Speakers

Clinton Ages
Unlocking Human Sigma: A Thrilling Dive into Next-Level Stakeholder Management!

Amateur Gourmet Chef Coach Clinton Ages has a passion for food and for high performance. As a ICF (International Coaching Federation) Certified Professional Coach, Clinton leverages his experience in Organizational Behavior and Change Management to optimize and drive delivery. He obtained his Masters from Georgia Tech in Management of Technology and his Bachelors from Georgia State University in Computer Information Systems. When Clinton isn’t driving performance, he can be found at home looking for any excuse to use power tools for a DIY home project or working in the yard.

Paul Crosby
Your AI Buddy: Business Analysts in the AI Ecosystem

Meet Paul Crosby of The Uncommon League. Paul doubles as a full-time instructor and product manager, imparting practical advice on artificial intelligence and business analysis, Project Management, Scrum, Product Management, and Strategic Enterprise Analysis. Paul isn't your run-of-the-mill consultant, folks. He’s also the brains behind four books: “Fail Fast Fail Safe - Harnessing Failure to Succeed”, “The Uncommon Book of Analysis Techniques”, “7 Powerful Analysis Techniques”, and the bright shiny new “Positive Conflict - Transform Discord into Collaboration and Innovation”. His thought-provoking insights have been showcased at events across North America and Europe, including BA World, Project World, Building Business Capabilities, Government Symposiums, IIBA conferences, and many more. And if that wasn't enough, Paul is also a board member of the Sing Your Life - Uncommon Foundation. Under his guidance, the foundation has partnered with TechFluent, Women in Technology, and a host of other organizations to promote Business Analysis, Agile, Product Management, and Project Management skills to new audiences. His mission? To catapult talented individuals into rewarding technology and analysis careers.

Mindy Bohannon
A Late Bloomer’s Guide to GenAI: Ethics, Bias, and Effective Prompting Techniques

Mindy thrives as an Agile Business Analyst. She relishes solving business problems, developing solutions that drive the business forward, and relating to others with collaboration, trust, and humanity. Mindy began her career journey as a database developer; and is now a BA and Scrum Master, working on application modernization projects. She’s spoken on agile, analyst, and professional development topics at many local and national conferences over the years. Equally, she encourages others to share their knowledge as the President of her local IIBA DC chapter.

Daniel Fay
Elevate to Empower: Unleashing Personal Leadership, Servant Leadership Mastery, and Organizational Impact

Daniel Fay, PMI-PBA provides a dynamic approach to his training and presentations. Dan is not theoretical, with over 30 years experience, Dan shares his knowledge and lessons learned across the IT and Aviation industries. Dan has:
• consulted literally world-wide in project management and business analysis
• supported over 6000 managers in business analysis, project management and leadership
• been an invited speaker at international management and leadership symposiums including Project Summit/Business Analysis World, and IIBA and PMI Chapters, including many virtual presentations and webinars
• led projects for teams from 3 to over 300 members
• assisted over 1000 Managers in obtaining their PM and PMI-PBA certifications
• assisted organizations in getting to their ‘New Normal’

Christy Foley
Conflict Mastery: Building Confidence, and Mastering Resolution Techniques

Christy L. Foley is an attorney, mediator, and arbitrator who has dedicated her professional career to teaching others about conflict resolution, mediation ethics, and e-mediation techniques. As a teacher at heart, she loves teaching groups how to create peace in their workplace. Christy is considered a leader in the field of conflict resolution. She was a pioneer in e-mediation, having started E-Mediation Services in 2018. She has also served as Chairwoman of Florida's Mediator Ethics & Advisory Committee ("MEAC") since 2018. Moreover, she serves as an officer in the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section of the Florida Bar. Her professional experience has given her the skills necessary to be an effective and dynamic speaker, regardless of whether she is presenting online or in-person. Christy's presentations are particularly unique because she finds ways to get the audience involved in a conversation to ensure people stay engaged throughout the entire presentation (even in groups of 1,000+ people). Christy has spoken in front of local, statewide, and nationwide audiences - both in-person and through virtual conferences. She is repeatedly asked to come back and present again for many organizations, such as the Florida Bar, Florida Dispute Resolution Center, Jacksonville Bar Association, and Full Sail University. In 2010, Christy's popular presentation style led her to teaching in higher education. She currently serves as a Lecturer at the University of Central Florida.

Billy Giannouloudis
Tapping into a Growth Mindset for Confident Life Change

Billy G. is an empowering professional speaker and coach helping people truly shift themselves from limitation to achievement. He utilizes many different mindset and self improvement practices to help individuals overcome barriers in the areas of mental health, stress management, confidence, and the belief systems we choose to stand on. Having spoken at many different events and holding workshops at these events, Billy has created a sought after name for individuals, companies, and schools. As he always says "Helping people is the name of the game. Help more people and life gets better and better.

Mark Hunt
IT's All About AI

Mark has worked in many facets of Information Technology for over 25 years-- as a Business Analyst, Project Manager, Program Manager, QA Analyst, SME and Change Agent. He has also worked in varied areas such as healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, agriculture and more.  He has spoken at many clients and at several IIBA chapters and Professional Development Days such as Minneapolis, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg.  Mark engages his audience with topical and informative subjects with humor and keeping the participants involved and engaged.

John Kennedy
The Power to Create Time

John has been speaking at conferences for many years including PM, business, sports, military and Medical. John is a #1 International Bestselling Author, Master Executive Brain Coach, International Speaker, Trainer and Process Efficiency Consultant. Early in his life John realized that what excited him was “solving the unsolvable”. From building the first handheld energy efficiency assessment computer in the 70’s, to helping growing companies innovate using technology, to solving critical problems for some of Chicago’s largest businesses as a project rescue specialist, John looked for new challenges. In 2007 he was presented with his biggest challenge when the US Marines contracted him to develop a program to improve Warfighting and reduce casualties in combat, the toughest of all environments. In response he pioneered the field of Applied Neuroplasticity. This innovative application of his highly effective process efficiency methodology to the brain using neuroplasticity as the medium was extremely successful. The resulting Combat Brain Training program has helped thousands of people rapidly improve their focus, memory and faster, better decision making under stress, regardless of starting cognitive baseline. After supporting many elite military units including pilots, Snipers and Navy SEAL's, John brought his program to the civilian environment. John now combines his extensive efficiency consulting background with his proprietary Combat Brain Training program to help leaders, teams and companies exceed their performance expectations very quickly. creating unparalleled results

Frank Kowalkowski
New Horizons in Business Analysis: Ensemble Analytics for Competitive Advantage

Frank Kowalkowski is President of Knowledge Consultants, Inc., a firm focusing on business performance, business analysis, data science, business intelligence, artificial intelligence, and statistical techniques across industries. More recently Frank has been involved in conducting workshops, professional training sessions, and assessments of business structures and transformation, data science, and analytics for process management efforts. He is the author of a 1996 book on Enterprise Analysis. His most recent publications are a featured chapter in the business book Digital Transformation with BPM.  His chapter is titled “Improve, Automate, Digitize”, he also has a chapter in the business architecture book titled Business and Dynamic Change and a chapter on semantic process analytics in the book Passports to Success in BPM, and most recently a key chapter titled Intelligent Automation and Intelligent Analytics in the 2020 book Intelligent Automation. 

Trent Leopold
Psychometrics for Strategic Business Analysis

Trent Leopold is an active, professional Sr. Business Analyst with more than 25 years of experience in the private and public sectors. His focus is on discoveries and research concerning the human mind and how these discoveries directly apply to Business Analysis.  He is a longitudinal research participant with a major U.S. university in an international neuroscience project exploring human brain function.  Leopold's experience includes serving as an advisor to two U.S. Presidents, a U.S Vice-President and two Texas Governors. Trent is an active member of the "IIBA" and "PMI," and serves to establish Business Analysis standards. He is an “IEEE” officer, involved with creating international professional standards including those endorsed by the "ISO" most recently pertaining to AI governance. Leopold received a lifetime achievement award from "Who's Who."  Trent’s education includes a MSc. degree in Managerial Science and he's a licensed airplane pilot.

Len Marchese
The BA's Role in Leading Opportunity-Based Innovation

This presentation highlights the transformative potential of integrating a process, dialogue, and analysis to identify and validate opportunities. It underscores the pivotal role BAs can play in driving organizational transformation from lagging to leading.

Joe Perzel
The BA/PM Conundrum

Joe Perzel has been defining requirements, leading projects of all sizes and managing staffs since 1982 in both a corporate and vendor capacity.  He has a background in multiple industries such as healthcare, insurance, finance, government, manufacturing, non-profit and education.  Presently Joe is President of the Minnesota Chapter of IIBA, partner at JPerzel Inc. as well as Program Manager at Surescripts LLC.  Previously he has held leadership positions at Cargill, Thomson Reuters, MN Workers Compensation Bureau, International Multifoods and PMI Minnesota. Joe has been speaking since 2002 on topics ranging from leadership, management/strategy, negotiations/sales.  He has presented keynotes, chapter meetings and workshops internationally to multiple corporate, government and non-profit organizations, BBC (Building Business Capability) conference, IIBA chapters, PMBA Conferences, PMI Global and Region 2, over 20 PMI chapters, local and global Society for Quality (ASQ), International Project Management Assoc. (IPMA) and the PMO Impact Summit. 

Kit Whelchlin
Keynote Speaker - The Power of Change: Are You Serving or Thriving?

Kit grew up on a hog and dairy farm and began public speaking at the age of 9 in 4-H. By 16, he was organizing and facilitating presentations on leadership, citizenship, community service and motivation for the 4-H and Future Farmers of America. Kit has a B.S. Degree in Speech Communication, Business Administration and Political Science. He earned an M.A. Degree in Speech Communication and Business Administration.

Kit purchased his first manufacturing company at age 21, and by 26 was CEO and Chairman of the Board of three manufacturing companies in three states. He’s been an instructor with the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, where he received the Excellence in Teaching Award. He is a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association and earned the CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) designation. He has delivered more than 3,000 presentations to more than 500,000 people. In 2014, Kit was inducted into the Minnesota Speakers Association Hall of Fame.