John Halberstadt

John Halberstadt is an executive consultant and thought leader in Product and Project leadership, Lean Portfolio Management, and enterprise strategy. With nearly three decades of leadership experience—including roles as CIO, CTO, and VP of Technology—he specializes in helping organizations transition to product-centric operating models that foster innovation, customer value, and business agility.

As Vice President of Consulting at LitheSpeed, John collaborates with Fortune 500 companies, international non-profits, and government agencies to drive meaningful change. He focuses on aligning strategy with execution across industries such as finance, healthcare, insurance, retail, utilities, and AI-driven enterprises. His expertise includes scaling Agile beyond IT, integrating AI into Agile workflows, and establishing Agile Value Management Offices (VMOs) to maximize business outcomes.

John’s leadership philosophy centers on people. He believes that while frameworks and technology support transformation, lasting change happens when leaders, teams, and individuals embrace new ways of thinking and working. His approach emphasizes empowerment, adaptability, and creating environments where teams can innovate and thrive.

A frequent speaker at PMI events and industry conferences, John shares practical insights on Agile, Project and Product leadership, the product operating model, and leveraging AI to drive business agility. His sessions combine executive-level strategy with actionable takeaways, making complex transformations approachable and achievable.

Outside of work, John enjoys exploring the outdoors, hiking with his rescue pitbull, Elliott, and taking in the rugged landscapes of Nevada, from the Sierras to Red Rocks.

BENITA VEGA

Dr. Benita Vega is the Founder of CRM & Customer Service Corp., and a consultant specializing in customer experience, CRM technology, and loyalty programs. With a Ph.D. in Business Sciences, she leverages innovative methodologies to design impactful programs focused on organizational culture and leadership within service and customer care. Her approach emphasizes the connection between people and business results.

Dr. Vega shares her expertise as a Master's degree professor at several universities. She also contributes to the business community as a member of the Advisory Committee of La Ciudad del Saber, a mentor with the Women Entrepreneurs Channel, and a member of the Panamanian Association of Business Executives (APEDE), the Chamber of Commerce and Industries, and the Institute of Corporate Governance of Panama.

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KAREN HERNÁNDEZ QUESADA

Karen Hernández Quesada is a Senior Consultant in Digital Transformation and a specialist in networking and business solutions. She is also an Executive Coaching Specialist with a degree from the European University of the Atlantic, Spain, where she is currently pursuing a Master's in Digital Marketing and Big Data.

Karen's expertise has led her to be an invited speaker at events such as the Business Agility Congress at the National University - Center for Managerial Development and Postgraduate Studies in Costa Rica in 2023. She is also a dedicated mentor for the "100 Women Returning to Work" program with the Ministry of Labor in Nuevo León, Mexico. Karen's commitment to empowering women in technology is evident in her participation in the "WordPress Diverse Speaker Workshop for Women Voices in Latin America" and her volunteer work at the Women WordPress Day 2024 event, both held in San José, Costa Rica.

Her professional experience includes roles as Innovation Manager at CertiProf, USA, and contributions to Management and Development at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in the United States. Karen holds a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Universidad Latina, Costa Rica. She is also the author of "Work Smarter, Not Harder: Time Management for Personal & Professional Success."

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SANDEEP ASOKAN

Sandeep Asokan is a data scientist with experience developing software systems for the finance, healthcare, and insurance sectors. His work primarily focuses on the R&D of AI/ML tools and methodologies to advance his clients' businesses. He is an avid supporter of the idea "AI for peace, AI for all." Additionally, he is a tech speaker and has spoken about various aspects of AI technology in many forums.

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ROBIN GUPTA

Robin is a seasoned Engineering leader with 15+ years of experience driving software delivery across startups, scale-ups, and enterprises. As the Co-founder and CEO of TestZeus, he combines hands-on leadership with a metrics-driven approach to elevate engineering teams across BFSI, EdTech, Retail, and Developer Experience domains. Robin is an active contributor to the tech community—mentoring on ADPList and Plato, contributing to Selenium, and creating TestZeus, the first open-source test automation framework for Salesforce. He’s also a published author and has spoken at top conferences like Dreamforce and Selenium Conference. Balancing life as a dad at home and a leader at work, Robin is passionate about building teams and tools that make an impact.

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JENNIFER WHITE

Jennifer is an adept problem solver who thrives on helping B2B Clients overcome challenges. With a blend of analytical expertise and creative thinking, she crafts innovative Solutions that drive Results. Jennifer’s passion lies in transforming Teams and Businesses, elevating Quality, Service, and Delivery standards to boost profitability. She excels at streamlining Processes and leveraging Data to optimize Performance visibility. Her unique ability to bridge analytical ingenuity with Leadership and People skills, while also connecting Data and Technology, sets her apart. Over the past decade-plus, Jennifer has contributed to diverse Projects across Manufacturing, Operations, Business Processes, and Supply Chain functions. She holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida and an MBA in General Management from Troy University Atlanta.

FRED HEATH

Fred Heath is a polyglot software engineer with over two decades of experience across every stage of the software development life cycle. He has worked in various roles, utilizing a wide range of languages and platforms. His areas of interest include Ruby, Elixir, relational databases, Behavior-Driven Development, requirements management, and agile methods. In addition to being an avid reader of books on software development, quantum mechanics, and Iain M. Banks novels, Fred also actively blogs, speaks at meetups and conferences, and has authored two books on agile requirements management and the Scrum framework.

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SIDDHANT WADHWANI

Siddhant Wadhwani is a versatile, self-directed leader with nearly a decade of work experience in the IT industry. He works as an Engineering Manager - SDET at Newfold Digital managing approx. 35 SDETs cross-functionally across multiple geographic locations working on a portfolio of brands, mainly focusing on Test Execution & Automation Excellence. 

From design discussions to architecture reviews, shift-left testing to in-sprint automation, adhering to code review guidelines, and focusing on non-functional testing areas, Siddhant has led the way to set the best quality standards! He has played a key role in forming the basis of test management and automation best practices within several projects and working closely with his team to extend those learnings across the organisation. 

Siddhant has also been recognised as a BrowserStack Champion, taken on the mantle of Chapter Lead for the Mumbai Community, and is an active keynote speaker at various technology conferences and events, mostly in association with BrowserStack, The Test Tribe Community, Automation Advocates, WordPress, and many more. He has delivered 75+ talks nationally and internationally on various topics, viz. Development, Testing, Automation, DevOps, and Generative AI. 

Siddhant has established a strong social presence on LinkedIn with an active following of 17K+ followers and was recently recognised by LinkedIn with the Top Voice blue badge. Having attended several WordCamps, contributed to WordPress, featured in the WordPress 6.3 release notes, and delivered an in-person talk at WordCamp Kolkata 2022 and WordCamp Bengaluru 2024. Guess what! It’s been around 13 years that Siddhant has been officially associated with using WordPress. 

Above all, he loves attending conferences and networking with like-minded individuals in his spare time. Siddhant loves playing badminton, table tennis, and travelling the globe. 

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JOHN ARMENIA

John joined Accusoft as a Development Manager in 2014 and is now the Vice President of Engineering. His duties include managing the PrizmDoc Product family as well as the Architecture team. Additionally, John serves as an Agile coach here at Accusoft. Before joining Accusoft, John spent 15 years in the healthcare information technology field, building and designing client-server, desktop, and SaaS-based practice management and EHR software.

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DERMOT CANNIFFE

Dermot Canniffe, a Solutions Engineer and QA Automation Engineer at Inflectra brings over 20 years of software industry experience. A University of Galway graduate, Dermot's career spans roles in technical support, software development, testing, and automation. At Inflectra, he excels in helping customers integrate software quality and management tools and advises on quality engineering strategy and Agile practices. Dermot, a passionate advocate for Agile methodologies and Behavior-Driven Development, has shared his insights at international conferences like Agile Testing Days in Potsdam and EuroSTAR. Known for using Star Trek and Star Wars metaphors to simplify complex concepts, Dermot is a creative thinker and a valuable asset to Inflectra.

Dermot lives in Galway, Ireland, with his family.

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CHRIS TODD

Chris Todd is the VP of Architecture & Engineering at Taphere! Technology. He co-founded TapHere! in 2008 with the goal of offering innovative solutions that exceed customer expectations and focus on technical expertise, efficiency, and value. As TapHere’s VP of Engineering, Chris has worked with a diverse array of customers over the past 16 years – from universities and healthcare systems to the CIA and United States Space Force. 

Chris and his team focus on sound solutions that champion best practices but also break new ground and challenge conventional thinking to find new approaches to technical problems.

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STEPHANIE (HICKMAN) LAINGEN

As the Director of Innovation, Stephanie Laingen has a passion for questioning the status quo and finding new and creative solutions to problems. After completing her Computer Science degree at Yale, she joined TapHere! Technology, a small team of highly skilled engineers that serves in the federal sector. As a computer scientist and consultant, Stephanie architects custom solutions develops workflows and provides bespoke education to meet the personalized needs of each customer, enabling agile and sustainable practices throughout.

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MELISSA DALEY

With 20 years of experience in Information Technology, Melissa Daley created Orca Intelligence in 2014. Her purpose was to offer a unique methodology to decrease the time it takes to capture, analyze, and manage software requirements. She believes software, though not tangible, is very similar to building design and architecture and requires the same governance and best practices. Her method encompasses features such as cataloging and maintaining requirements for reuse on other projects. This methodology saves requirements analysis and management time. Across Agile teams, her methods have proven to keep stakeholders and software engineers organized throughout the entire software development life cycle. In addition, her Agile project management skills produce incremental success that keep teams on schedule and within budget. 

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DR. SRIRAM RAJAGOPALAN

Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan is the Global Lead on Training and Agile Transformation at Inflectra. Dr. Rajagopalan has extensive software development and project management experience in many industries. He won prestigious recognition from PMI with the Eric Jennet Project Management Excellence Award in 2017.

He holds a BE in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Madras in India, an MS in Computer Engineering from Wayne State University, and an MBA in Management from Concordia University. His Ph.D. was in Organization and Management from Capella University.

Dr. Rajagopalan possesses many professional certifications in PfMP, PgMP, PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-SP, PMI-RMP, CSP, CSPO, CSD, CSM, ACC, IT Project+, Six Sigma, SCM, SCPO, SCD, SAMC, SCT, and CSOXP.

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PAUL MERRILL

Paul is recognized as a thought leader in the test automation community, having been invited to speak at numerous software conferences since 2014.

Paul is sought after to train teams, consult with technical leaders, and speak on testing and test automation across the US and beyond.

After more than two decades as a software engineer, SDET, and leader in the software development space, he recruits, consults, and trains from the perspective of someone who has worked in the field.

Paul has been trusted by major companies across the US, including Kohl’s, Blue Cross Blue Shield, IBM, Becton Dickinson, and more than 40 others. The trust large companies have placed in him is great, but he and his team prefer working with established small to mid-size businesses.

Paul and his team are based in Cary, NC.

BEN JOHNSON-WARD

Ben Johnson-Ward has spent the past 12 years pioneering testing tools and techniques for global banks, retailers, insurance companies, telcos, and beyond. He has occupied many of the roles associated with “quality,” including developer, product owner, product manager, automation engineer, and tester.

Ben has often gravitated towards model-based testing and test data. He has worked as a product manager and consultant of tools that have been used to create and optimize tests for many different technologies and projects. Since August 2022, Ben has focused on the use of Generative AI for testing, serving as a product manager and services engineer for multiple tools. He has explored the fringe possibilities and disruptive capabilities of AI alongside techniques that are emerging as enterprise-ready.

Ben is equally comfortable leading enterprise transformations or delving into a YouTube deep dive. He looks forward to bringing his passion for AI and testing to iCON360!

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ADAM SANDMAN

Adam Sandman founded Inflectra in 2006. Today, Adam serves as the company's CEO. He is responsible for product strategy, technology innovation, and business development.

He lives in Washington, D.C., with his family. Before founding Inflectra, Sandman was a director for Sapient Government Services, where he was in charge of development with the U.S. Marine Corps. and other government agencies, and was responsible for leading many capture teams and writing whitepapers and position statements to build Sapient’s reputation as a leader in the defense space. He studied physics at Oxford University.

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BOB CREWS

Bob Crews, Co-Founder and CEO of Checkpoint Technologies is a consultant with 34 years of IT experience in full life-cycle development and software testing. Bob and his organization provide services and solutions focused on QA with a concentration in functional, performance, and application security testing. He’s assisted organizations such as Harvard University, Raymond James, the FBI, and the Department of Veterans Affairs in developing teams, processes, and solutions to help organizations deliver higher-quality software faster.

Bob Crews consulted for over 290 organizations on QA, effective software testing, strategic test planning, enhanced test automation, and risk-based testing. He’s exceptionally enthusiastic about the future of IT and software testing and believes “The best is yet ahead!”

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