Meet our speakers for 2020

Great local and international talent

Alex Sloley

Alex is an Agile consultant with expertise in Agile training, coaching, and software development best practices. A Microsoft veteran of 15 years, he held roles as Program Manager and Software Engineer, contributing to over ten product releases and leading enterprise-level Scrum adoption. Alex has since guided Agile transformations across diverse industries, applying a wide range of Agile practices.

Beer Kanban

Join the legendary Beer Tasting Kanban Game—a workshop that combines beer tasting and Kanban learning, created by Danish Agile Coach Allan Jepsen and revered in Agile Coaching Camps across Europe. With the current world title contested between Copenhagen and London, Alex is calling on New Zealand to rise to the challenge! The rules remain a mystery, adding to the intrigue. Are you ready to compete and bring the title home?

Allan Kelly

Allan is the author of seven books including “Continuous Digital” and “The Art of Agile Product Ownership,” as well as pioneering techniques like Value Poker and Retrospective Dialogue Sheets. He consults, coaches, and trains software teams, helping companies adapt to the agile and digital world while enhancing team performance.

Continuous why and how

Allan challenges traditional project-centric approaches by exploring the transformative power of a “continuous” mindset across work organisation and delivery. Drawing on real-world examples, Allan demonstrates how teams can reconcile working in small, frequent increments with maintaining strategic focus. He illustrates why excessive pre-planning often backfires and how “just in time” approaches to design and planning deliver superior results.

Participants will gain insights into: the advantages of continuous over project-based delivery, techniques for empowering teams at strategic and tactical levels, practical methods for breaking down work into coherent, manageable pieces, and overcoming common obstacles to adopting continuous delivery.

Biunca Hooper

Biunca is a Business Agility Coach supporting business leaders to create culture first transformations. She is a passionate change agent with a background founded in facilitation, learning, organisation design, leadership and change management

Pre-conference masterclass: Visual Facilitation

This masterclass introduces various tools and techniques to improve the facilitation of meetings, training and workshops. It is designed to upskills attendees on what it takes to be a great facilitator.

Beth Gervase

Beth is dedicated to building high-performing teams and transforming both their work processes and mindsets. With the mantra “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional,” her light-hearted, pragmatic approach fosters safe spaces for teams to experiment and grow. Originally from the U.S. Southwest, Beth now calls Auckland home, where she serves as president of Agile Auckland, championing the agile community across Aotearoa.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Using references from this well-known Byrds song, we will talk about Tuckman’s fifth stage of team development – mourning. As a coach, mentor and team builder, how do we cope with changing teams, changing jobs, team churn, etc. It’s only when we recognize the feelings of sadness and loss that we can properly deal with them and help our teams deal with them as well

Cheryl Tansey

Cheryl is a second-generation agility coach, international storyteller, and creator of the world’s first female Agile Rap. As a signatory of the Agile People manifesto, she has coached teams across 11 countries over the past decade and delivered keynotes on four continents, driving change in how we view people at work. Cheryl’s current focus includes People Agility, People Sustainability, and reimagining HR. As an OpenSpace™ facilitator, she creates a setting for genuine, open, and impactful conversations.

Unconference deep-dive

The ‘unconference’ approach is a participant-led approach, based on OpenSpace™, giving participants the opportunity to explore the topics of most interest to them, sharing your ideas, experience and knowledge. This is an awesome opportunity for peer to peer learning and inspiration. Many of our speakers will be present providing another opportunity to engage with them and hopefully inspire and motivate you to return to your work, life and/or community and initiate positive, impactful changes.

Cillín Hearns

Cillín Hearns is author of the book First, Lead Yourself. He is a leadership and performance coach helping individuals and teams perform at a higher level.

Pre-conference masterclass: Developing your leadership philosophy

This masterclass explores different styles of leadership. We will create a framework for you to determine your strengths and your areas of development that will allow you to become a leader who can adapt and deliver in any environment.

Keynote: Resilience

Managing stress is something that is within our control. Developing the mental and emotional skills that lead to resilience helps us overcome seemingly Impossible hurdles and enables us to bounce back from tough times and to push through times of uncertainty.

Elizabeth Congdon

Elizabeth is dedicated to unlocking the essence of being human—mind, body, and soul—guided by the inspiration of leaders like Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and the iconic Coco Chanel. With over 30 years in the IT industry across Africa and New Zealand, her passion lies in seeing what she describes as “non-surgical facelifts,” those moments when individuals and teams step into their authentic selves and experience the freedom it brings.

Possibilities of mindfulness

Our perceived limitations often hold us back, with thoughts that can blind, disempower, or even incapacitate us. Elizabeth explores how active mindfulness practice can increase awareness of dominant thought patterns, enabling powerful choices and fostering a Growth Mindset. Participants will gain insights into the core components of mindfulness—Attention, Awareness, and Attitude—and explore its three dimensions: Inner, Relational, and Developmental.

Emlyn Hatch

Emlyn is a multifaceted individual with a career journey that spans roles as diverse as fridge cleaner, project manager, television manufacturer, and strategist—each step bringing valuable lessons. Passionate about leadership, trust, and business storytelling, Emlyn is endlessly curious about people and their stories. As he puts it, “It’s amazing what you can learn if you just shut the front door for five minutes.”

Business Storytelling 101

We have a choice: to captivate and inspire people with our message or to deliver forgettable, bland information. Emlyn will equip you with tools and techniques for impactful business storytelling. This workshop covers the essentials of story crafting, spotting and building better work stories, and avoiding common storytelling pitfalls. You’ll leave ready to create stories that engage and endure.

Emma Prentice

Emma, a lover of pens, Post-it, and people, brings leaders and teams together to create collaborative, empowered workplaces. She believes that agile success relies on a community effort and that smart, motivated individuals can tackle any challenge. When not wielding her Sharpies, Emma enjoys lifting heavy weights or capturing moments with her camera.

Confessions of a know it all

Emma shares her journey of realising she didn’t have all the answers. Starting her agile path five years ago, she eagerly packed her knowledge bag and climbed “Mt Stupid,” certain she understood it all. But when the ground shifted and her confidence crumbled, she found herself in the “valley of despair.” In this 20-minute talk, Emma recounts her experience with the Dunning-Kruger effect and offers three key insights that helped her regain her footing and grow as a practitioner.

Gareth Lees-West

Gareth is a Scrum Master and coach dedicated to helping people achieve better outcomes. Originally from Brighton, UK, he now resides in Melbourne, Australia. After attending Agile on the Beach NZ in 2019, he is thrilled to return as a speaker, sharing his passion and insights with the community.

Better connections and outcomes

This session explores how surfacing key value drivers within agile teams can motivate individuals and teams by aligning around a clear purpose or objective. Gareth will discuss moving away from “Feature Factory” behaviour by simplifying work and avoiding early solution convergence to drive better outcomes. Attendees will learn practical ways to foster focus, shared ownership, and alignment, improving motivation and overall system performance.

Graz Kania-Knight

Graz is driven by the passion to help colleagues grow and reach their full potential. Beginning her agile journey with product development teams in the UK, she now guides New Zealand organisations in creating products that customers love and cultivating better workplaces. Graz thrives on coaching, helping others challenge their thinking, create positive change, and achieve their goals.

From self-doubt to confidence

Have you ever wondered, “Am I good enough?” or “Do I deserve this?” Many of us experience self-doubt, but for some, it can become a mindset that holds us back. Join Graz as she explores how awareness, reflection, and mindful practices can help us build self-confidence and embrace new challenges with greater courage and resilience.

Jakub Jurkiewicz

Jakub combines expertise in software engineering, leadership, organisational design, agile coaching, and change management—and now leads a 30-person team developing technology to enhance medical staff wellbeing. He holds a PhD in software engineering and is passionate about continuous improvement, customer focus, and trust, he has worked across startups, established businesses, and corporations. An active speaker and mentor in the technology and agile communities, Jakub also hosts the Tech Waka podcast and has a mobile app available on the AppStore.

Pre-conference masterclass: Coaching Dōjō

Imagine a place where you can come and try out new coaching techniques, get feedback, give feedback and learn from your successes and failures? This is what coaching dōjō is about! A highly interactive session.

Jenny Brownlee

Jenny is an Agile advocate, coach, and communicator dedicated to helping people tell their stories and become even more awesome each day. Currently coaching in the Ways of Working chapter at Telstra, she supports individuals and teams through agile transformation, fostering the skills and mindsets needed to thrive. A loyal friend, coffee connoisseur, and All Black fan, Jenny brings passion and connection to every aspect of her work, guiding people on their journeys of growth and discovery.

He Tāngata, He Tāngata, He Tāngata

Jenny believes that people must be at the heart of every agile journey, and as agile advocates, we need to make this a reality. However, agile is often seen as a silver bullet that will ‘fix everything,’ whereas it typically reveals underlying challenges, which creates vulnerability for individuals and businesses. If you’ve experienced this discomfort, you’re not alone. In this session, Jenny shares her thoughts on embracing empathy, recognition, and feedback; the importance of centring people in agile transformation; and the value of self-care to support others as they look into agile’s mirror.

Jodi Humphries

Jodi Humphries is a people-focused leader driven by a mission to create a sense of belonging and enable others to reach their full potential for a better work experience. She achieves this through coaching, mentoring, and practical problem-solving, collaborating with stakeholders to find the best-fit solutions.

Currently a Business Agility Consultant with Adept Group, Jodi is on assignment as a Scrum Master at Foodstuffs North Island. With over 18 years in IT and more than a decade delivering technical change, she has recently focused on enterprise-level agile coaching.

Framework for organisation behaviour

Jodi shares her experience in developing a framework, alongside a people and culture leader, to define organisational values and behaviours supported by measurable competencies. She will walk through the creation process, highlighting challenges and successes along the way. Participants will learn how to identify key behaviours and competencies, making organisational values more meaningful and actionable for employees.

Mat Horner

Mat specialises in guiding New Zealand software and technology companies through complex technical, cultural, and systemic change. With over 20 years of experience in software delivery, he is passionate about fostering better ways of working and driving continuous improvement across the entire value stream.

Keeping it real, change agents (co-delivered with Tanya Kennard-Campbell)

Drawing from their experiences in cultural/technical transformation, Tanya and Mat share practical lessons on what is achievable in individual, team, departmental, and organisational change. This session offers insights into staying realistic about transformation and provides tips for maintaining personal resilience while holding space for meaningful change.

Ola Berg

Ola is a former systems developer who began using agile methods in 2007 and transitioned to coaching large organisations soon after, becoming a full-time agile coach in 2012 with a focus on business agility. His work centres on building trust and bridging divides between people with differing mindsets and backgrounds across organisations. Based in Sweden, Ola has presented at Agile Leadership Day and multiple Agile Conferences in Sweden. For him, agility is not just professional but also a personal journey toward a more peaceful mind.

Emotional needs of managers

Agile methods emerged from the frustration of professionals whose expertise was often overlooked in decision-making. While Agile focuses on empowering front-line teams, upper management can sometimes be perceived as resistant, clinging to control and fearing change. But what if their resistance stems from the same human fears and needs we all have?

In this talk, Ola shares his approach to engaging with upper management, highlighting their psychological needs and the challenges they face in leadership roles. Drawing on client examples from Sweden, he provides practical insights to help bridge the gap, fostering more agility and confidence when addressing leadership concerns.

Ron Laudadio

Ron brings 23 years of leadership experience, inspiring innovation and guiding organisations to high performance. With 18 years of consulting at the C-suite level, Ron served as CTO at IBM, leading the architecture of six major global projects worth $1.5 billion and building an Agile practice of 127 consultants across North America, introducing Agile to 180 companies. Since 2002, Ron has championed Agile transformations, including leading IBM’s Toronto Centre for Innovation and scaling Ganz’s workforce to drive Agile success and rapid delivery.

Keynote: Wave 2 of Agile

Wave 2 of Agile goes beyond implementing practices—it’s about genuinely living the agile mindset. Ron explores how leaders can drive true transformation by modelling desired behaviours, empowering teams, and fostering a culture where change is embraced. This approach requires deep personal growth, adaptive responses to challenges, and continuous improvement, shifting agile from a process to a way of being.

Rowan Bunning

Rowan is a pioneer of Scrum in Australia, becoming one of the country’s first ScrumMasters in 2003 during a large-scale Scrum and XP adoption. An Agile Coach since 2007 and a Certified Scrum Trainer since 2008, Rowan has delivered over 380 Scrum courses across Oceania, Europe, and the US.

With expertise in coaching organisations from start-ups to global enterprises, he specialises in accelerating Agile adoption, team building, and cultural transformation. Rowan has extensive experience in high-performing development teams and is passionate about customer-centric agility, learning organisations, scaling with Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), and fostering innovation.

Leaders of Tomorrow

This session challenges common misconceptions surrounding the ScrumMaster role, highlighting its potential as a model for progressive leadership in an interconnected, volatile world. Drawing on customer-centric Lean principles and the need for high-trust, high-engagement teams, Rowan explores how skilful ScrumMasters can drive greater impact by focusing on systemic interventions rather than administrative tasks. By debunking myths and demonstrating the value of ScrumMasters as adaptive leaders, he outlines why investing in their professional growth is critical for navigating today’s complex environments and fostering tomorrow’s leadership.

Sándor Buzás

Sándor brings over 20 years of expertise in productivity, leadership, team building, and high performance across various industries and organisational sizes. As a Business, High Performance, and Agile Coach, he has worked extensively with company leaders and recently published a book on leadership. He is also a dedicated father of five, applying his insights to both professional and personal growth.

How to Scrum your conference

Attending a conference is an excellent opportunity for fun, networking, and transformative learning. In this session, Sándor will share his ten-step process to significantly amplify the impact of your conference experience using Agile principles. By framing these steps within a Scrum process—defining roles, backlogs, sprints, storyboards, and retrospectives—participants will see how Agile can enhance personal and professional growth. Sándor demonstrates how applying Agile frameworks in daily life deepens understanding, strengthens coaching credibility, and provides valuable stories to help clients and teams thrive.

Tanya Kennard-Campbell

Tanya’s experience in mental health has deepened her understanding of the human drive for growth, fulfillment, and overcoming obstacles through action and connection. She focuses on creating accelerated learning cultures in workplaces through deep performance, mental agility, and meaningful leadership, equipping businesses and individuals with essential skills like resilience, personal leadership, and social intelligence.

Creating connections, inside and out

This session explores how our moment-to-moment thoughts shape our mental experience and interactions. Tanya offers a simple yet profound approach to understanding ourselves and others without requiring specific practices or rituals—bringing mindfulness and wisdom to each moment. The discussion will cover personal growth, deep listening, connecting more meaningfully with others, and enhancing teamwork. Attendees will gain insight into how ‘thought in the moment’ influences our perceptions of others and shapes our experiences across time.

Keeping it real, change agents (co-delivered with Mat Horner)

Mayor Tenby Powell

Mayor Tenby is a leader with extensive experience in both the private and public sectors. He co-founded Hunter Powell Investments with his wife, Sharon Hunter, and has served on many corporate and government boards, including as Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Association and as a member of the APEC Business Advisory Council.

In 2019, he was elected Mayor of Tauranga, bringing his leadership experience to address the city’s growth and infrastructure challenges.

Mayor’s Welcome

Mayor Tenby warmly welcomed conference attendees to Tauranga, expressing gratitude for choosing the city as their venue and highlighting the positive economic and community impact of such gatherings. He noted Tauranga’s recent successes and its contributions to innovation and growth, emphasising the importance of collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and fostering strong industry networks. He closed by reiterating the city’s support for professional development and thriving business environments, and offered encouragement for a productive and impactful weekend.

Verna van Schalk

Verna is passionate about co-creating spaces where exceptional performance thrives and greatness becomes possible. With over 20 years in software development, she has been inspired by Agile’s potential to drive both high performance and personal growth. Since 2014, Verna has worked as an Agile coach across Lean, Kanban, Scrum, and SAFe frameworks, leading transformations in large organisations across two continents. As an Agile Chapter Lead at Westpac New Zealand, she focuses on nurturing thriving coaching ecosystems.

Outside of corporate life, Verna has run her own consultancy and holds a Guinness World Record for the Deepest Dive by a Woman on Scuba—an experience that informs her understanding of Agile and exceptional performance.

Coaching coaches

Finding great Agile coaches can be challenging, so why not focus on developing the greatness within your existing coaches? This session offers a glimpse into the journey of six coaches at Westpac New Zealand who explored what exceptional coaching could look like and the ecosystems needed to support it. Verna shares three foundational anchors that transformed their coaching team, demonstrating how coaches can grow together and bridge the gap to exceptional Agile coaching.

Wade Jackson

Wade is a speaker, author, and high-performance coach specialising in personal leadership, resilience, collaborative creativity, and organisational storytelling. His engaging teaching style blends practical tools with humour and inspiration, making him a frequent top-rated conference speaker.

Wade has worked globally across diverse industries with leaders, elite athletes, governments, and more. Author of Stories at Work and JOLT Challenge, Wade’s expertise lies in unlocking potential at individual, team, and organisational levels, helping people ignite their spark and live with purpose.

Pre-conference masterclass: Mind Dōjō – Resilience and inner strength

Change is inevitable, and life’s curveballs can leave us feeling overwhelmed and stressed, affecting our work, relationships, and overall well-being. Wade’s Masterclass equips you with the knowledge, tools, and practical experience to build resilience against internal and external pressures. By blending neuroscience, positive psychology, and playful techniques, you’ll learn how to strengthen mental resilience, enhance control, and access your high-performance state to better navigate life’s challenges.

Keynote: Play up – Boosting collaborative creativity

As business complexity accelerates, creative thinking has become one of the most critical skills for success. Tools, systems, and processes are meaningless without a creative mindset and culture. In this session, Wade presents the ‘Five Foundations of Collaborative Creativity’, essential for building high-performing, innovative cultures. He will debunk common myths that stifle creativity and share insights on creating environments that foster effective collaboration and fluent problem-solving.