Communication

Andrea P. Howe is the co-author, with Charles H. Green, of The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust. She is the founder of The Get Real Project and an entrepreneur on a mission: to kick conventional business wisdom to the curb and transform how people work together as a result. Andrea is a recovering IT consultant who has spent more than 20 years working with clients, managing projects, and facilitating groups of all kinds and sizes. Her focus for the last decade has been teaching people in consulting roles how to get better results by getting relationships right. She speaks on topics like customer intimacy, client loyalty, the dynamics of influence, speaking hard truths, and developing business with trust. When she’s not working, you can find her in the art studio taking far too long to finish her latest mosaic project. 

Kyle Maynard is a motivational speaker, author, entrepreneur and athlete. Despite being born with arms that end at the elbows and legs near the knees, Kyle’s wrestled on the varsity of one of the best teams in the Southeast, set records in weightlifting, fought in mixed martial arts, and most recently became the first man to crawl on his own to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa.

His story has been featured on ESPN, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, ABC's 20/20, Good Morning America, HBO’s Real Sports and as a cover story in USA Today. He continues to inspire as the author of his book, No Excuses (2005), a New York Times bestseller.

Follow Kyle on Twitter @KyleMaynard.

Dianna Booher, an expert in executive communications, is the author of 45 books, published in 26 countries and 20 languages, with nearly 4 million copies sold.  Her latest books include Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader and Communicate with Confidence, the Revised and Expanded Edition. As CEO of Booher Consultants, an executive communication training firm, Dianna and her staff travel worldwide to help organizations improve the effectiveness of their communication:  oral, written, interpersonal, and cross-functional. National media frequently feature her work and interview her on critical workplace communication issues—Good Morning America, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg. Successful Meetings magazine has named her to its list of “21 Top Speakers for the 21st Century.”  

Follow Dianna on Twitter @diannabooher.

Alan A. Malinchak is a goal-driven leader with broad strategic and tactical operational success in the private and public sectors.  Al is known for transforming organizations by crystallizing direction, addressing emergent talent and learning challenges and issues, and executing tactics to improve and enhance workforce and organizational performance.

Al is currently the Executive Advisor, Talent and Learning Practice at Deltek, leading customer facing engagements involving assessments, evaluations and recommendations to address a company's "People Challenges" employing best practice solutions in talent, learning and leadership development programs focused across all corporate and business functions to drive both employee and organizational growth.  Al conducts keynotes, leadership development seminars/workshops and consultations regarding the administration and operation of corporate universities.  Al is also CEO of two certified and verified (cVe) Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses - Éclat Transitions LLC offering “Public to Private Career Transition Services” at www.eclat-transitions.com and STRATactical LLC offering change agility, learning agility, leadership agility and knowledge agility services and solutions at www.stratactical.com.  Prior, Al was Chief Learning Officer (CLO) at Homeland Security Solutions, Inc. (HSSI) and business development executive for eLearning and instructor-led training programs and initiatives (2011-2013); VP/CL) at ManTech International (2005-2011), where he founded, developed, implemented and led the administration and operation of ManTech’s first corporate university, ManTech University.  From 1984 to 2004, Al was a FBI Special Agent (retired) with a variety of assignments, including  federal investigations of homicides, rapes, fugitives, kidnappings and skyjackings; Instructor at the FBI National Academy; Administrator of the FBI's National Executive Institute; Supervisory Special Agent of Criminal Squads focused on Organized Crime, Narcotics and White Collar Crime; Inspector; On-Scene Crisis Commander for the 2002 Winter Olympics; Chief of Investigative Training; Acting Senior Executive of New Agents Training, National and International Law Enforcement Programs, and Facilities and Security of the FBI Academy; and, lastly as the Chief of the FBI's Leadership Development Institute (LDI). In the LDI, his responsibilities included leading the administrative and operational oversight of all internal and external leadership programs for executive and middle-management FBI Special Agents and Professional Support employees; leadership services and training for 26,000 employees; leadership curriculum development; professional presentations; drafting of the FBI’s Strategic Development Leadership Plan; and, executive board member to several professional law enforcement associations.  Throughout his career, Al held a variety of academic positions - included are a tenured Associate Professor, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill, New York (1978–1984); as well as former Adjunct Professor positions at the University of Virginia (1992-1995); and both a graduate and undergraduate Adjunct Professor at George Mason University, (2002 to 2005).

Since 1986, Ms. Young and her associates have helped their clients develop vision and strategies and implement “change” in their businesses worldwide. They coach and develop globally competent and multiculturally versatile leaders on the individual and group basis in order to help mold a new organization that is nimble and flexible in order to meet its customers’ needs around the world.  Ms. Young is a faculty member of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, Organization System Development Programs where she trains coaches in the theory, concept and application of Gestalt in the development of “Whole Person” leadership, teams and organization.   She is an adjunct professor for Pepperdine University, School of Business.  Ms. Young is also a professional speaker on Pacific Rim cultures, cross-cultural communication, organizational behavior, organizational change, multicultural leadership, diversity and creativity, and global business strategies.   Ms. Young has a BA in Business Administration from Fu-Jen University in Taiwan, a MBA in Marketing from Michigan State University and a MA in Counseling Psychology from Pepperdine University.

Joseph Grenny is a New York Times bestselling author of eight books, including the communication classic, Crucial Conversations. His whose work has been used by nearly half of the Forbes Global 2000 and has helped millions of people achieve better relationships and results. He cofounded Crucial Learning, one of the world’s most respected learning and organization development firms, offering courses in communication, performance, and leadership.

Carol Quinn is the world’s leading expert on interviewing and hiring effectiveness. She is the creator of motivation-based interviewing, an interviewing method specifically developed for hiring “High Performers.” She is the author of the #1 SHRM-published book on hiring – and it’s been their #1 best-seller on hiring for the past five years straight. She is passionate about making sure organizations and their interviewers know how to single out those job candidates who will go above and beyond from those merely pretending. But there is one thing that Carol is even more passionate about… and that’s sharing her wisdom with others.

Marlene Chism is a consultant, speaker and author of Stop Workplace Drama, (Wiley 2011.) Marlene is a seasoned national speaker who has the unique ability to speak across the boundaries of many types of audiences: from the fortune 500 executives to managers dealing with workplace drama to franchise owners, small business owners and nonprofit CEOs.

On stage, Marlene is an engaging story-teller with the ability to take complex subjects and universal principles and make them immediately applicable to her audience. She is known for her thought-provoking yet down to earth practicality, her sharp wit, balanced by a sense of humor and her ability to create an intellectually stimulating and transformational experience.

Marlene brings her experience in manufacturing, business, entrepreneurialism, and story of reinvention to engage and inspire her audiences to discover, develop and deliver their unique gifts to the workplace and to the world.