Meet our speakers for 2023

Great local and international talent

Alex Sloley

Alex Sloley is an agile evangelist, trainer, and coach with extensive global experience. Author of “The Agile Community” (2022), he is a regular speaker and active organiser within the agile community. Alex serves as the Scrum Alliance Shepherd for the Agile Coaching Retreat Advisor Team and co-chairs the Agile Coaching Ethics Initiative for the Agile Alliance. Alex is a Certified Enterprise Coach, ICAgile Authorized Instructor, and Kanban Coaching Professional, known for his commitment to helping others—and his appreciation of good beer.

The Fine Art of Zero F***s Given

A fundamental and critical skill for any agile coach or leader is the pursuit of the fine art of “Zero F***s Given” ZFG. However, ZFG does not mean “I don’t care”! It’s really a mindset that embraces a myriad of concepts: fear, empathy, objectivity, neutrality, bias, drama, emotional intelligence, and more! Understanding the philosophy of ZFG will empower you to embrace this powerful skill so that you can become a more effective agile coach and leader.

Agile Cheer – Bring it on! (co-delivered with Roslyn Martin)

Alex and Roslyn explore how high-performing teams can foster their own success through the art of agile cheerleading. This interactive workshop draws on professional cheerleading lessons to create a culture where teams actively support, celebrate, and encourage themselves. Participants will learn the four pillars of agile cheerleading—synchrony, chants, formations, and emotions—and how to apply these to energise teams, boost morale, and engage stakeholders. Combining Roslyn’s expertise as a professional cheerleader with Alex’s agile coaching experience, this session blends storytelling, practical exercises, and lively team activities to super-charge team performance .

Anthony Marter

Anthony is the Chief Product Officer at Solarzero, leading transformational change in New Zealand’s energy market and fostering a customer-led organisational culture. With over seven years in the product and agile communities, he co-founded Product Aotearoa to connect and support New Zealand’s broader product community. Passionate about helping product and agile professionals find their tribe and grow, Anthony is committed to strengthening the NZ tech sector. Outside of work, he dedicates time as a volunteer for sports and cultural organisations, contributing to a more inclusive and thriving New Zealand.

Transformational Storytelling: Why brains need stories

Transformations often begin with uninspiring narratives like “go faster, be better,” but real change requires a compelling and engaging story. In this talk, Anthony will explain why impactful storytelling is crucial for lasting success at both the organisational and individual levels. He’ll share examples of where storytelling has driven successful transformations—and where it has fallen flat. Participants will learn the importance of compelling narratives, the consequences of weak stories, and practical ways to identify and craft effective stories for their organisations.

speaker-2023-audree-sahota-and-michael-sahota

Audrey Sahota and Michael Sahota

Audree, co-founder of SHIFT3.14, specialises in Evolutionary Leadership and transformation through the SELF™ system and Evolutionary Energetics™. An author and expert in consciousness and energetic healing, she blends metaphysical practices with coaching and holds advanced certifications in meditation, yoga, and healing.

Michael, creator of the Shift3.14 Evolutionary Leadership Framework™, focuses on personal and organisational transformation. An author of ‘An Agile Adoption and Transformation Survival Guide‘ and ‘Leading Beyond Change‘, he helps leaders evolve through inner growth and practical application. Michael specialises in facilitating deep change through energy work and emotional mastery.

Together, Audree and Michael achieve their vision of transforming humanity through their thought leadership and training on the importance of shifting consciousness of business leaders for sustainable success.

Pre-conference masterclass: Want a revolution? (track: Wellbeing) co-delivered with Michael Sahota

Experience the power of evolutionary leadership and become the change you seek. This hands-on workshop explores The Sixth Method of Awakening—a transformative technique to reset your mind-body-energy system, enhance psychological safety, and access deeper consciousness. By integrating diverse perspectives and leading with radical self-awareness and responsibility, you’ll accelerate your ability to inspire lasting change. Participants will engage in awareness exercises and gentle breathing practices for profound personal growth. Yoga mats provided; feel free to bring your own.

Biunca Hooper

Biunca is a Business Agility Coach dedicated to helping leaders drive culture-first transformations. As the Director for Talent and Culture at EPiC Agile, she brings a passion for people and a deep understanding of what inspires and engages. Her journey began as a youth leader and instructor with the New Zealand Cadet Forces, later expanding to roles in sales, change management, and organisation design before transitioning into business agility. Biunca combines individual and systemic perspectives to create thriving workplaces.

Drinking champagne

Biunca shares her journey to create a self-organising, self-evolving organisation where team members choose their own leaders, build personal plans for growth, and make capability a strategic advantage. She discusses embedding real experiments into daily operations, the decisions made, and the highs and lows encountered over the past year. Participants will gain insights into key considerations for self-organisation and self-selection, using experiments effectively, and balancing direction with emergent outcomes.

Empowerment – we all have a role to play

Biunca explores how to reframe empowerment, moving beyond a catchphrase to create meaningful engagement. Participants will examine what empowerment truly means, why it matters, and the roles of individuals, teams, leaders, and organisations in fostering it. Using four lenses—individual, team, leader, and organisation—the session delves into key insights, considerations, and responsibilities for enabling genuine empowerment. You’ll leave with a deeper understanding of how to design an intentional journey toward empowerment at every level.

Cheryl Tansey

Cheryl is passionate about people, wellbeing, and fostering growth-centred workplaces. With 18 years in people and communications, 11 years in IT and agile, seven as a professional coach, and four as an adult educator, she integrates agile practices, workflow design, and human-centred culture development. Cheryl supports leaders in mobilising their teams through agile and wellbeing practices, creating wellbeing roadmaps, enhancing professional vitality, and strategically scaling wellbeing initiatives.

Pre-conference masterclass: Agile wellbeing (track: Wellbeing)

This workshop is designed for leaders, advisors, and agile team members who care deeply about their own wellbeing and that of others. Participants will tackle issues like agile burnout, sprint fatigue, work/life imbalance, and overwhelm. Through a half-day, in-person session, you’ll explore the concept of agile wellbeing, integrating agile practices with human-centered design approaches. The session includes experiential learning methods combining mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing practices, as well as group discussions to develop practical agile wellbeing strategies. Commitment to personal growth is key.

Is Agile increasing burnout at work?

With one in three New Zealanders at high risk of burnout, Cheryl examines whether agile practices, which have transformed work processes, contribute to this phenomenon. This talk explores emerging patterns in workplace wellbeing and how agile can be leveraged to create more sustainable ways of working. Participants will learn how to assess and regulate their own wellbeing in agile environments.

Clarke Ching

Clarke is a best selling author on Amazon and wrote ‘Rolling Rocks Downhill‘, ‘The Bottleneck Rules‘, and ‘CorkScrew Solutions‘. He has been involved with agile since 2003 and has been powered by the Theory of Constraints (ToC) for over 25 years. Clarke created the AgileTocMethod (ATM), which helps larger businesses create thriving, profitable workplaces by cherrypicking the best of agile and ToC.

Pre-conference masterclass: The Agile ToC Method (track: Systems thinking)

Join Clarke Ching to learn how to apply the Theory of Constraints to existing teams, creating a more profitable, productive, and calm business environment. This masterclass covers managing bottlenecks, positioning them effectively, setting up key projects to meet or exceed aggressive deadlines, and implementing Quiet Change. Ideal for those with a solid agile foundation who are ready to expand their expertise.

Keynote: Quiet Change – reframe for trust

Hundreds of millions of dollars are at risk. The vendor and customer teams have worked together for over a decade. They hate each other. But they’re trapped working with each other. It’s like a bad marriage but hundreds are suffering. Things are so bad they couldn’t possibly get worse, could they? They’ve tried everything… but then someone says , “Have you heard about Agile?”

It’s 2007 and this is a true story. It’s not really about Agile, it’s about rebuilding trust, and letting 100s of people like their jobs again.

Dr. Dani Chesson

Inspired by her roots in human-centred design, Dani established the Design Thinker Institute to help others harness the human power of design. She uses behavioural science to drive innovation and organisational change, and has worked with corporates and government agencies in the USA and New Zealand. An adjunct faculty member at Denver University and Antioch University, she lectures on organisational science and research methodology. Dani also co-hosts the Design Thinker Podcast.

Design thinker profile: the six questions for leading yourself and others through change

Why do our best-laid plans for change often fail? This talk explores the brain science behind our struggle with change, both personally and in organisations. Dani shares six research-backed questions designed to help us keep moving forward. Attendees will gain insights into how our brains resist change, learn evidence-based techniques to overcome these biases, and discover practical ways to lead themselves and others through transformative journeys.

David Morris

David is dedicated to creating businesses that prioritise people, the planet, and profit—building humane, inclusive workplaces where everyone has a voice. In 2022, he rebranded his coaching and education business as Align to Deliver, focusing on supporting OKR frameworks for coaches, teams, and leaders. A strong community contributor, David co-founded Agile on the Beach NZ and has collaborated with the Agile Alliance and IIBA in both New Zealand and the UK. He is also an accomplished writer, with works including Scrum: An Ideal Framework for Agile Projects (2017) and the third edition of Agile Project Management (2022).

Pre-conference masterclass: Coaching OKRs (track: Coaching skills)

Are your teams struggling to focus on outcomes rather than outputs? In this hands-on masterclass, David draws on over 15 years of coaching experience, including five years focused on Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), to help teams align their work with organisational purpose. Participants will gain practical insights and techniques for crafting effective OKRs, enhancing quarterly planning, and linking Sprint goals to objectives for maximum impact. David will also introduce “Rule the World,” a new card game designed to teach OKR setting, offering attendees a chance to learn, play, and take home their own deck to engage their teams.

Dawie Olivier

Dawie is a leader of large-scale enterprise change, focused on transforming companies into product-managed, customer-led organisations through culture, people, and technology. He recently led the “Lines of Business” transformation at Westpac Group, redesigning operating models and working methods across multiple units, sponsored by the Group CEO. With extensive experience leading complex technology and digital teams, Dawie has driven initiatives such as engineering practice modernisation, core system replacements, and technology strategy redesign, positioning technology at the heart of organisational strategy.

Keynote: tales from the dark side

Dawie Olivier shares his experiences leading enterprise-level agility transformations in large organisations around the world—sometimes as a change-driving agitator and other times as the “dark empire” enforcing compliance. With stories of rebellion, growth, and maturity, this keynote offers lessons learned from his journey. Attendees will gain practical insights, tips, and real-world strategies to apply in their own contexts.

Heidi Helfand

Heidi, author of ‘Dynamic Reteaming‘, coaches software development teams with practical, people-focused techniques to build resilient organisations during rapid growth. With over 20 years in tech, she played key roles in launching Procore Technologies and AppFolio to IPO and guiding Expertcity’s acquisition by Citrix. Heidi was also part of the original development team for GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar. She is based in Southern California.

Pre-conference masterclass: Coaching conversations (track: Coaching skills

Unlock the power of effective coaching conversations by mastering focused listening, self-management, and directed curiosity to empower others to solve their own problems. This interactive workshop offers a crash course in coaching conversations, helping you become a more empowering leader, colleague, and friend. Participants will practice essential skills such as the three levels of listening, paraphrasing, mirroring, and asking open-ended questions through hands-on exercises. Real-life challenges are explored in small groups, providing practical, experiential learning applicable to all areas of life. You’ll gain insights on designing coaching conversations, transforming one-on-one meetings, and fostering accountability, along with ethical considerations in coaching.

Keynote: Dynamic Reteaming

Team change is inevitable—people join, leave, teams grow, split, or merge. This constant flux can feel exhilarating yet unsettling, especially amidst the demands of delivering high-quality work. In this keynote, Heidi Helfand explores dynamic reteaming, offering insights into predictable patterns, practical tactics, and a reframed perspective on embracing team change as a natural and essential part of growth.

Jakub Jurkiewicz

Jakub is the founder of the Agile Coaching Lab and has been immersed in agile practices since 2005. With experience as an agile practice lead, coach, software developer, team leader, scrum master, and consultant, he has spent years honing his craft. Jakub has worked across startups embracing daily change and large corporations wary of innovation, learning that collaboration, openness, and trust are essential for fostering growth and change. He holds a PhD in applying agility and automation to requirements analysis and is an active community facilitator, hosting Agile Coach Camps, Product Tank Unconferences, and Global Code Retreats, and speaking at numerous conferences worldwide.

Agile Taboo – Agile words that cannot be spoken

Join this engaging twist on the classic game of Taboo, where participants must get their teammates to guess agile-related terms without using the word itself or specified restricted words. Teams will work in short timeboxes, creating an energetic, fun-filled environment that offers a fresh perspective on agility. Expect laughter, enthusiasm, and a chance to deepen your agile knowledge base. Participants will explore the vastness of agile concepts, discover new ways to describe familiar terms, and learn innovative techniques for teaching agile topics.

Lee Thomas

Lee is an experienced agile leader, coach, facilitator, and trainer who has worked extensively with agile methods throughout his career. He has led and collaborated with some of Australia and New Zealand’s top agile practices, partnering with high-profile clients including Ford Motor Company, Origin Energy, Telstra, Suncorp, British Gas, Westpac, ASB, Vodafone, Fraedom, and IAG.

Lift off for the Agile Release Plane

In response to the severe impact of COVID-19, Flight Centre embarked on a $20 million, 12-month transformation to redefine its operations, hiring and training over 80 people to launch an agile release plane. Lee shares the journey of this ambitious program, highlighting the critical role of a dedicated team of Scrum Masters and the challenges and successes encountered along the way. Delivered on time and under budget, this story offers valuable insights into organisational resilience and agile transformation.

Lyssa Adkins

Lyssa is dedicated to helping leadership teams embrace Agile transformations on both personal and collective levels. A passionate contributor to the Agile Coaching profession, she has trained thousands of agilists in the skills, knowledge, and mindsets necessary to maximise Agile’s benefits. Lyssa is the author of Coaching Agile Teams, a long-standing bestseller that marked its 10th anniversary with an audiobook release. She believes Agile is a powerful, emergent response to today’s complex, changeable, and interconnected world.

Keynote: What if we were made for this time?

In an era of rapid acceleration and unprecedented challenges—from exponential technologies to rising burnout—Lyssa explores what role Agilists might play in addressing this “species moment.” Drawing on her journey in Regenerative Leadership, she shares raw, real-time insights on evolving consciousness to meet complex global challenges. This keynote invites reflection on our shared future, offering new concepts, deep connection, and meaningful conversations on how Agile can help shape a more resilient world.

Mish McCormack & Greig Rightford

Mish and Greig have been coaching high-performance individuals on health & wellbeing for over 25 years – being recognised for a number of national and international awards in this area. Their goal has always been to align health, wellbeing and physical resilience for people in all environments. They both consult with organisations throughout New Zealand on health & wellness initiatives to develop forward-thinking enterprises that can prosper through change.

Keynote: Seeking adversity

Living and working in dynamic environments ultimately means living with continual change and challenge. Whether adversity is expected or not – are we really setting ourselves up to manage the tougher moments in life? Stress, trauma, grief – they are coming whether we like it or not. How we navigate these times can define our life story and make us who we are.

In this keynote, Mish and Greig offer fresh perspectives on reframing adversity and building resilience. Attendees will learn about the physiology of stress, gain insights into thriving physically, socially, and mentally, and explore tools and methods to enhance resilience in challenging times.

Mispah Carelsen

Mispah is the Agile Coaching Chapter Lead and Enterprise Agile Coach at Countdown. Her agile journey began in 2012 as a Marketing Manager at a tech startup, sparking a passion that led her to various agile roles before focusing on coaching and leading agilists. Mispah is dedicated to leadership, empowering people, and bringing humanity back to the workplace. An active member of the Business Agility community, she is also pursuing a PhD focused on leading Gen Z and Millennials with a feminine leadership style.

Leading the workforce of the future

As work and workplace dynamics evolve rapidly, traditional leadership behaviours are increasingly out of touch. Millennials and Gen Z, who are now a significant part of the workforce, prefer leaders with feminine qualities, signalling a shift in leadership paradigms. Mispah Carelsen shares insights from her PhD research, exploring what feminine leadership entails, why it is crucial for leading younger generations, and how it transcends gender roles. This talk delves into the characteristics of feminine leadership and its potential to empower the workforce of the future.

Noah Cantor

Noah has over 20 years of IT experience, beginning on a service desk before moving into backend systems and ultimately managing a range of electrical systems. Realising that technical solutions alone didn’t address people’s needs, he delved into psychology, group dynamics, and systems thinking. For the past 12 years, Noah has focused on understanding how organisations function, clarifying their goals, and guiding them to make meaningful changes to achieve their objectives.

Masterclass: Visualising system dysfunction (track: Systems thinking)

Join Noah Cantor to learn how to visualise systemic problems within any group, from departments to entire organisations. Gain clarity on why change efforts often fail and discover an approach to foster unity among those impacted by and those who can influence the system. This foundational unity is key to successful change. You will gain familiarity with Theory of Constraints and Systems Thinking, understanding that complex system problems may not be immediately obvious, and insights into exposing system complexity to enhance unity and collaboration.

Creating unity with systems thinking

One of the biggest obstacles to organisational change is misalignment among leaders about the core problem. This often leads to partially effective solutions since only some leaders agree on the problem being addressed. Noah demonstrates how systems thinking tools can connect and visualise leaders’ diverse perspectives, fostering a shared understanding of the challenges at hand. By aligning on a unified problem, organisations can then logically assess and predict which interventions are most likely to succeed. This approach creates a cohesive narrative and goal for leadership, enabling more effective change.

Roslyn Martin

Roslyn is skilled facilitator, bringing groups together to generate fresh perspectives and creative solutions. With experience as a Customer Experience Lead and Product Manager at a multinational company, Roslyn has a track record of centring customers in business decisions. She holds a Marketing and Psychology degree and earned her MBA in 2022. A seasoned speaker, she shares insights on unlocking team potential. Outside work, Roslyn is a qualified classical ballet instructor and enjoys time with her children or reading on her farmhouse deck.

Agile Cheer – bring it on! (co-delivered with Alex Sloley)

Sally Sloley

Sally Sloley is an Agile Coach, she specialises in lean agile visual management and works mostly in Sydney, Australia. Sally cut her agile chops at Microsoft, where she worked as a technical web person for over 20 years. Her agile experience spans a variety of industries, from high-tech to telecom to financial to airline. Sally is a co-founder of multiple Lean Coffees, enjoys organisng agile conferences like LAST and Scrum Australia, and speaks internationally.

Agile Coaches: You get what you ask for

Sally has seen a lot of bad agile coach job descriptions. Sometimes it’s a lack of understanding about the role, often it’s a company trying to force it’s version of “agile” to become commonplace. Sally will take you through some of the red flags and help sort out what they mean for the company and for the potential coaches.

Soma Mazumder

Soma is an Agile & Kanban Coach and Trainer based in Sydney, Australia. With a background as a manual tester, SAP BI consultant, and Salesforce admin, she found her passion as a Scrum Master. Soma regularly presents at conferences and helps organise community events, driven by her passion for understanding the human mind and team dynamics. Committed to continuous learning, she is currently exploring systems thinking and Cynefin. In her downtime, Soma enjoys watching murder mysteries.

Adaptability – a toolkit for survival

Change can be intimidating and uncomfortable, making adaptability essential for success in any aspect of life. In this session, Soma Mazumder introduces the concept of the Adaptability Quotient (AQ) and its connection to our mental models. Participants will explore ways to identify and evolve their mental models to become more adaptable. Through shared activities, attendees—particularly Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, Change Agents, Managers, and Leaders—will gain practical insights to support themselves and others in navigating change with confidence and resilience.

Susan Abishara

Susan brings over 30 years of expertise in organisational performance, agility, and strategic execution, delivering proven results by focusing on ROI and reducing time to market. Her experience spans a diverse range of organisations, including Citibank, Credit Suisse, ANZ, SEEK, Westpac, and more. Susan tailors ‘fit for purpose’ operating models to align with each organisation’s unique DNA, leveraging lean, agile, systems thinking, value streams, DevOps, and service design. Her people-centric approach emphasises cultural change, fostering high-performance teams built on trust, mutual support, and a strong sense of purpose and clarity.

Is this the end of agility? Who wants fast and adaptive anyway?

With growing claims that “agile is dead,” it’s time to confront this debate head-on. Susan explores how agile, rooted in empiricism like science and medicine, relies on both positive and negative findings for success. She calls for a shift away from ‘Zombie Agile’, restructuring, and cost-cutting disguised as agility. Instead, Susan advocates a return to real agile fundamentals, demonstrating its true value and transformative potential. Let’s confidently redefine and revitalise agility for today’s challenges.

Zach Heywood

Zach is a Practices Coach at BNZ with over eight years of agile experience, spanning private, public, and banking sectors in roles such as Scrum Master, Agile Coach, and Business Analyst. Working with Redvespa, he combines expertise in Product, Design Thinking, and Agile, focusing on building high-performing product teams that deliver sustainably. Zach has contributed to impactful projects, including developing NotifyUs for the Privacy Commissioner and innovative applications in the Building Sector. Outside of work, he spent eight years as a professional wrestler, teaching character classes, and even performed stand-up comedy during the NZ Comedy Festival.

The power of empathy: applying personas and empathy mapping to help you re:form your wow

Empathy is often considered the missing agile value. When forming agile ways of working, leaders sometimes prioritise processes and tools over people. In this workshop, Zach explores the importance of understanding individuals within your organisation and demonstrates how Personas and Empathy Mapping—two powerful Design Thinking techniques—can reshape and enhance your ways of working. Participants will learn how empathy-driven approaches can drive meaningful transformation and collaboration.