoys doing the occasional speaking engagement.
Amy Lane is a Seattle-based Agile Coach and Trainer. Her experience spans retail, fintech, startups, and more. Passionate about helping teams build the adaptable foundations needed in today’s world, Amy enjoys coaching, mentoring, and leading engaging workshops. She is also an IC Agile-authorized instructor and a Road 2 Mastery Guide. With a love of travel and new experiences – Amy has lived in Japan and Mexico. Her high school graduating class named her “Miss Adventure” – and while she isn’t sure it was meant as a compliment, she considers it a badge of honor and strives to live up to it.
Annastasia Gallaher is a Seattle-based Agile practitioner, with 14 years working within tech and non-profit organizations. She’s super passionate about Agile and Scrum, and a self-proclaimed process nerd. She’s managed everything from DevOps to PMOs, QA to full custom mobile and web development, all while using Agile and Scrum. Helping transform organizations and become more efficient in their delivery has been a cornerstone of her career. Coaching others and helping other Agilists advocate for themselves and their teams is a new endeavor that she’s super passionate about. Annastasia is currently keeping herself busy being a Director of Operations at Electronic Arts and the Director of Membership at Sakura-Con.
Jeremy Brown is a Scrum Master based in the beautiful college town of Columbia, Missouri. He loves helping people and teams adopt an Agile mindset so they can get more of the right things done and actually enjoy their work while doing it. He’s also passionate about enabling people to bring their whole selves to their work. Before discovering the wonderful world of Agile, Jeremy spent more than a decade each behind an espresso machine and then at the helm of an international film festival. He can still pour a mean latte and watch movies.
Dennis Wagner has 30 years of experience in software and product development. He has held roles such as Architect, Team Lead, Developer, and Product Manager, and has transitioned into consulting and coaching, specializing in Lean and Agile methodologies to enhance (team) productivity and outcomes. Dennis is the co-author of three books on Agile Games. The latest one, called “Agile Games and Simulations”, is available on LeanPub. An active participant in the Agile community, Dennis is involved with the Scrum Alliance, Kanban Community, and Kanban University, among others, holding numerous certifications. Currently, he works as an end-to-end consultant, offering expertise in a broad range of methodologies and concepts to help teams and organizations reach their full potential. Contact: [email protected].
Veit Richter has been part of the Play4Agile Alltimers since 2015, Cocreating and Sharing agile games are parts of his DNA. Magic Maze, the Agile portfolio game, and the T-Shaped house are just some of the games he brought to the Agile community Since 2023 he has been sharing his love for simulations and games in the Agile context as a co-organizer of Play4Agile Germany.
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