Our Notable and Honored Symposium Guests
In addition to the amazing speakers we have engaged for the AM of the event, the Symposium features a true Open Space event, with a Theme, a Host and full Proceedings, in the afternoon.
At this Open Space, some very notable guests from around the world plan to be in attendance. These honored guests are listed below. Some are teachers. Some are leaders of local communities of practice. Some are book authors.
Each of our Honored Guests is an original thinker, an accomplished professional, and often a very notable voice in the world of Open patterns and practices. Every single person listed here is a very strong supporter of the Open Leadership Network and the Open Leadership Symposium event.
These are people that we listen for. And listen to. We have no idea what they may say. We have no idea how they may choose to engage, or what they may teach.
So, be prepared to be surprised.
To get an idea of what each Guest may add to the event, you can investigate each by using social media, and by clicking through the links they offer below.
Honored Symposium Guest:
BOB GALEN
With his deep, in the trenches, agile experience, Bob Galen is widely considered as a “Coach of Coaches” in the agile community.
He’s been using Extreme Programming since 2001, Scrum practices since the late 1990’s, and Kanban since 2009. He’s been actively coaching agile teams, both as an external consultant and internal change agent, for the past 17+ years.
Bob is a Certified Scrum Master Practicing (CSP), a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), a Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC). He’s held these certifications since 2004, 2007, and 2012 respectively. Link: LinkedIn
Honored Symposium Guest:
CAROL MCEWAN
Carol McEwan ventured into the agile world in 2008 after serving as a software developer at TD Bank and a Program Manager at EDS. She has held leadership positions at Scrum Alliance, Scaled Agile (the certifying body for SAFe®), Agile Transformation Inc, and is currently the CEO / Chief Product Owner at Scrum at Scale LLC.
Carol is from a small town in Ontario, Canada. She moved to Colorado 22 years ago where her and husband raised their two children and have since welcomed a grandson.
She enjoys connecting people, creating environments with joyful culture, and improving outcomes. Carol strives to expand the adoption of Scrum beyond the “usual places” so that one day, Scrum knows no boundaries. Link: Linkedin
Honored Symposium Guest:
MARK KILBY
Mark Kilby is an Agile coach and mentor helping organizations achieve profound productivity, increased quality, and intense customer loyalty to rapidly adapt and thrive in today’s marketplace. Mark’s interests include organizational change, breakthrough methods, and collaboration techniques and technologies for distributed and co-located teams. His specialties include retrospectives, organizational change, and coaching distributed teams and stakeholders on continuous collaboration.
Mark is co-author of the book From Chaos to Successful Distributed Teams:
Honored Symposium Guest:
STEPHANIE DAVIS
Stephanie Davis is big on tech community involvement. Most recently, she served as an elected board member to the Agile Alliance, a non-profit organization with global membership, committed to advancing agile development values, principles, and practices. In addition, she serves her local community as an organizer for Tampa Bay Agile, the largest and most active tech Meetup in the area, and the annual Agile Open Florida event. Stephanie also serves on the executive committee of the Tampa Bay Tech (TBT) board as the Community Committee Chair.
In 2016, Stephanie was awarded Tampa Bay Tech’s Technology Leader of the Year and the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s BusinessWoman of the Year (Tech) and Emerging Technology Leader of the Year.
Stephanie blogs at iamagile.com and tweets @iamagile.
Honored Symposium Guest
STEVE GRANESE
Steven Granese has been building innovative teams and solutions for his entire 20 year career in the technology industry. His expertise lies in transforming organizations to deliver their desired business outcomes by adopting a modern, agile way of working. He holds multiple agile certifications and is an avid speaker for companies, conferences, and user groups. Steven currently serves as the Vice President of the Transform Practice at AgileThought, where he leads a team of the top Agile Coaches, DevOps Consultants, and Product Consultants in the United States. He holds masters degrees from both Carnegie Mellon University and Georgetown University, and a bachelors degree from Wake Forest University.
Honored Symposium Guest
KURT B. NIELSEN
Kurt B. Nielsen is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AgileLeanHouse A/S (Denmark) and is responsible for the overall strategic vision, contact to the main network in the market, sales and marketing.
From 1990 to 2004 he was the CEO of a software company called Pine Tree Systems that sold software solutions to the media industry worldwide. From 2005 until now Kurt has primarily worked as a management and process consultant being especially successful in teaching Agile and Scrum. Lately he has been instrumental in bringing to market the Agile Lean Leadership patterns for Scaling Agile and Lean out into entire organizations. Kurt holds a M.Sc.EE from Danish Thechnical Universtiy and os a Certified Scrum Trainer with accreditation under Scrum Alliance since 2008.