Special Program: People Development 

NEW for 2024!


Getting future ready is about more than making the right technology decisions.  It also requires that companies prepare their organizations for change, develop new skills within their teams and re-architect their business processes.  

In this highly anticipated addition to the 2024 conference program, attendees will learn how to develop the future-ready organization, diving deep into effective change management, strategies for reskilling & redeploying talent in a Cloud world, why business analysts are suddenly in such high demand and how organizations are further evolving their conscious inclusion strategies. 

Working on your professional certifications? NEW for 2024 – earn continuing education credits for HR, Finance, Business Analysis and IT through our partnerships with SHRM, NASBA and IIBA!

Register now  Browse sessions  Advance Program  Session Highlights  Guest Speakers 

Join special guest speakers, HR leaders and other experts in people and organizational development as they explore the following hot topic tracks:


Beyond the Methodology: Practical applications of change management

  • Special guest speaker: Lisa Klarner, certified Change Management expert and organizational coach
  • Get introduced to critical change management tools – what they are and how to use them
  • Learn about effective stakeholder engagement
  • Find out how to build a Change Impact Roadmap for your organization
  • Understand best practices for organizational success
  • See how companies apply these practices in real life

Talent Management:  Retain, reskill & redeploy

  • Special guest speaker: Will Markow, Vice President of Applied Research – Talent, Lightcast
  • Get the latest insights on strategic workforce planning
  • Learn about the impact of emerging trends and technology on the workforce
  • Hear about the hot skills required for Move to Cloud
  • Find out how on-prem customers are successfully retaining and developing their in-demand JD Edwards and PeopleSoft resources 
  • Learn how other organizations are re-structuring their teams for the Cloud
  • Hear from companies who have transformed their workforces via successful retain & redeploy strategies 

The Expanding Role of the Business Analyst

  • Special guest speaker: Delvin Fletcher, President & CEO, International Institute of Business Analysis
  • Find out why the business analyst role is critical to future-ready success
  • Learn about the fundamentals of business analysis
  • Hear best practices for the applications of key business analysis techniques
  • See how fellow customers are leveraging business analysts within their companies
  • Find out how to develop the business analyst role within your organization

Conscious Inclusion

  • Hear from top people leaders, including Louisa Benedicto, SVP of Diversity Equity & Inclusion at Hays Specialist Recruiting, about how their organizations are creating environments that reflect and reinforce a practice of conscious inclusion
  • Follow one company’s journey to conscious inclusion– the opportunities, challenges and learnings from their efforts to create a more inclusive workplace
  • Learn best practices for developing and implementing a successful conscious inclusion program 

Session Highlights


Change Management:

Facing Organizational Alignment Challenges Head On

Presented by:
Jeff Geiger, President of J Geiger Consulting
Lisa Klarner, Owner and Founder of LK Coaching and Consulting

Building a business case for a large initiative is not an easy undertaking, especially in today’s day and age with the unpredictable economy. Our senior leaders understand the practicality of a business case and funding requests when it comes to the tactical, technical, and even the process side. It’s easy to explain and easier to justify.

Next comes Organizational Change Management (OCM) – the people side of the change – this sounds important and often is recognized as such. It is, however, common to have OCM undercut, deferred, or removed completely. Join us to learn why the people side of the change must be a priority, what the organizational or project team structure could look like, and how to define the value when preparing your business case.


Change Management:

Learn the #1 Strategy to Drive Adoption of Solutions

Presented by:
Lisa Klarner, Owner and Founder of LK Coaching and Consulting, LLC

Have you developed a robust IT solution, only to find out that adoption is much lower than expected at go-live? Change Management (focused on the people side of change) may be the missing component!

Change Management is more critical than many realize. In this session you will hear examples from the “trenches” of what worked and what didn’t work – and why! Learn how and when to incorporate peoplefocused Change Management strategies into your initiative. Find out what Change Management is and why it’s important. Build an understanding of the roles people play to drive success and how to measure adoption.

We might say that building a solution is “easy” – it’s getting people to use it that can often be hard. Find out why budgeting for Change Management in your next initiative will be worth the investment!


Change Management:

Critical Change Management Templates to Make your Life Easier

Presented by:
Lisa Klarner, Owner and Founder of LK Coaching and Consulting, LLC

In this session, we will discuss Change Management templates which can be used in Waterfall and Agile initiatives. Learn about the Change Impact Roadmap—as you and your team roll out new technologies and processes, it’s critical to keep an eye on the big picture. What changes are coming, when, and who is impacted? Learn how the Change Impact Roadmap can help plan and manage changes in a way that avoids change fatigue.

A significant barrier to success can often be lack of stakeholder buy-in and awareness. Build an understanding of techniques and templates to manage your stakeholders such as the Stakeholder Dashboard and the Stakeholder Resistance and Influencing Matrix.

The management of an Integrated Change Plan organized using a framework such as Prosci AKDAR® is highly important from start to finish! Gain insight into the campaign (summary) view and a complementary detailed plan. You’ll leave this session with access to the templates to bring back to your organization.


Change Management:

Top 4 Success Factors in Navigating Technology & Process Changes

Presented by:
Lisa Klarner, Owner and Founder of LK Coaching and Consulting, LLC

Building a solid foundation is often the hardest part when launching a successful Change Management plan. Learn important success factors focused on roles, communications, training, and metrics. Hear real stories of what’s effective and what’s not so effective – and bring these learnings back to your organization.


Change Management Workshop:

Workshop: Let’s Create Your Change Management Approach

Presented by:
Lisa Klarner, Owner and Founder of LK Coaching and Consulting, LLC

Consider your strategic roadmap and planned technology implementations – Do you know how this will impact your end-users? What are some barriers that may get in your way? And how well is the timing aligned to minimize the collective impact on your end-users? Join us in this interactive workshop where we will build out a change management approach for a sampling of our attendees’ initiatives. Help others or volunteer your own initiative!

Note: Registration required to participate in this session.


Business Analysts:

The Expanding Role of Business Analysis – What it is and why it’s more critical than ever

Presented by:
Delvin Fletcher, President and CEO, International Institute of Business Analysis

Our world is full of good methodologies, good technologies and great ideas. And that’s before we even start talking about AI! But interestingly, many business transformation initiatives are not that much more successful than they used to be, even with better tools, faster approaches, and more innovation. Why? This session will explore some of what we’ve learned in our research about business analysis impact over the past few years, where we think it can help, and why we’re excited to see renewed interest in the profession – regardless of the techniques and methods being deployed to enable change.


Business Analysts:

Building a Future-Ready Business Analysis Career

Presented by:
Susan Moore, Certified Business Analysis Professional, Agile Practitioner and author, The Virtual BA Coach

The future is here, and it requires organizations to delve deeper into their capabilities to change and innovate. As the landscape evolves, the demand for skilled individuals who can navigate complexity, drive innovation, and maximize value grows. Do you know where to begin to develop your business analysis skill set to meet these challenges today and into the future?

In this session, attendees will be introduced to key resources to develop their business analysis skill set, including a standardized body of knowledge, a competency framework, and business analysis certifications that expand their knowledge and validate their experience. Additionally, we’ll explore how being part of a professional association like the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) fosters growth through connections with other business analysis professionals all over the world.

Whether you’re a seasoned practitioner seeking to elevate your expertise or starting your journey in business analysis, this talk will provide you with the resources and insights needed to chart your career path and take on the future!


Future-ready Organization:

The DNA of Disruption: Why Future-Ready Teams Need Future-Ready Skills

Presented by:
Will Markow, Vice President of Applied Research – Talent, Lightcast

If the events of recent years have taught us anything, it is that the only constant is change. Whether this change is driven by a global pandemic, an evolving regulatory landscape, or new technological breakthroughs, all organizations must be prepared to navigate a continuously shifting business climate. Increasingly, they must also navigate these changes with fewer people, as a perfect storm of demographic headwinds threatens to cause long-term talent shortages. These challenges will require teams to constantly evolve, and this evolution starts with the skills of their workforce.

In this discussion Will Markow, Vice President of Applied Research at Lightcast, will discuss emerging drivers of workforce disruption, and examine the skills your team needs to remain future-ready, even in a talent scarce environment. This session will highlight key workforce trends from Lightcast’s research and explore steps that organizations take to build a workforce with the skills needed to not only survive but thrive in an age of constant change.


Future-ready Organization:

Future-Proofing Your Cybersecurity Workforce

Presented by:
Will Markow, Vice President of Applied Research – Talent, Lightcast

Security teams are facing a perfect storm of disruption. New technologies constantly expand attack surfaces and add complexity to an organization’s IT infrastructure, emerging threats increase the range of protective measures organizations must employ, and shifting regulatory requirements introduce new compliance challenges. Compounding these issues, many IT security teams are already woefully understaffed: in the U.S., we only have 72 cybersecurity workers for every 100 workers that employers demand. Taken together, these factors make cybersecurity jobs some of the most rapidly evolving in the entire economy – and some of the most difficult to future-proof.

In this discussion, Will Markow, Vice President of Applied Research at Lightcast, will discuss how organizations can stay one step ahead of these challenges and maintain a future-ready cybersecurity workforce. We will discuss the market trends that are causing cybersecurity skill requirements to evolve and consider how IT leaders can spot the emerging cybersecurity workforce needs they should prioritize. We will also discuss the implications for how we hire, train, and retain our cybersecurity teams with the goal of ensuring that we are continuously evolving our cybersecurity workers to meet the challenges of an uncertain future.

Guest Speakers


Mona Abou-Sayed
SVP Standard BioTools | Business Systems (SBS)

Mona has over 25 years of experience leading key strategic initiatives through organizational and lean transformations in technology companies. Mona started her career in the Telecommunications world as a system engineer, and went on to Tektronix Communications (a then-Danaher Company) for nearly 15 years in key roles in Customer Operations, Product Management, and as a Danaher Business Systems Leader driving continuous improvement. From there, she joined Mitel for almost 8 years, holding key leadership positions to drive strategic transformation across the business, including Strategic Planning & Execution, shifting Go-to-Market models, Product Management and Organizational Development & Talent. Currently, as SVP of Standard BioTools Business Systems (SBS), Mona brings her passion for lean methodologies and solving problems to enable organizational transformation and drive business growth to the executive leadership team.

Mona is an expect on driving key strategic initiatives by working directly with customers to understand their problems and driving cross-functional alignment.

Mona has a B.S. in Management Science and an M.S. in Operations Research from Southern Methodist University. Mona also is a PMI Certified Project Management Professional (PMP), and an ICF Associated Certified Coach (ACC). She enjoys traveling, working out and spending time with her family.

See More

Lisa Klarner
Certified Change Management Expert & Organizational Coach

Lisa is an experienced business professional with a passion for driving change at organizations who are ready to move beyond what is possible. With over 25 years of corporate experience, Lisa has led change management strategy for enterprise-wide technology implementations, digital transformations, and large-scale workplace renovations. The first half of Lisa’s career was spent at Kimberly-Clark Corporation where she managed projects, led implementation teams and drove high impact change programs.

Now as the owner of LK Coaching and Consulting, which was formed in 2012, Lisa looks for every opportunity to make the workplace a positive place where strategic objectives are achieved, changes are embraced, employees voices are heard, and their unique strengths are known and valued. Lisa serves leading edge companies as they continually transform to align with the ever-changing landscape of their industry.

When it comes to change management, the strategies and plans Lisa has developed to date have increased acceptance at go-live, strengthened stakeholder relationships, built sustainable change champion groups and developed a knowledgeable post-implementation team. She has worked with global consulting firms, American manufacturing companies and global consumer products organizations.

She has an eye for the greater vision and expertly weaves this vision into the change management strategies she implements. Throughout each change initiative, Lisa prioritizes senior leadership support and employee engagement from start to finish. She is a hands-on team player who works to gain an in depth understanding of the people impact. There is a balance between people needs and delivery, which she successfully maintains in her work, becoming an advocate for the people while staying in lockstep with the project manager and governance bodies.

Looking beyond change management, Lisa brings her international coaching experience and corporate background together to deliver professional development workshops and individual coaching to create teams that perform at optimal levels. Connecting employees to their natural born strengths and creating a team that functions in a respectful, results-oriented way.

Lisa is a certified PROSCI® Change Management Professional and a certified life and career coach through Quantum Leap University.

Lisa’s unique set of skills and experiences along with her desire to be a change driver, positive advocate, and partner to all her clients enables successful long-lasting change.

See More

Louisa Benedicto
SVP, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion,
Hays Specialist Recruiting

Louisa is Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I), Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability at Hays – covering the Americas region including Canada, the U.S., and Latin American Countries. She specializes in DE&I, enabling our clients to implement best practices that ensure everyone gets a fair opportunity in the recruitment process. Louisa spends her time partnering with clients to help them reach their ED&I goals, by ensuring they are familiar with current market trends, and techniques that will enable them to find the best talent. Louisa is also a graduate from the Inclusive Leadership program at Centennial College.

Louisa began her career with Hays in the UK in 2002 and moved to Japan in 2008 to help lead an acquisition. She then moved to Canada in 2013 where she currently lives with her wife and two children. Additionally, Louisa is fluent in Spanish and Japanese, and was certified as a coach in 2016. As an expert in recruitment and hiring trends, Louisa has also been featured in a variety of publications including CBC’s On The Money, Huffington Post Canada, and the Canadian HR Reporter.


Shaun Cheatham
Chief Commercial Officer, Hays

Shaun is responsible for the creation and execution of sales strategies for Hays in the U.S.. Shaun is also charged with running the Major and National accounts organization for Hays U.S. With over 20 years of staffing industry experience, Shaun started his career with Hays in the Tampa office where he led the U.S. organization in sales six out of his ten years in production. Prior to Hays, Shaun worked at one of the largest staffing firms in the world where he held a number of Sales and Sales Leadership positions. Shaun resides in the Tampa area with his wife and daughter.


Jessica Nemmers
CISO, Flair Data Systems

Jessica Nemmers is a Field Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) with Flair Data Systems. In her role, Jessica acts as an advisor to organizations providing guidance on all aspects of cybersecurity, from developing strategies for protection and resiliency to implementing controls to meet compliance requirements. With over 25 years in the IT industry, Jessica’s passion for security began while working in datacenter operations at Perot Systems (now NTT Data). She later became the first CISO at Commercial Metals Company (CMC) where she built a cybersecurity program from the ground up. She went on to become a Chief Security Officer in the financial industry at Elevate Credit. As a board member and an experienced Chief Security Officer, Jessica works with security leaders, executives, and boards to establish a common understanding of cyber risk and improve the decision-making process around cyber program investments.

Jessica is a co-author of “The CISO Mentor” and has received recognition as a trailblazer for women in technology by the Dallas Business Journal and one of the “Dallas 500” most powerful business leaders in North Texas by D Magazine. She is known in the Dallas/Ft. Worth community as “The Ballerina Turned CISO” due to her prior career as a professional ballerina. Her unique career journey has fostered passion projects focused on mentorship for women in technology and those wishing to transition into cybersecurity from other careers.

Jessica is a proud mom of 4 grown children and works in Texas and Maryland, where she lives with her husband, David.

See More

Will Markow
Vice President of Applied Research – Talent, Lightcast

Will Markow is the Vice President of Applied Research at Lightcast where he oversees the consulting and research team focused on strategic workforce planning, skills-based hiring strategies, and the impact of emerging trends and technologies on the workforce.

Will’s research with Lightcast is routinely featured in national media outlets, and he has overseen hundreds of custom consulting and research projects for Fortune 100 companies, technology vendors, training providers, workforce development organizations, and government agencies. He has also testified before congress and advised multiple White House administrations on key issues related to the future of work.

In addition, Will is a frequently cited commentator on the cybersecurity talent shortage and, in partnership with CompTIA and the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, leads the development of CyberSeek, an interactive online tool providing definitive data on the cybersecurity workforce across the United States.


Delvin Fletcher
President & Chief Executive Officer,
International Institute of Business Analysis

Delvin Fletcher joined IIBA as President and Chief Executive Officer in January, 2020 and serves our dynamic, global organization of members, volunteers and partners in more than 100 countries. He holds an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto and is both a Professional Engineer (P. Eng) and a Certified Management Consultant (CMC). Prior to joining IIBA, Delvin was CIO of Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario where he led digital transformation in a complex membership and regulatory not-for-profit.

He spent his early professional years with KPMG Management Consulting serving on strategy, marketing, technology and operations projects in North America and EMEA. He has served in leadership roles with both multinationals and high growth privately held companies, including SAP and Shred-it International as well as entrepreneurial ventures, interim leadership roles and not-for-profit organizations, including Ethoca Limited, where he was CIO and Xchange Technology Group where he was COO responsible for global IT, HR, operations and professional services.


Susan Moore
Certified Business Analysis Professional, Agile Practitioner and author, The Virtual BA Coach

Susan is the Community Engagement Manager at IIBA. Before that, she was a business analysis professional with more than 20 years’ experience in finance, insurance and utilities industries working on both the Business and IT sides of organizations. Susan speaks frequently on business analysis-adjacent topics such as career development, essential skills, and virtual communication. She writes about these topics (and more!) at TheVirtualBACoach.com.

Susan holds CBAP and AAC certifications as well as other business analysis and agile certifications.

Contact us