Meet our Speakers

Diversity & Analytics: How Can We Avoid Creating "Bias at Scale"? 

Vice-President and Executive Partner, Gartner

Gail partners with CIO and other executive clients as a trusted advisor, focusing in particular on global technology and business strategy planning, cost optimization, and helping her clients build high-performance teams.

Gail’s degree in computer science (Bowling Green State University) led to a career of expanding responsibility in information technology at Public Service Indiana, Emery Air Freight and Georgia-Pacific.  She then got her MBA at Krannert School of Management before joining Cummins, where she eventually became VP of global information technology and CIO.  

After Cummins, Gail took a “reverse sabbatical” – returning to Purdue as Visiting Professor at Purdue Polytechnic where she co-taught a Women in Technology course.  She developed a CIO Leadership course as well as a study abroad program that allowed students to visit India over spring break to learn about the IT services industry.  

She also worked with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) where she launched the Affinity Group Alliance, allowing affinity groups and networking organizations across the globe to share promising practices and provide members access to cutting-edge research-based strategies for recruiting, retaining and advancing women.  

Gail lives in Indianapolis with her husband Art, a professor at IUPUI.  Their grown daughters live with their husbands in England and Lithuania.  

Creating Spaces Where Ideas Flourish

Stephanie Wilson believes everyone has great ideas. Using this philosophy, she has spurred on the recruitment team which brought in the highest enrollment in the Ball State Graduate School’s history. 

As a passionate idea generator, Stephanie is a facilitator in collaborative spaces promoting individual’s high-quality ideas, inspiring even typically silent parties to share their perspective. Stephanie’s expertise lies in creating new spaces for collaboration and learning: she has built academic and non-credit programs; university off-site centers; infrastructure; and teams. She specializes in creating order out of ambiguous situations.  Leveraging both of her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Ball State University and broad experiences, she connects those who cross my path with resources for success. 

An avid gardener and equestrian, both infuse the power of connection in Stephanie’s life.  Living in a small, rural Indiana community, relationships are critical to life.  She and her husband Jay enjoy time with Jackie, their beloved miniature donkey; their two horses, Pebbles and Grace; and a sweet burro, Tikki.   

Getting Past Your Limiting Beliefs

Emily is a lean organizational change design specialist, with more than 20 years of business experience, and 8 years of experience in the IT industry. Organizational change management, empowerment, scaling with LeSS and SAFe, and Agile transformation is her specialty. She helps teams and organizations transform from a fixed mindset to a more adaptive mindset. 

She is an Agile Trainer, Agile Coach, and practicing director for Agility Consulting.  Emily is a dynamic Agile executive with demonstrated experience in business transformation across 5 different industries. She has provided motivational techniques to shift paradigms and encourage continuous productivity. As a strategic leadership advisor, she inspires change, implement strategic Lean methodologies, and facilitate employee development. She develops, implements, and sustains Agile transformations from the enterprise to the team level. He also consistently increases operational efficiency and rates of return through forecasting and customized roadmaps.  Emily holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business and a Master’s Degrees in Business Administration. Her goal is to empower and help teams, organizations, and people to fulfill their potential and widely succeed in what they do everyday.

Getting Past Your Limiting Beliefs

Diana Williams is an experienced Agile Coach and Trainer. She has worked in both the public and private sectors, providing enterprise level Agile coaching. She is a passionate learner and teacher. Diana oversaw systems that had several billions of dollars’ flow through them. 

Her teams have recognized significant productivity gains, improved quality, and better predictability. Diana is a rising star in the Agile space. She is empathic with her teams and stakeholders, helping them achieve things they did not realize were possible. She has received numerous praise from her clients and teams.

When Diana is not coaching teams or leading projects, she is very family focused. She especially loves spending time with her grandchildren. As a mother and grandmother, she is an advocate for women working in technology.

Agile for Everyone

Darren Terrell is the VP of Enterprise Agile Coaching for Project Brilliant. As a senior transformation specialist, he helps organizations and teams to focus on and deliver more real business value. Darren is a proven management consultant that has coached senior leadership to improve business agility. He has also trained and mentored scores of managers/ to better engage their employees and improve their effectiveness as leaders.

During his career, Darren has technically architected enterprise solutions for industry leading companies. He has overseen large software development and data sections, including systems that had over $16 billion in revenue flowing through them annually. Darren built an Agile consulting practice from the ground up for a global professional services company.

Darren has obtained numerous Agile certifications, is a licensed Agile Fluency Facilitator and conference speaker. He is a board member and conference coordinator for the Agile Cincinnati and Agile Indy User Groups.