Speakers

2 days, 16 speakers, plenty of interactive, and high-energy sessions!
Dave Gray

Dave Gray

Co-Founder Xplane, Author of Gamestorming

Having been involved in a lot of well-intentioned innovation and change initiatives in industry, government and small businesses, Dave Gray noticed that people have an astonishing ability to miscommunicate and misunderstand one another, and often work at cross-purposes to the very things they are trying to accomplish.

His objective has been and continues to be finding ways to help people improve their ability to build shared understanding, so they can better coordinate joint action on things that matter to them.

In 1993 He founded XPLANE, the visual thinking company, to help people develop shared understanding, so they can make better, faster decisions, and work better together to create more lasting, sustainable impact.

He has written three books on design, change and innovation.

Sarika Kharbanda

Sarika Kharbanda

I am an accomplished Lean & Agile Practitioner, Coach and Trainer, Program & Project Manager with 17+ years of visible and exemplary performance. I’ve worked with enterprises and diverse cultures in Poland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Singapore, India, China, Hong Kong and the United States of America. I’m known to be very approachable, reliable, committed and pro-active, challenging myself and striving to exceed expectations. My Key Strengths built over core values of Integrity, Intelligence and Energy, supplemented with my passion towards achieving excellence, has helped me to cultivate a huge portfolio of achievements.
Andrew Guy

Andrew Guy

Author, International Speaker, and Leadership Coach

ANDREW is a leadership and staff development strategist who helps organizations to create a culture of community that inspires people to thrive through productive action.  He’s the founder of “M.U.S” (Mastering You Seminars), an international motivational speaker, a certified educational consultant and the author of serveral personal development books including: Finding Your Pathway To Personal Success; The Anatomy of the Kingdom and the Power of Community; Somebody’s Got My Yes!.
 
ANDREW is a graduate of Southern Arkansas University and has earned degrees in Medical Biology, Exercise Science, and a Masters of Science in Kinesiology. 
Cat Swetel

Cat Swetel

Once described as the Altoids of Lean-Agile feminism.

Cat thinks describing oneself in third person is weird.

Is it any wonder that Cat will fit right in with our amazing speaker line up?

Cat is a consultant specializing in lean inspired, data informed coaching for technology organizations. She is passionate about increasing diversity in STEAM as a means of creating the possibility of a more equitable human future based on generative institutions. In her leisure time, Cat enjoys making jokes about Bitcoin, hiking, and reading feminist literature.

Sarah McMullin

Sarah McMullin

Sarah McMullin is the Director of Product Management at Tulip, focused on building next-generation mobile applications to empower frontline associates. With over a decade of experience in emerging technologies, her work has taken her around the world— from innovating with global luxury retailers, to crowdsourcing DNA to fight food fraud, to creating new Things and making them speak. Her constant focus has been on launching new products that solve real world
problems.

Prior to working at Tulip, Sarah held a series of positions within product management and marketing at various firms including SAP, Sybase, and NCR. Sarah graduated from the University of Waterloo with an Honours Bachelor of Mathematics degree. She also holds a Master of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Tabitha Cooper

Tabitha Cooper

Chief Communication Officer

7 Years’ experience in Financial Services (Banks & Fintech Strategy, Innovation, future trends, culture) Key role areas Strategic Business Development; Business Analysis; Project, Change & Portfolio Management 15 years of experience as an independent consultant in Change Management (key focus areas: process & system Integrations/separation programmes, Legal & Tech focussed)  Proven ability to influence and engage people at all levels of the organisation. Strategically focussed, while also able to navigate detail and specifics. Solid public speaking and event facilitation skills. Ability to manage people and build teams, manage time effectively, communicate clearly, lead by example and through values.
Helen Daniels

Helen Daniels

Helen Daniels was a reluctant 7-year bureaucrat until she joined the maverick ranks as one of Canada’s Free Agents. She now is Talent Manager to 30 brilliant and engaged Free Agents at NRCan enabling her to test out innovations in engaging and developing employees.  Helen is a 20-year practitioner in experiential education, leadership development, and coaching, and has worked in the educational, not-for-profit, social services, and federal public sectors as well as being self-employed.  She doesn’t much like writing bios of herself, but she does love learning about people and supporting them to identify their unique genius and to find their flow at work.

Mark Raheja

Mark Raheja

Mark Raheja is a founder of August — an NYC and London-based organization design and transformation consultancy that partners with large institutions to help change the way they lead, organize and work.

Inspired by a deep commitment to reinvent organizations, Mark is sought out by leadership teams around the world as a speaker, advisor and coach. For over fifteen years, he has worked closely with Fortune 500 leaders — including at Google, Chanel, GE and PepsiCo — helping them transition to a faster, more adaptive and human operating model.

Mark’s work centres around one crucial riddle: How can we organize at scale in a complex and uncertain world — and not break? It’s a challenge that requires rethinking almost every aspect of how enterprises function — from structure, strategy and decision rights to how we collaborate, innovate and reward.

Beyond his ongoing participation as a keynote in the Lean Startup speaker series, and recent talks at Creative Morningsand EDIT in Toronto, Mark recently co-designed and taught a masterclass in Responsive Organization Design which wasrefined through workshops at Harvard and Yale.

Ellen Grove

Ellen Grove

Ellen Grove is a business agility coach, trainer, and organizational change agent with Agile Partnership. Based in Ottawa, Canada, Ellen works with organizations of all sizes to help them put Agile thinking and being into action throughout the organization. Whether working with C-suite leaders or managers or delivery teams, Ellen favours experiential approaches for getting people to talk with each other about the things that really matter so that they can do great work together. Visit www.agilepartnership.com to learn more about what shiny thing Ellen is interested in this week.

Laura Goodrich

Laura Goodrich

Innovator, Speaker, and Coach

Laura Goodrich is an internationally recognized expert in the field of workplace dynamics and relationships. She has over twenty five years professional experience; nineteen of which she has spent as an innovator, speaker, coach, and consultant. Her global perspective on business and change have earned her the reputation as a “team fixer”; someone who can create positive outcomes in even the most challenging workplace dynamics.

Goodrich is also the award winning author and producer of the book and film “Seeing Red Cars: Driving Yourself, Your Team and Your Organization to a Positive Future.” Described as ‘transformational, relevant and timely,’ Seeing Red Cars was chosen by the Wall Street Journal and LiveMint as a “Top Five Leadership Book”. Forbes magazine labeled it as a “must read,” for leaders who want what it takes to accomplish positive change.

Sandeep Aujla

Sandeep Aujla

Change Strategist and Speaker

Sandeep is a change strategist and speaker. She partners with leaders responsible for creating impactful changes in their organizations. Sandeep supports organizational change management through provision of consultations to change teams, keynotes at large-scale change events, and change capabilities’ training to leads across organizational levels. Sandeep also works one-on-one with individuals leading organizational or personal changes.
Ryan Burwell

Ryan Burwell

Instructions Designer, and Educator

Ryan Burwell is an award-winning educator, instructional designer and professional speaker who has spent the last 15 years crafting innovative educational experiences for students and teachers. Straddling the worlds of education and entrepreneurship, he is the Education Lead for acclaimed social enterprise Twenty One Toys, the lead designer and facilitator for the Entrepreneurial Thinking initiative at MaRS Discovery District, and the founder Scale Educational Design, a consultancy that helps organizations weave innovation into their educational offerings.

 

 

Vikas Narula

Vikas Narula

Founder at Keyhubs

Vikas is an entrepreneur, blogger, speaker and adjunct professor. After spending 15 years in the start-up world, Vikas stumbled-on his own business idea (Keyhubs), while completing an MBA at Duke University.  He nurtured the idea for a couple of years before quitting his job in 2009 to pursue it full-time. Keyhubs® is a software and services company specializing in the power and wisdom of human networks and crowd-sourced sentiment.

 

 

 

 

Tracey Peever

Tracey Peever

After 15 years of managing complex digital projects and serving a vast roster of private, public and non-profit sector clients in Montreal and Toronto, Tracey earned a Masters degree in Human Systems Intervention from Concordia University and designation as an Integral Coach from Integral Coaching Canada. Since 2009 she has facilitated transformative dialogue and organizational change to help midwife a new world of work relationships, moving away from hierarchical structures toward partnered, participative democratic models.

She currently manages projects and facilitates educational resource development with Open School BC at the BC Ministry of Education. She is also an Argentine tango dancer, teacher and performer and sits on the Board of Bridges for Women.

Learn more about her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Lauren Waldman

Lauren Waldman

Learning Pirate

Lauren Waldman is a curiosity seeker with a deep desire to learn, share, help, and laugh.  

She taps into the science, and fun of learning while maintaining a sharp approach with an intense dedication to the success of others.   Her current focus in the studies of neuroscience and how the brain learns, has played an eminent role in helping individuals and corporations navigate through the creation of what she calls “Learning Legacies.” These studies have also given rise to strategies relevant to the confusions and challenges, of the current cross-generational workforce. 

Lauren is a CTDP (Certified Training and Development Professional), has certification in the Fundamentals of Neuroscience (Harvard), is currently working on a certificate in Medical Neuroscience (Duke), is a Designated  Communication Coach and Trainer, and is an advisory board member of the NCCA (National Communication Coaching Association of Canada)

Stuart Oakley

Stuart Oakley

Agile Coach

Currently an Agile Coach with CGI and works within the financial industry at one of the two Banks in Canada.  For more than 8 years now, Stuart has been on an Agile journey to help software teams become better at what they do.  Stuart is an Agile Team Coach, Lean Practitioner and Agile Trainer that is exploring ways of helping teams deliver valuable product to our customers.  Prior to the Agile journey, Stuart was a Project Manager, Teacher and Armoured Crewman with the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve.  By leveraging this experience, Stuart has been bringing change for the better to the teams he works with.

We are excited to have Stuart as our Emerging Speaker this year!

Meet some of the Spark Team!

Hazel van der Werken

Hazel van der Werken

Wonder Woman

My passion is to rid all companies of mediocre customer service. Why? Because I hate bad service, there really is no need for it. I realize the immense value it can bring to companies who embrace great customer service and make it a core company value and also know that it is achievable for all companies who are open to change and disrupting the status quo.

I believe in attentiveness to detail; being respectful; sincerity in all that you do; being intentional about what you do, being pro-active in trying new things, being purposeful and keeping things simple, meaningful and fun!

 

 

Sue Johnston

Sue Johnston

Spark Team

I help you talk so people listen – and listen so people talk. ★

My vision is to help you change the world, one conversation at a time. As a coach and trainer, my focus is on interaction. I’m at my best helping people develop shared understanding. With an IT background and a base in Waterloo, Canada’s tech hub, I work in three related areas:

★ Help people (especially the Agile community) learn and use professional coach skills to build effective teams
★ Coach team leaders and specialists to develop conscious communication practices to improve their work and workplaces
★ Train and coach teams and leaders introducing new/agile work practices.

 

Jason Little

Jason Little

Spark Team

 

Jason began his career as a web developer when Cold Fusion roamed the earth. Over the following years, he moved into management, Agile Coaching and consulting. The bumps and bruises collected along the way brought him to the realization that helping organizations adopt Agile practices was less about the practices, and all about change.

In 2008 he attended an experiential learning conference about how people experience change and since then, he’s been writing, and speaking, all over the world about helping organizations discover more effective practices for managing organizational change. He is the author of Lean Change Management and an international speaker who has spoken all over the world from Canada, the US, Finland, Germany, Australia, Belgium and more.

 

 

Register for Spark the Change Toronto 2018!

Leap of Faith: $349 (sold out!)
Motivated Change Maker: $429 (sold out)
Early Majority: $469 (sold out)
Late Adopter: $549 (14 left!)

Special Option: Send a team of 5: $1600 (sold out!)