Josh Cavalier

Josh Cavalier is the founder and CEO of JoshCavalier.ai, helping L&D professionals harness AI to transform human-machine performance. With 30+ years in education technology, he makes AI practical through training, speaking, and his YouTube channel. His book, Applying AI in Learning and Development: From Platforms to Performance, provides a roadmap for integrating AI into L&D, drawing on real-world platforms, tools, workflows, and ethical considerations. He co-founded Talent Rewire (www.talentrewire.ai) and serves as the Chief Strategy Officer. Talent Rewire provides talent leaders with AI impact data on activities and on how associates should be upskilled as roles are redefined by AI.

Keynote & Closing Sessions | From Learning to Leading: How HMPAs Are Reimagining L&D 

This session explores how artificial intelligence is shifting Learning and Development from course creation and training delivery toward performance analysis, human-AI collaboration, and measurable business impact. The keynote introduces the Human-Machine Performance Analyst, or HMPA, as the next evolution of the L&D professional: someone who combines learning design, data analysis, business acumen, AI literacy, and ethical judgment to improve workplace performance. The audience will leave with a practical roadmap for beginning this transition through one pilot, one business partner, and one meaningful performance metric.

Bridgett McGowen

Bridgett McGowen is an award-winning international speaker, author, and communication expert known as The Presentation FixerTM. Since 2001, she has moved professionals, leaders, trainers, and organizations to communicate with greater clarity, confidence, and impact. An engaging and high-energy presenter, Bridgett equips audiences with practical strategies that transform how they show up in meetings, presentations, training rooms, and other high-visibility moments. Her work challenges conventional approaches to communication and helps professionals move from simply sharing information to creating meaningful influence and connection. Bridgett is also the founder of Press 49, an award-winning hybrid publishing company, the author of multiple books, including Real Talk: What Other Experts Won’t Tell You About How to Make Presentations That Sizzle, 2e, and a 2026 honoree among the 50 Women to KNOW in Arizona. Whether speaking to emerging leaders or experienced executives, Bridgett delivers actionable insights that audiences can immediately put into practice.

Breakout Session | GPT + PPT = OMG!: Using AI to Create Presentations That Sizzle 

Artificial intelligence is transforming how learning professionals design, develop, and deliver content, but AI alone does not create engaging learning experiences. Great presentations still require strategy, audience awareness, and intentional design. In this highly interactive session, participants will discover how generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can serve as thought partners throughout the presentation development process, from brainstorming and content organization to audience engagement activities and visual storytelling. Attendees will learn practical techniques for using AI to reduce development time, overcome creative blocks, and create presentations that are more relevant, memorable, and actionable. Through real-world examples and demonstrations, participants will leave with immediately applicable strategies for leveraging AI while maintaining the human elements that truly drive learning and behavior change. This session bridges the worlds of AI, learning design, and presentation excellence, helping talent development professionals move beyond simply using AI for efficiency and toward using it to create meaningful learning experiences.

Michael Saunderson, Ph.D.

Mike Saunderson, Ph.D., is Director of Training & Evaluation at EthnoPraxis, Inc., where he helps organizations move beyond training activity to measurable workplace performance and business results. With more than 14 years of experience supporting Fortune 500 organizations, Mike specializes in performance analysis, instructional design, learning transfer, and evaluation. He created the Five Essential Questions (5EQ) Performance SystemTM, a practical approach for connecting organizational needs, workplace behavior, and measurable results. Mike frequently speaks and writes about performance improvement, evaluation, AI, and demonstrating the business value of learning and organizational initiatives. His work has appeared in Training magazine and Training Industry, and he regularly presents for professional organizations and industry audiences. Mike earned his Ph.D. in Learning Design & Technology from the University of Hawai‘i, where his research examined how organizations evaluate learning transfer and workplace performance.

Breakout Session | Beyond AI Adoption: Demonstrating Business Impact from AI Training

Organizations are investing millions of dollars in AI tools and training, yet many learning leaders still struggle to answer one critical executive question: How has AI training improved business performance? While most AI initiatives measure completion rates, learner satisfaction, or AI adoption, executives expect evidence that AI is improving productivity, quality, customer experience, and other business outcomes. This interactive session introduces a practical framework for designing, implementing, and evaluating AI learning initiatives that produce measurable organizational results. Participants will learn how to distinguish AI adoption metrics from business performance metrics, identify the organizational conditions that support successful transfer of AI skills to the workplace, and develop evaluation plans before training begins. Through real-world examples and practical implementation strategies, attendees will learn how to connect AI learning initiatives to measurable organizational performance. Participants will leave with three practical implementation tools: an AI Business Impact Planning Worksheet, the Five Essential Questions™ AI Evaluation Planner, and a Manager Reinforcement Checklist.

Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D.

Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D. is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of Success Mindsets, The Elevated Leader, and Becoming Better: The Groundbreaking Science of Personal Transformation. He helps executives and leadership teams elevate their sophistication and effectiveness by upgrading the internal operating system that drives how they think, respond, decide, and lead. Through his 6th Gear Leadership framework, Ryan equips leaders to navigate complexity with greater clarity, capacity, and impact. He has worked with top teams at CVS Health, Deutsche Telekom, Experian, Kaiser Permanente, and the Federal Reserve Bank. A former leadership professor and researcher at California State University-Fullerton, Ryan is a go-to expert on the deeper development required for transformational leadership.

Breakout Session |  The Identity Shift: Becoming the TD Professional the Age of AI Requires

Our identity is the internal story we hold about who we are, what we are good at, and how we create value. For talent development professionals, that identity may be tied to designing learning, creating content, facilitating programs, or serving as the expert others rely on. But as AI becomes increasingly capable of performing parts of this work, the value organizations need from TD professionals is changing. Remaining relevant will require more than learning how to use new AI tools; it will require evolving how we see our role—and ourselves. In this interactive session, participants will explore what professional identity is, why AI makes identity development essential, and the mindsets and hidden assumptions that can keep us attached to an increasingly outdated version of our role. They will also learn a practical process for identifying the enduring value they bring, envisioning the TD professional they need to become, and conducting small, low-risk experiments that allow a new identity to emerge.

Serena Christianson, Ed.D.

Serena Christianson, Ed.D., is a learning and engagement strategist who brings a data-informed, people-centered approach to connecting enterprise strategy with meaningful learning and measurable outcomes. As Learning Academy Manager at ICW Group, she leads the Commercial Services Learning Academy, partnering with leaders across Underwriting, the Service Center of Excellence, Risk Management, and Distribution & Marketing to build learning strategies that strengthen skills, performance, and workforce capabilities. She also contributes to ICW Group’s Job Architecture and Skills Taxonomy initiative, exploring how AI-enabled tools, skills frameworks, and human expertise can support a more skills-based approach to talent development. Serena holds a Doctor of Education in Leadership and Innovation from Arizona State University, an MBA from Grand Canyon University, and a B.A. from the University of Jamestown, and is a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner, certified in Belonging Experience Design, and is an active member of ATD Arizona. Outside of learning and talent development, she is a tap dance instructor and choreographer - because apparently one career wasn’t enough.

Breakout Session |  Updating Job Architecture but Feeling Overwhelmed? Lessons Learned from Using AI to Move from Roles to Skills

Many organizations want to become more skills-based but aren't sure where to begin. Learn how ICW Group approached this challenge by combining job architecture, skills taxonomy design, an AI-powered Skills Architect agent, and human expertise to move from traditional roles to a future-ready skills strategy. This session will share practical lessons for using AI to accelerate talent transformation while keeping people, business knowledge, and human judgment at the center.

Scott Knutson

Scott Knutson is Co-Founder and CEO of the Center for Leadership Capacity and Founder of Leading2Serve LLC. For more than 25 years, he has helped leaders, teams, and organizations improve performance by developing the human side of business. His work has spanned industries including mining, manufacturing, government, education, technology, healthcare, and nonprofit organizations. Scott holds a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership, an MBA, and is an ICF-accredited leadership coach. The defining influence on Scott's leadership philosophy came through personal tragedy. Following the unexpected loss of his wife in 2021, he began reevaluating what truly matters in life, leadership, and work. That journey led him to a simple but powerful realization: love is not separate from effective leadership—it is foundational to it. Today, Scott helps organizations create the conditions where people can thrive and perform at their highest potential. He believes that when leaders build cultures grounded in trust, respect, service, and genuine care for people, organizations unlock greater engagement, resilience, discretionary effort, and performance. This belief ultimately led to the creation of the Center for Leadership Capacity, where Scott and his partners help organizations identify and reduce the hidden factors that suppress productive capacity. By combining leadership science, organizational diagnostics, and practical business strategy, the Center helps organizations unlock the potential that already exists within their people.

Pat McNeil

Pat McNeil is Co-Founder and COO of The Center for Leadership Capacity™ (C4LC), where he helps organizations discover the 15–30% of productive capacity they've already paid for and don't realize they're losing — "Capacity Leakage™." He built C4LC with business partner Scott Knutson on a simple premise: every organization has capacity leakage they don’t realize they are losing and their mission is to find the leak and plugging it. His foundation was built over 27 years in the U.S. Navy, retiring as a Master Chief Petty Officer and paired with a Master's in Organizational Development and Leadership from Fielding Graduate University and an ACC credential through the ICF. Where Pat really lights up is with bricks. As a LEGO® Serious Play® Certified PRO Trainer, he helps teams build their way to insights PowerPoint never could — proof the smartest thing in the room is sometimes a plastic minifigure. Pat serves as Director-at-Large and co-chair of the Patriots Ball for the Southwest Veterans Foundation (SWVF) that focuses on Veteran Suicide Prevention. Pat resides in Gilbert, Arizona.

Breakout Session | The Human Advantage in the Age of AI: Using LEGO® Serious Play® and AI to Discover Hidden Organizational Friction 

Artificial intelligence is transforming how we analyze information, generate ideas, and solve problems—but can AI identify the hidden organizational conditions that quietly suppress performance? And where does human insight remain indispensable? In this highly interactive workshop, participants will use LEGO® Serious Play® to build visual models of how work flows through organizations and where hidden organizational friction limits productive capacity. They will then partner with AI to analyze those models, compare AI-generated insights with human observations, and explore how the two can work together to uncover patterns, challenge assumptions, and inspire better questions. Participants will leave with a practical framework for recognizing hidden organizational friction, a fresh perspective on the complementary roles of human and artificial intelligence, and a collection of AI prompts they can immediately apply in leadership development, coaching, facilitation, and organizational learning.

Tyrone A. Holmes, Ed.D.

Dr. Tyrone A. Holmes is a professional speaker and executive coach who helps individuals and organizations move from AI uncertainty to AI confidence. He received his bachelor’s degree in Rehabilitation Education and master’s degree in Counselor Education from Penn State University. Dr. Holmes received a second master’s degree in Business Management from the State University of New York, before earning a perfect 4.0 GPA in his Counselor Education doctoral program at Penn State. As the owner of T.A.H. Performance Consultants, he has facilitated more than 1,750 keynotes, training seminars and virtual workshops that have taught participants to connect with others despite their differences and to effectively articulate their messages. As we navigate our “AI Revolution”, Dr. Holmes uses his Building Powerful CONNECTIONS® with AI process to help people and organizations harness artificial intelligence without losing the human connection that allows us to be more efficient, effective and productive.

Breakout Session |  Where Are You at In Your AI Journey?

Technology-related stress, also known as technostress, refers to the negative feelings associated with the use of new technology. These feelings include anxiety, fear, depression, confusion and increased pressure in the workplace, which can sometimes lead to burnout. Of course, the newest technology that is causing high levels of technostress in many organizations and for many individuals is artificial intelligence (AI). There are several different types of technostress but two are particularly relevant when it comes to AI adoption in today's workforce. The first is techno insecurity, which is the fear of being replaced by digital tools such as artificial intelligence. The second is techno complexity, where individuals can feel inadequate and overwhelmed because of AI complexity and the perceived need to quickly learn new tools, systems and processes. The primary purpose of my proposed session is to introduce a 3-Question Model that participants can use to reduce their AI-related stress and to identify specific steps they can take to successfully integrate AI into their personal and professional lives. In addition, participants will gain an understanding of where they are at on the AI adoption developmental continuum and how they can comfortably and successfully move along that continuum.