Cindy Benes

Accenture

Yusra Qamar

Accenture

Learning Cultures: Elevate your change strategy in our fast, agentic world

Topic Category: Future

Room: 3

Elevate your change strategy with persona led, AI-powered, data-driven methods and point-of-need enablement. Learn practical ways to boost engagement and adoption in a fast, agentic world.

Cindy Benes is a senior manager with over 20 years of experience with large-scale technology deployments. As a leader within Accenture's Global IT Journey and Change Management Center of Excellence, Cindy is focused on driving innovative change strategies to boost engagement and accelerate technology adoption across a global workforce. Cindy is an empathetic leader who puts people at the center of any change and continuously empowers her team to grow and excel in an ever-evolving digital world.

Yusra Qamar: Yusra Qamar is a change manager with over 18 years at Accenture, specializing in enterprise-wide digital transformations, change management, and adoption.  Currently, Yusra is working within Accenture's Journey & Change Management Center of Excellence (COE) and leading the Change Enablement & Adoption on a global Gen AI corporate transformation. She has experience in SAP and several Microsoft rollouts. She leads with positivity and focuses on end user experience and empowerment.

Stop Guessing, Start Winning: Use Existing Data to Fix Change Problems Fast

Topic Category: Change 

Room: 7

Your change projects are full of data you never have time to use—but it’s exactly what you need to rescue struggling initiatives mid‑flight. Learn how to spot the signals hiding in systems data, surveys, and interviews and turn them into decisions that actually change outcomes while the work is still underway. Discover practical techniques from 7‑Eleven, Alcon, Vistra Energy, and TDIndustries that show how to reshape strategy and sponsorship using data you already have. You’ll leave able to: identify the few data sources that predict resistance, turn raw data into simple sponsor‑ready insights, and make mid‑flight course corrections without asking for more budget. Ideal for change practitioners, project leaders, and sponsors who want to use evidence, not intuition, to steer their projects.

Lara Azcona is an Organizational Change Management consultant and founder of Better Transformations. She has supported major initiatives at organizations including Alcon, Vistra, 7-Eleven, BNSF, and TDIndustries, helping leaders translate complex change into clear communication, actionable strategies, and successful adoption. 

The Arts in Adaptive Organizations

Topic Category: Co-Creating

Room: 1AB

In this highly interactive session, attendees will participate in a community drumming experience and explore artistic and theatrical techniques to co-create new ways of working together to facilitate change and build learning organizations. Participants will explore how integrating principles from the arts into organizational transformations can foster creativity, teamwork, and adaptability

Rich Cruz brings over 25 years of experience enhancing organizational performance and leading change. Hedelivers effective training and development initiatives to build talent, self-efficacy, and employeeengagement. With an MS in I-O Psychology from Purdue and an OD and change leadership certification fromthe Drucker School of Management, he consults on organizational design and effectiveness. Rich also teaches human resources, management, org behavior, and marketing at Trinity Christian College. 

Ben Kleinman leads Fortune 500 clients through enterprise-wide transformations. He’s known for translating complex technical details into clear, actionable steps, keeping focus on the “why.” Ben holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and enjoys spending time with family, distance running, and watching old black-and-white movies.

Calmfidence in Chaos: Leading Humans Through the Hard Parts

Topic Category: Change 

Room: Main Room

Learn practical tools to lead with calm, confidence, and clarity during disruption. Build trust, reduce emotional contagion, and guide teams through uncertainty using the Calmfidence Framework.

Julie Whitten is a Calmfident Transformation & Communications Executive and consultant with 25+ years leading people through complex change. She created the Calmfidence Framework to help leaders reduce emotional contagion, build trust, and guide teams with clarity through chaos.

Breakout Session #2

What do Johnny Appleseend and Change have in Common?

Topic Category: Future

Room: 3

In this session, we’ll walk through Johnny’s change plan and develop the metrics that he needed to build an empire of over 1,200 acres of trees in three states. We’ll look for the leading metrics that show how he was building the empire and the lagging metrics that drove his success. Applying his story to today, we’ll explain the lag between the leading and lagging metrics and how to communicate both activity and the rate of change in a way that executives can appreciate and understand.

Robert Bogue has led change projects for three decades. As a recovering technologist, he’s changed the way people work as he changed the technology. He’s the author of 28 books and has been a Microsoft MVP for 23 years. His work has transformed corporations, government, and quasi-government organizations. It’s not about the technology, but he leverages his strength in technology and human systems to create change that is sustainable and transformative for organizations of all sizes and shapes.

Anne Brown, PhD

Thrive Training

Learning Cultures: Your Change Advantage in a Gen Z World

Topic Category: Future

Room: 7

Organizations face nonstop change but often lack cultures that inspire learning and adaptation. This session reveals powerful strategies to boost change adoption, reduce talent loss, based on insights from Gen Z research.

Anne Brown, PhD, CCMP, is a learning facilitator, and researcher specializing in organizational culture, generational dynamics, and change readiness. With 25+ years leading organizations—several of those working as a change leader—her published Gen Z research reveals how psychological safety, transparency, and relational trust drive change resilience. Founder of Thrive Training, she coaches directors/VPs across tech, construction, food, and professional services through transformations.

The WIN Method™: Wake Up. Interrupt. Navigate.

Topic Category: Change 

Room: 1AB

The W.I.N. Method teaches leaders to wake up to systemic patterns, interrupt harmful patterns, and navigate cultural tension with clarity. The session offers practical tools to strengthen decision making, trust, and accountability during periods of organizational change.

Michaun Elise Winborn is a certified diversity coach and founder of Born2Win Coaching, where she helps leaders build trust, reduce risk, and repair culture through inclusive leadership. With a background in theatre, HR, and DEI strategy, she blends creativity, data, and human insight to guide courageous, culturally intelligent decision-making. Michaun equips teams with practical tools to lead with care, confidence, and accountability — and create cultures people want to be part of.

Lead Change With People, Not At Them: Preparing Leaders for a Co-Created Future

Topic Category: Co-Creating

Room: Main Room

What if the future of change isn’t something we manage for leaders — but something we co-create with them? Join us to explore how to move leaders from “change delegation” to co-ownership.

Kasia Ganko-Rodriguez is a Leadership Development Advisor with nearly 20 years of experience in people, culture, and organizational change. A former change consultant, she has guided major people and culture transformations, designed change strategies and infrastructure, built coalition teams, coached executive sponsors, and upskilled change agents. At the Lake Forest Center for Leadership, she now partners with organizations to develop strong leadership capability at all levels.

Stories From The Field: “AI Readiness and the Human Side of Change”

Topic Category: Future

Room: 3

In this panel discussion we will explore how attendees’ peers are using AI to co-create insight, test ideas, develop learning content and shape clearer plans through cultivating a culture of curiosity. We will cover AI tools, AI as a thought partner and take time to answer questions from attendees.

Jess Drexler is a proven leader in organizational change, known for guiding clients through complex transformations with clarity, strategy, and a people-first approach. As Baker Tilly’s Organizational Readiness service offering lead for the Digital Advisory practice and a Prosci® certified change practitioner, Jess empowers organizations to embrace new technologies, process improvements, and cultural evolutions. With over 25 years of expertise spanning financial services, manufacturing, AEC, healthcare, and the public sector, Jess specializes in aligning strategy and culture while conducting risk and readiness assessments, stakeholder impact analyses, and crafting creative communication and engagement strategies that foster ongoing adoption and sustained success. 

Jen Bliss leads the Innovation portfolio within Accenture’s Information Security Culture & Behavior Change team. She drove early adoption of generative AI to help her team build and scale security awareness training - reducing development time and cost while increasing reach and impact. With a background in organizational change management, Jen focuses on creating effective security awareness content and enabling employees to use new tools, including AI, securely and responsibly. 

Allie Hartman is a seasoned change management leader, AI transformation project manager and Global Board Member with the Association of Change Management Professionals. She brings more than a decade of experience designing and delivering human-centered, data-driven change strategies across large-scale digital and AI-enabled transformations. 

Dr. Anna Stumpf

Collective Energy

The Hidden Load of Change: Diagnosing and Re-Balancing Your Energy Triangle™

Topic Category: Change

Room: 7

Discover how to prevent burnout and sustain momentum during change using The Energy Triangle™—a practical tool to diagnose and rebalance performance, people, and personal energy

Dr. Anna Stumpf is a leadership coach, educator, and founder of Collective Energy. A former business professor and corporate leader, she helps technical and change professionals prevent burnout and sustain performance using her Energy Triangle™ framework. Anna blends neuroscience, behavioral insights, and 20 years of facilitation experience to make change practical, human, and energizing.

Stop Chasing Sponsorship and Start Cultivating It: How Leaders Became Our Strongest Change Advocates

Topic Category: Co-Creating

Room: 1AB

Senior leaders rarely resist change; they resist how change shows up for them and their teams. Drawing on 15+ years of leading complex organizational change, I’ll share real stories of how hesitant leaders became genuine change management advocates when we shifted our approach. Grounded in practice and aligned with how change is evolving, you’ll gain practical insights and simple, sustainable tools that strengthen sponsorship as a shared responsibility—without adding more meetings, decks, or governance.

Monica Canales is a Prosci-certified change management practitioner and ACMP member with over 15 years of experience leading complex organizational change. After a 20-year career in marketing, she transitioned into change management in 2009, supporting the multibillion-dollar Baker Hughes–BJ Services merger. Monica went on to build and grow a successful change consulting firm, earning recognition from the Houston Business Journal. Since joining SCI in 2021, she has partnered closely with leaders to strengthen sponsorship, accelerate adoption, and drive sustainable adoption. Her work focuses on evolving traditional change practices to better fit today’s complexity.

Culturally Centered Change: A Practical Assessment for Practitioners

Topic Category: Co-Creating

Room: Main Room

Learn a simple, culturally informed assessment you can integrate into any change initiative. This session introduces a one page diagnostic and guiding questions to help you identify barriers to adoption, improve communication, and align change strategies with real work patterns. You’ll explore how culture, formal or informal shapes how people respond to change, and how to adapt your approach to reflect those realities. Walk away with a clear framework, practical tools, and examples you can apply immediately to build change efforts that are more grounded, responsive, and sustainable.

Kevin Sansberry is a behavioral scientist and founder of KEVRA Consulting and Blairpointe Behavioral Advisory. He has more than 15 years of experience helping organizations align culture, strategy, and change execution. Through his advisory work, he designs evidence-based methods that improve how teams adopt and sustain transformation efforts. Kevin holds advanced certifications in change management, behavioral assessments (Hogan, MBTI), and culture assessment, and teaches applied innovation at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. He also created and hosted The Toxic Leadership Podcast, which ranked in the top 3% of leadership shows on Apple Podcasts.