Block A

From Clouds to Clarity: The Leadership Questions that Change Everything

Session Info

Organizations today aren't just facing disruption from technology, economic uncertainty, workforce shortages, or constant change. They're facing a deeper disruption: leaders are being asked to solve increasingly complex problems using leadership approaches that no longer work.

For years, leaders were rewarded for being "the expert"—the person with the answers. But in today's environment, where employees expect involvement, change happens faster than ever, and organizations are expected to do more with less, the "leader as expert" mindset can unintentionally create dependency, disengagement, resistance to change, and higher turnover.

The disruption I address is the growing gap between how leaders were taught to lead and what today's workforce needs to succeed.

In this engaging and interactive session, I introduce The REAL Question Method™, a practical framework that helps leaders shift from providing answers to asking better questions. By transforming the quality of leadership conversations, leaders can create greater clarity during uncertainty, build trust during change, strengthen problem-solving, and increase ownership throughout their teams.

Participants will discover how the questions leaders ask directly influence engagement, accountability, innovation, and retention. Through real-world examples and practical application, attendees will learn how to navigate disruption by developing teams that think critically, adapt more quickly, and bring solutions instead of waiting for direction.

Because in today's workplace, the organizations that thrive won't be the ones with leaders who have all the answers—they'll be the ones whose leaders ask the questions that unlock the best thinking in others.

Better Questions. Better Leaders. Better Teams.

Speaker Bio

I am a leadership expert, speaker, and leadership coach with more than 25 years of experience working with organizations to navigate change, growth, and workforce challenges. Having worked in industries facing constant change—construction, oil & gas, real estate, etc. - I know firsthand how change impacts engagement, performance, and retention. I specialize in working with leaders to move beyond simply managing change to creating cultures that adapt, innovate, and thrive through it. With The REAL Question Method™, I equip leaders to lead through uncertainty by asking better questions that build trust, strengthen critical thinking, and increase ownership. My interactive, application-based workshops shift leaders from being the expert with all of the answers to change coaches who develop resilient teams capable of solving problems, embracing change, and driving results. My work is built on one simple belief: The quality of your leadership is reflected in the quality of your questions.

Clarity Without Certainty: How Learning Leaders Build Psychological Capital When Nobody Has the Answers

Session Info

Learning professionals have never had more content, technology, or data at their fingertips—yet behavior change remains frustratingly difficult. Why? Because knowledge doesn't automatically translate into performance, especially during times of disruption.

This interactive workshop introduces participants to Psychological Capital (Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism) as a practical framework for helping people learn, adapt, and thrive through continuous change. Through reflection, discussion, and hands-on activities, participants will assess where Psychological Capital shows up—or breaks down—in their own learning programs and explore simple, evidence-based strategies for strengthening it.

Rather than leaving with another theory, participants will build a practical action plan they can immediately apply to leadership development, onboarding, coaching, and change initiatives. They'll learn how to design learning experiences that don't just transfer knowledge—they build confidence, resilience, and the capacity to sustain behavior change long after the training ends.

Speaker Bio

Diana Lowe is an Executive Coach, speaker, and Founder of Blue Light Leadership, where she helps organizations navigate disruption by building the internal capacity people need to thrive through change. Rather than focusing solely on skill development, Diana equips leaders to strengthen the psychological resources that enable them to adapt, lead, and perform when uncertainty is high. With a master's degree in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology and as an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), she specializes in Psychological Capital (Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism), emotional intelligence, and sustainable behavior change. Diana has coached leaders across six continents and in the top Fortune 500 companies helping them lead through transformation, complexity, and organizational change. As the author of Hard to Handle: A High Performer Paradox, she challenges conventional leadership thinking and shows Learning & Development professionals how to create lasting behavior change by developing people from the inside out.

The Complexity Compass: Finding Your Way When the Map Keeps Changing

Session Info

What happens when the challenge is not a lack of clarity, but the mistaken belief that more certainty will solve the problem? As talent development professionals navigate AI disruption, culture change, and evolving workforce expectations, traditional planning approaches are often no longer enough. In this interactive session, participants will learn how to recognize complex challenges and apply the Complexity Compass—a practical framework for sensemaking, experimentation, and forward movement. Attendees will apply the compass to a real challenge and leave with a repeatable approach for creating movement when the path is still emerging.

Speaker Bio

Bo Storozuk is adjunct faculty with the University of Denver’s Executive Education team and a globally experienced learning and organizational development leader. His work at GHD connects learning strategy, leadership development, and organizational needs to create scalable solutions with meaningful business impact. Bo designs and facilitates leadership experiences that help professionals navigate complexity, adapt to change, and lead with greater clarity.

Block B

One Bloom, One Focus: Cutting Through the Noise to Lead with Clarity

Session Info

This session offers a pause. In a workplace shaped by AI, constant change, and information overload, it’s easy for attention to get pulled in too many directions. This session offers a simple way to step out of that pace and disrupt the noise.

Instead of another model or framework, participants will take part in a hands-on experience using a simple flower and bud vase activity to explore how they are currently spending their attention. Through guided prompts and reflection, participants notice what pulls their focus, what feels most important, and what they may want to shift.

Drawing from the Bloom Into Focus® method, this session blends coaching and experiential learning to help participants slow down, think differently, and reconnect with what matters most in their work. Participants will leave with a simple way to reset their attention, identify one clear next step they can take immediately—and of course, their own finished design.

Speaker Bio

Sarah Leibrandt, Ph.D. is the founder of Your Next Focus and Training and Development Manager at Jefferson County Public Library where she designs learning experiences that help leaders and teams navigate uncertainty with clarity, intention, and focus. With a doctorate in Education Policy, ACC ICF credential, and experience in organizational learning and leadership development, she brings a systems-level understanding of how people learn, adapt, and lead through change.

Known for creating interactive, experience-driven sessions rather than traditional lectures, Sarah is a change-maker in the talent development space who challenges conventional approaches to professional development and reimagines how attention, reflection, and decision-making shape leadership. She is the creator of Bloom Into Focus®, a signature experiential framework that uses guided reflection and creative practice to help leaders identify what matters most in moments of complexity and disruption.

Fruitful Friction to Create Better Decisions

Session Info

Clarity doesn’t come from avoiding difficult conversations. Clarity emerges when we take the time and energy to stay with the conversation, to stay with the friction in order to gain traction.

As Talent Development professionals navigate the “clouds” of AI integration, shifting workforce expectations, and accelerating cultural change, the landscape is becoming increasingly complex and harder to read. Conversations are inevitably full of friction. A common habit is to soften, delay, or avoid the conversations that would actually bring clarity. When we resort to this habit the result is often more fog. We find misalignment, stalled initiatives, and unclear direction.

Fruitful Friction® is an alternative approach. A set of communication tools designed to cut through the fog: increasing transparency, strengthening stakeholder trust, and improving decision-making under pressure.

In this interactive session, participants explore how avoidance and reactivity show up across stakeholder alignment, needs analysis, program adoption, and change communication. They learn techniques to stay present when uncertainties rise, and how to shift from reactive conversation patterns into intentional, clarity-building dialogue that create traction in moments of ambiguity.

Through reflection, peer dialogue, and applied practice, participants will leave with greater clarity, confidence, and the ability to lead conversations that matter most—especially when the path forward is still taking shape.

Speaker Bio

Hilary Blair is a dynamic keynote speaker, facilitator, and CEO of ARTiculate: Real & Clear, a leadership communication firm that equips leaders to navigate change with communication that’s clear and focused on strengthening relationships.

She is the creator of Fruitful Friction®, a framework that redefines difficult conversations as opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and trust.

With a background as a professional actor and voice-over artist, Hilary blends performance craft with practical leadership tools to strengthen presence and communication under pressure. For more than 20 years, she has coached executives and teams through transformation, cultural shifts, and organizational complexity across Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and fast-growth organizations.

A TEDx speaker and 2024 Vistage Best Speaker Award Winner, Hilary is known for turning tension into traction—helping leaders communicate through ambiguity and build cultures that can adapt, align, and move forward.

The Undefined Workforce: What AI-Ready Actually Means for Your People

Session Info

Organizations across every sector have told their workforce to become AI-ready without defining what that means for any specific role. Learning teams are asked to close a gap nobody has described, and employees are asked to develop toward a target nobody has written down. AI fluency is currently the most demanded and least defined skill in the market.

This interactive session treats that as a definition problem before a training problem. Participants select one role their organization is already changing with AI, then define what AI-ready means for it: three to five specific things the role needs to do and cannot do yet, written as observable actions at a stated level of proficiency.

Working in pairs, they test each definition against two questions, one on whether it is specific enough to assess someone against, and one on whether the person in the role would recognize it as relevant to their own development.

A facilitated debrief will close the session on the difference between readiness an organization announces and the workforce evidence it can actually produce, which comes from assessing against the same definition more than once, and on applying the approach to the next skill the business demands.

Speaker Bio

Keith leads Acorn’s customer experience teams and has spent over 25 years working with L&D and HR leaders on linking development to business outcomes. He has held leadership roles at SAP, Business Objects, and Traction on Demand, and regularly speaks on making development meaningful, evidenced, and measurable.

Block C

Finding North: An Immersive Team Challenge for Navigating Disruption

Session Info 

Disruption has become the norm for Talent Development professionals. AI is changing how we work, organizational priorities shift overnight, budgets tighten, and we're expected to help others navigate change while we're navigating it ourselves.

But what if the greatest disruption isn't AI or organizational change?

What if it's the loss of certainty?

Rather than talking about disruption, participants will experience it firsthand through an immersive team challenge. Working together, they'll navigate unexpected twists, incomplete information, competing priorities, and changing conditions that mirror today's workplace.

The goal isn't simply to solve the challenge. It's to notice how we communicate, collaborate, make decisions, and adapt when the path forward isn't clear.

Through a facilitated debrief, participants will build a practical "Compass for Change" and explore two questions:

• What if disruption isn't the obstacle?
• What if uncertainty is the curriculum?

Participants will leave with practical strategies for leading through ambiguity, greater confidence in navigating change, and a memorable experience they can adapt for their own teams and learners.

Speaker Bio

Janina Acevedo-Yates is the Founder and Principal of Kitso Learning Solutions, where she helps organizations design learning experiences that build resilience, adaptability, and human connection in times of change. Over the past decade, she has partnered with government agencies, nonprofits, and global organizations to navigate disruption through learning, from leading the transition to fully virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic to designing leadership and capacity-building programs for humanitarian organizations operating in complex environments. Most recently, she has supported organizations in reimagining learning strategies amid shifting funding landscapes, organizational restructuring, and the rapid emergence of AI. An award-winning instructional designer, facilitator, and leadership development professional, Janina believes the most meaningful learning happens when people experience uncertainty together, reflect intentionally, and leave with greater confidence to navigate whatever comes next.

From Fog to Focused: A Rapid AI-Assisted Preparation Framework for Trainers 

Session Info

Most trainers have been handed a slide deck the night before a session and told to make it work. The result is slide-reading instead of facilitating, and anxiety instead of confidence. That is not a skills problem. It is a preparation problem.

The disruption this session addresses is simple but uncomfortable: the way most trainers prepare has not changed in decades. Review the slides. Maybe run through them once. Hope for the best. In an era where AI can help a trainer go from passive reviewer to genuinely delivery-ready in under an hour, that approach is no longer good enough.

This session introduces PREP, a four-step AI-assisted preparation framework that gives trainers a repeatable, structured process for everything that happens between receiving content and stepping into the room. You will learn how to shift your focus from what you need to say to what your learners need to do, identify your personal knowledge gaps before they surface in the room, map your delivery strategy, and build an at-a-glance session cheat sheet you can reference while presenting.

AI is integrated throughout as a practical sidekick — not a gimmick. You will leave with specific prompts that help you brainstorm stories, analogies, and transitions that make complex or dry content land with learners.

You will leave with reusable templates and a repeatable process you can use before your next session and every session after that.

This is the preparation training most trainers never received.

Speaker Bio

Jordon Taylor is the founder of Corporate Training Companion and an L&D consultant with 15 years of experience helping organizations build training systems that actually work. He has led learning functions at high-growth companies through rapid scaling, technology shifts, and cultural change — where the ability to adapt fast was not optional.

Jordon's work sits at the intersection of practical facilitation and modern learning tools. He believes the biggest disruption in L&D right now is not the technology itself — it is the gap between trainers who adapt and those who don't. His sessions are built around that belief: practical, hands-on, and designed to change how people show up in the training room.

He holds certifications from ATD and Richardson Sales Training, contributes to TD Magazine, and serves on the board of the ATD Arizona chapter.