Featured Speakers

Mike Lyles is a Director of QA and Project Management with over 20 years of IT experience in multiple organizations, including Fortune 50 companies. He has exposure in various IT leadership roles: software development, program management office, and software testing. He has led various teams within testing organizations: functional testing, test environments, software configuration management, test data management, performance testing, test automation, and service virtualization.

Mike has been successful in career development, team building, coaching, and mentoring of IT & QA professionals.  Mike has been an international keynote speaker at multiple conferences and events, and is regularly published in testing publications and magazines. His first published motivational book will be released this year.

You can learn more about Mike at www.MikeWLyles.com where you can also find his social media links and connect with him there also. His book site is at www.TheDriveThruBook.com

With five large-scale agile transformations under his belt, Josh Anderson has seen it all—good agile, bad agile, and other things sometimes referred to as agile. With his recent founding of kazi, LLC, Josh now focuses exclusively on using his broad experience to accelerate his customer’s success through agile transformations and all other aspects of software engineering. As a founding member of the Agile Podcast Network, he delivers continuous content with his co-host Bob Galen in their agile-centric podcast The Meta-Cast. Follow Josh on Twitter @nosrednAhsoJ and learn more about his company at www.kazi.io.

Shaun Bradshaw is a co-founder and principal of Zenergy Technologies, a software quality and test automation solutions firm with multiple industry experts under one roof and a large testing facility in North Carolina. With over eighteen years in the IT industry, Shaun is a recognized expert and thought leader in QA and test process improvement, test management, and metrics. Shaun has architected the test strategy and managed large teams of testers for numerous projects including a two-year, $70 million ERP implementation that went into production with no major issues. A regular on the QA and testing industry speaking circuit, Shaun has delivered keynotes at the largest testing conference in the U.S. as well as internationally.

David Dang, VP of Automated Solutions for Zenergy Technologies, has been a leading figure in the test automation industry for over eighteen years. At Zenergy, David spearheads test automation by developing advanced frameworks that emphasize reusability and reduce maintenance efforts. With his foundation in software development, David can quickly grasp complex IT architectures, critical business functions, and processes as well as cultural dynamics to provide customized automation solutions that provide significant savings for Zenergy’s clients. He is in high-demand as a conference speaker and keynote presenter.

Bob Galen is an Agile Methodologist, Practitioner & Coach based in Cary, NC. In this role he helps guide companies and teams in their pragmatic adoption and organizational shift towards Scrum and other agile methodologies and practices. He is director of agile practices at Zenergy Technologies, a leading agile transformation company. He is also President and Head Coach at RGCG. Bob regularly speaks at international conferences and professional groups on topics related to software development, project management, software testing, and team leadership. He is a Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), and an active member of the Agile & Scrum Alliances. He’s published three agile focused books: The Three Pillars of Agile Quality and Testing in 2015, Scrum Product Ownership, in 2009 – 2’nd Edition in 2013, and Agile Reflections in 2012.

Anne Hungate is an IT executive with more than twenty years’ experience. Experimenting with both engineering practices and organizational design, Anne determined that people and trust are the keys to better software, while facts and data link IT results to business value. Anne is the president of Daring Systems, a consultancy practice that helps clients improve their productivity and profitability by understanding their software delivery supply chain. Anne has presented at local and national conferences, sharing the lessons learned over two decades of transformation and delivery. Anne holds her DevOps Foundation, DevOps Test Engineer, and professional coaching certifications and has earned both CSQA and PMP designations.

Chris Lawson has over 18 years in the software testing industry where he gained extensive experience designing, developing, and implementing advanced test automation frameworks and performance testing programs. He has worked in numerous quality-related roles including engineering, architecture, Agile leadership, and management. He is a highly accomplished thought leader who regularly speaks at local and national conferences on various technical topics. As a practitioner, Chris also implements automation solutions for clients using both commercial and open source tools.

Chris is currently Co-Founder & CTO of HR Logic Solutions where he leverages his expertise and experience to deliver results focused on personal growth, leadership development, and technology. He is passionate about delivering solutions that improve business efficiencies and helping clients reach their targeted outcomes.

Ken Pugh helps companies evolve into lean-agile technical organizations through training and coaching. His special interests are in creating high quality systems with Acceptance Test-Driven Development / Behavior Driven Development, accelerating DevOps by collaboration,  and using lean principles to deliver business value quickly.  He has written several software development books including the 2006 Jolt Award winner Prefactoring and his latest: Lean-Agile Acceptance Test-Driven Development: Better Software Through Collaboration. Ken has helped clients from London to Boston to Sydney to Beijing to Hyderabad. He is the co-creator of the SAFe® Agile Software Engineering course. You can see all his services at http://kenpugh.comand contact him at ken@kenpugh.com.

Jason Screuder is a lean-agile coach, trainer, and leader. He provides expert coaching and facilitation around business process enablement, organizational design and dynamic teaming to help organizations sense and respond to future challenges. Jason has a diverse background with leadership, coaching, facilitation, and team-building skills gained from years in the military and the engineering/technology industry. He works with teams of all types to collaborate better, deliver more effectively, and continuously improve. He works with leaders at all levels to adopt an innovative, agile mindset around management and to evolve as servant leaders and coaches within their organization. Jason engages with practical approach to coaching that challenges traditional views of the way work works, and what it means to be a leader in the ever-changing and complex global economy.