Innovation is coming.
And so are the voices that will spark it.

Keynote Speakers

Robin Champ

Vice President, Strategic Foresight
LBL Strategies

Robin L. Champ Robin L. Champ is a visionary leader in strategic foresight and strategy management, currently serving as the Vice President, Strategic Foresight at LBL Strategies and an instructor at Harvard Extension School.

Retired as the Chief of the Enterprise Strategy Division at the United States Secret Service, Robin led the organization's foresight and strategic planning efforts. Notably, she also co-chaired the Federal Foresight Community of Interest, showcasing her commitment to advancing foresight practices across government.

Prior to her tenure at USSS, Robin served as the Chief of the Global Futures Office at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), where she also led strategy management and foresight for the agency.

In addition to her official positions, Ms. Champ is a U.S. Army proclaimed “Mad Scientist;” Co-Chair of the International Association for Strategy Professionals Government Community of Practice; Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Federal Foresight Advocacy Alliance (FFAA); and regular columnist for Homeland Security Today magazine.

Robin’s illustrious career has earned her accolades, including a commendation from the Vice President of the United States, the prestigious DTRA Director’s Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, and the U.S. Secret Service Director’s Impact Award.

Jod Kaftan

Digital Experience Design Sr. Director
Launch by NTT Data

Jod Kaftan Previously, as Head of Product Design & Research at Oracle, Jod led a global design practice delivering SaaS solutions that supported critical energy and construction services. Today, he heads the service design practice at Launch by NTT Data, where he is shaping the future of service innovation and helping organizations craft transformative, human-centered systems and experiences.

With over 20 years of experience designing cross-channel platforms for companies such as Sony, Google, and Wells Fargo, Jod has consistently championed human-centered business strategies that foster resilience and long-term value. By weaving strategic foresight into his design and coaching practice, he empowers organizations and individuals to embrace adaptive agility and drive innovation through personal agency. His leadership is grounded in a commitment to long-term thinking, aligning business visions with the evolving needs of society.

Ben Brenton

CIO
Snap-on

Robin L. Champ Bennett Brenton joined Snap-on Incorporated as Chief Innovation Officer and Vice President of Innovation in February 2007.  Snap-on is a leading global innovator, manufacturer and marketer of tools, diagnostics and equipment solutions for professional users.  Ben’s role is to drive innovative products, solutions and processes that fundamentally change the markets Snap-on serves and enhance customer perception of its brands. Ben has helped to create, support and institutionalize a culture at Snap-on that embraces creativity, risk, change and fearless innovation.   In early 2009 Ben launched Innovation Works! – a physical center for innovation at Snap-on’s office in Kenosha Wisconsin. Prior to joining Snap-on, Ben spent 4 years in Marketing at PepsiCo, most recently as the Director of Innovation for the Frito-Lay Convenience Foods division.  At PepsiCo he also led innovation as Director of Innovation for Tropicana and prior to that as Director of Innovation for Shelf Stable Beverages.  Before joining PepsiCo, Ben was Marketing Director of New Products at Kraft Foods.  He spent over 14 years at Kraft Foods, starting as a Research Scientist in Biotechnology and working in various roles with increasing responsibility and scope across R&D and Marketing.  Ben has over 20 years of experience focused on new product development, marketing and innovation.  Ben is a recognized expert in innovation and an expert at facilitating ideation sessions and customer interviews. Ben holds a Bachelors degree in Biology and a Masters degree in Microbial Genetics from the University of Nebraska.  He was awarded a fellowship in Biotechnology from the National Academy of Sciences and received a Ph.D, in Food Science and Nutrition with an emphasis in Molecular Genetics from the University of Massachusetts.  He is an active runner, cyclist and triathlete.


Speakers

Kevin Cahill

Deming Institute

Kevin Cahill Kevin Cahill has been a very successful entrepreneur. He is also President of the Deming Institute and grandson of Dr. Deming.

Kristyn Corrigan

Applied Marketing Science

Kristyn Corrigan Kristyn is a principal and co-owner of Applied Marketing Science, a Boston based market research consultancy that helps companies develop better products and services through harnessing the power of customer insights.

In her over 17 years of product development consulting experience, Kristyn has led and designed customer insights engagements for leading global B2B and consumer brands. She specializes in helping companies not only understand stated and latent customer needs through in-depth interviewing and ethnographic observation, but also with how to measure their criticality to innovation.

In addition to consulting work, Kristyn trains companies to create and implement their own in-house insights and Voice of the Customer programs. Her published work has been featured in Fast Company and Marketing News. She has guest lectured at several institutions, including the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Professionally, Kristyn is most energized when she’s helping clients uncover meaningful customer insights that change the way they think and that create real business impact. Personally, she enjoys traveling and spending as much time as she can with family and friends.

Kristyn holds a B.S. in marketing and sociology from Providence College and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Bentley University, with a concentration in Marketing Analytics.

John Mitchell

John Mitchell

Applied Marketing Science

Mike Hyzy As a leader in the Insights for Innovation practice at Applied Marketing Science (AMS), John Mitchell has over 20 years’ experience in marketing strategy, market research, and innovation.

He specializes in research to support new product development and customer experience design, and has led engagements in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Asia. John has also trained and coached hundreds of AMS clients to develop their in-house insight capabilities. He is a CXPA Certified Customer Experience Professional and a RIVA-trained focus group moderator.

John has spoken at popular conferences such as the Insights Association Corporate Researchers Conference, the Front End of Innovation Conference, and the Intellus Worldwide Summit; his presentation topics have included patient journey mapping, machine learning for medical and B2B markets, and conjoint analysis, among others.

Prior to his current role at AMS, John was a customer insights expert at McKinsey & Company, where he helped develop McKinsey’s model of the Consumer Decision Journey. He also worked at Innosight, an innovation strategy consulting firm founded by disruptive-innovation pioneer Clayton Christensen, and led the North America customer insights team at Cimpress.

John holds an MBA with distinction from New York University’s Stern School of Business and received his A.B. in government from Harvard College.

Sarah Waylett

Furman University

Jennifer Tuetken Sarah Waylett is responsible for all leadership & professional education product development and management at the CIL.  She is obsessed with all things workplace transformation and change, especially product and service development; employee and customer experience; workplace wellbeing; and culture, community and learning.

Prior to Furman, Sarah spent 17 years as an Innovation Evangelist at Accenture driving market innovation and strategic positioning through product and service development across multiple industries and functions leveraging multiple frameworks including Design Thinking and Agile. Once those products and services were established, she designed learning and development experiences for thousands of consultants to engage, learn and adopt new products, services and ways of working.

Sarah is also a thought leader in the innovation and resilience space as the creator and founder of Dreamgarten, where together, we cultivate fertile ground for innovation to take root and thrive.  Sarah provides speaking and education focused on The Inextricable Link Framework™ accelerating innovation and cultivating resilience for humans and organizations alike. She is currently conducting research on an evidence-based methodology for prevention and recovery from burnout using mindfulness and design thinking to help people learn how to manage the stress in their bodies as well as reframe the stressors that cause stress in the first place.

Doug Hall

Eureka! Ranch

Doug Hall Doug Hall is a dynamic speaker, inventor, bestselling author, and entrepreneur who helps leaders and teams fix broken systems, eliminate chaos, and ignite System-Driven Innovation at every level. With a career spanning corporate innovation, world-class consulting, groundbreaking entrepreneurship, and global thought leadership, Doug teaches people how to work smarter, faster, and more creatively.

More than an “ideas guy,” Doug builds things. After creating and launching a record nine products in one year at Procter & Gamble, he went on to found multiple ventures that put his innovation systems into action, including Eureka! Ranch, Brain Brew Distillery, and the Innovation Engineering Institute. These organizations reflect his belief that smart systems—not heroics—drive lasting success.  Today he still shapes the direction of all of his companies while he also serves on the Board of Trustees at the Deming Institute.

Mike Hyzy

CGI

Mike Hyzy At CGI, we lead Innovation and Strategy through our Product Studio—an interdisciplinary team of product managers, UX designers, data scientists, behavioral experts, and futurists. Our focus is helping clients turn emerging technologies like AI and machine learning into products that achieve real market traction. We partner closely with business and IT leaders to validate customer needs, prioritize features that drive adoption, and build with speed and accountability. We use structured experimentation, cohort-based analytics, and outcome-driven roadmaps to guide investment decisions. As the US lead for CIO Advisory, we also work with executive teams to optimize IT spend, simplify portfolios, and align digital initiatives to business value.

Jay Nakagawa

Dell Technologies

Jay Nakagawa Jay Nakagawa has over 25 years’ experience as a successful product manager and is currently the Director of Competitive Intelligence for Dell Technologies. Jay is recognized for his ability to develop successful product strategies across different industries. Jay is also a keynote speaker at industry and analyst events around the globe. Having held positions in sales, business development, marketing, and product management, and executive positions domestically and abroad and is well versed in insights across multi-disciplinary functions. Jay has worked for enterprise companies, high-growth, and startups in his career and is the former Chairman of the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) association. He is a faculty member of the Academy of Competitive Intelligence (ACI) and regular guest speaker at the SMU Cox School of Business in Dallas. He was inducted in 2023 as a CI Fellow by the Council of Competitive Intelligence Fellows, the prestigious think tank that focuses on leading-edge strategies and competitive intelligence issues. Jay holds a B.S. in Information Systems from the University of Colorado Boulder and an M.B.A. in International Business from Regis University.

Maggie Nichols

Eureka! Ranch

Maggie Nichols

Maggie Nichols is CEO of Eureka! Ranch, home to Innovation Engineering, one of the most proven systems for innovation in the world. With 25+ years of experience, she’s helped teams at Ford, Schlumberger, Humana, Johnson & Johnson, March of Dimes, CEMEX, and hundreds more work smarter, faster, and more creatively - without the hype. She’s led the company through three major evolutions: from an invention studio, to a scalable innovation business, to a capability-building consultancy focused on systems for lasting change. Her work centers on bringing the best thinking and action out of staff at every level - propelling teams, tackling hard things, and turning strategy into results. During her tenure, Eureka!’s award-winning workforce training has reached over 60,000 professionals, boosting success and impact rates by 200 - 400% in both skills transfer and ROI. Maggie’s talks consistently earn top marks for clarity, relevance, and practical “ah-ha” moments.

Her work appears in Forbes, The Global Innovation Science Handbook, and the Porchlight Award–winning book Beloved Economies. She also served as the on-air innovation coach for Backyard Inventor, a nationally broadcast TV show in Canada and multiple for-profit boards as the voice for innovation and engagement.

Brooke Rennison

BMW Group

Brooke Rennison Brooke is an IT Innovation Strategist for the IT Tech Office Americas. She has been with the BMW Group since 2011 with a background in Data & Analytics. Brooke has a passion for delivery within emerging technologies while ensuring a focus on business value and remaining customer centric. Working closely with the IT Tech Office team, she is focused on planning, organizing, and implementing a roadmap for innovation ideas and moving concepts into reality within the Americas Region.

Matt Phillips

Phillips & Co.

Matt Phillips Matt Phillips, an esteemed innovation expert, advises Fortune 500 leaders and major nonprofit organizations for over 20 years. As founder of Phillips & Co., a leading innovation consultancy in Chicago, he serves clients like Paramount Pictures, Pepsi, and Verizon. Their accelerated innovation approach unlocks team potential and shapes organizational futures efficiently. Matt, with an MBA from Kellogg School of Management and training in improv at The Second City, brings a unique blend of business acumen and creativity to his work.

Charles Plath

CCC Intelligent Solutions

Charles Plath Charles Plath is Senior Director of Design & Research at CCC Intelligent Solutions, a leading SaaS platform supporting over $100B in annual transactions within the multi-trillion-dollar P&C insurance economy. With more than 25 years of experience—13 of them in the complex insurtech space—Charles has built and scaled design and research functions, embedded research into strategic decision-making, and positioned design as a force for change, clarity, and risk navigation.

He is completing a degree in Innovation in Society at Arizona State University and holds an Executive Certificate in Strategic Foresight from The George Washington University Center for Public Excellence.

Nmarta Raghvendra

Meta

Nmarta Raghvendra With over 15 yrs of experience in technology, I am passionate about building technology products that help connect the community. In my current role as a Product Manager at Meta, I build digital advertising products to connect billions of users with their favorite businesses. Prior to this, I helped launch AI-powered chatbots at Salesforce to help businesses connect with their customers seamlessly.

David Robertson

MIT Sloan School of Management

 Blanca Roman David Robertson is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he teaches Innovation and Product Management. From 2002 through 2009 David was the LEGO Professor of Innovation at the Swiss business school IMD where he wrote his award-winning book ‘Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry’. David's latest book ‘The Power of Little Idea’ was published in 2017 by Harvard Business School Press. From 2010 through 2017, David was a Professor of Practice at the Wharton School where he taught Innovation and Product Design. David currently runs MIT’s new program “Revitalizing Existing Products Using AI-Driven Innovation.” David also runs MIT’s largest executive program, the Executive Program in General Management. When not teaching at MIT he consults with global Fortune 1000 companies on innovation issues and is a frequent speaker at corporate events and industry trade shows. David holds an MBA and PhD from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois. David’s current interests are the application of AI to innovation processes and practices. David is also writing a new book on Native Innovation – how western cultures can learn from the egalitarian and communal values of the Cherokees to become more community-focused in their innovation processes.

On a personal front, Blanca resides in the Saint Charles area, where she and her family are remodeling a farmhouse and learning the art of horsemanship.

Blanca Roman

McDonald's

 Blanca Roman Blanca is a Technology Delivery professional with over 15 years of experience in the technology, financial services, and restaurant quick-serve sectors. Blanca has spearheaded digital transformations, setting strategic directions for delivery through agile frameworks and processes.Blanca has successfully delivered key integration and conversion initiatives, significantly impacting customer-facing solutions by implementing highly complex decisioning systems and marketing technologies.

On a personal front, Blanca resides in the Saint Charles area, where she and her family are remodeling a farmhouse and learning the art of horsemanship.

Morten Sorensen

Federal Reserve System

Morten Sorensen Morten Sorensen is an enterprise strategy execution leader with extensive global experience in IT Services and Enterprise Strategy Execution. His experience includes IT Transformation, IT Service Delivery, Operations and Client Account Management, Enterprise PMO, M&A Integration, Strategic Program Management, Portfolio Management and Product Management. Morten has managed global organizations and transformational product management and service delivery on four continents, and he has lived in both Europe and the US. Currently, Morten is Vice President of the System IT Portfolio Management Office at the US Federal Reserve. He has coauthored guidelines in areas of PMO practices as well as Benefit Realization Management for the Project Management Institute, and he is a frequent speaker on these and other Strategy Execution related subjects. He served two terms on PMI’s Organizational Project Management Advisory Board, and is Portfolio (PfMP), Program (PgMP), Project (PMP), Disciplined Agile Sr Scrum Master (DASSM), and SAFe Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) certified. Morten is passionate about connecting organizational strategy to benefits realization and related outcomes through effective, end-to-end strategy execution methods.

Diana Stepner

Product Gold

Diana Stepner Diana is a Silicon Valley native who believes in the power of putting people first. For over 20 years, Diana built and led global product teams - discovering launching people is even more rewarding than launching products. This awareness led her to focus on coaching, combining extensive product leadership experience with a human-centered approach to help ambitious product leaders unlock their full potential. Diana's background includes leading teams in startups (E.piphany, Cheapflights - bought by Kayak, and SimplePractice), enterprise organizations (Salesforce, Monster, Pearson), digital agencies (Razorfish, part of Publicis) and software consulting (Epsilon, E.piphany). She also has a MIMS from UC Berkeley, an MBA from Boston University and holds an ACC via the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

Katie Trauth Taylor

Narratize

Katie Trauth Taylor Katie Trauth Taylor is CEO and Cofounder of Narratize AI, the AI for New Product Innovation. Katie is a growth-focused entrepreneur executive with 10+ years experience inspiring teams to design and deliver magnetic products, memorable experiences, and groundbreaking impacts. She has led strategic innovation narratives and served as a senior content strategist within fast-growth tech startups and the Fortune 500, including Boeing, NASA, Hershey, Sunoco, AAA, IFF, Dupont, Edgewell, Cincinnati Children's, Argonne National Lab, Crossover Health, Parsley Health, Omada, Physera, US Dept of Veterans Affairs, Millennium Challenge Corporation, World Food Forum, and the United Nations. She believes that everyone can be an innovator--when empowered to share their bold ideas.

Will Haas Evans

Fugue

Kristyn Corrigan Will has held several strategy and design leadership roles and advises firms in fintech, travel, healthcare, and e-commerce focused on developing the capabilities to shape the future. Will integrates foresight and strategy with human-centered design to restructure global firms for growth; drive innovate and shape markets. Will has led transformational initiatives for Fortune 50 companies across various industries. He has designed and launched multiple game-changing products; created and scaled enterprise digital/product transformation offices to accelerate and sustain cultures of continuous discovery and delivery, and guides clients on driving innovation and the necessary behavioral and culture changes.

The next generation of design thinkers and lean practitioners inspires Will. He has lectured as Design-Thinker-in-Residence at NYU's Stern School of Business. Will has run design innovation workshops with Simon Sinek at the TED Global conference. ." Will speaks and consults globally on foresight, strategy, innovation, and enterprise service design at conferences like SxSW, TEDX, and Agile Alliance.

Will holds a Jonah certification in Theory of Constraints from the Goldratt Institute in Israel. He authored "Designing Resilience: The Strategy, Structure, and Spirit of Enterprise Agility.” Will lives in Boca Raton with his wife, Rabbi Laila Haas, and their 4yo son, Asher, who is embracing beginner's mindset and developing his craft as a designer.

Jennifer Tuetken

Pella Corporation

Jennifer Tuetken Jenn Tuetken leads Pella Corporation's innovation trajectory, leveraging her strategic leadership and design acumen to propel product and brand experiences into the future. Under Jenn's leadership, Pella's innovation pipeline has successfully launched award-winning products such as the Steady Set Interior Installation System, Easy Slide Operator, and Hidden Screen. Her team's collaborative spirit and customer-centric approach have earned industry recognition, setting new benchmarks for excellence in the window and door sector. Jenn holds numerous patents and has received prestigious awards, including Best of International Builders Show and IDSA Gold, underscoring her commitment to pushing the boundaries of design and innovation.