Awards 2023 - Speakers
Meet the speakers for the Agile Business Awards Conference 2023
Abdulla Al-Sharif
Chief Agility Transformation Specialist, Development & Corporate Agility at Roads and Transport Authority
With over 15+ years of extensive experience in the field of Corporate Development and Organizational Transformation, leading Organization Development, transformation and change management projects and initiatives. With a proven track record in successfully leading large-scale, cross-functional initiatives that result in increased efficiency, operational improvement, and enhanced customer experiences. He earned his Bachelor Degree in Science in Business Management from the University of Central Florida. In addition to obtaining multiple internationally recognized professional certifications including CSM and SAFe.
- Website:
- www.rta.ae/
Ady Dike
Ady is transformation expert with 20 years across sectors - in start-ups and blue chips and is currently working as a Entreprise and Leadership Coach with bp.
She has over a decade’s experience leading Agile teams, the last 3-4 years, of which has been predominantly focused on coaching Entreprise and leadership agility
She is a certified leadership and entreprise coach who has been coaching leaders C-suite and leadership teams since 2018 and holds the following certifications – ICP-Ent, ICP-CAT, ICF PCC, A-CSPO and Leadership Agility
She has a background in Delivery of organisational change, Digital, Data and Lean and Agile transformations spanning a couple of decades.
She believes transformations should be tailored to the business context rather than cookie cut and enjoys helping senior leaders to do this by crafting compelling visions, and defining and implementing iterative agile operating model and evolutionary transformation journeys
She is particularly skilled at one on one and team professional coaching, facilitating design thinking and strategic workshops with senior leaders, and delivering leadership agility coaching and training
Ady has two adult children and In her spare time, she enjoys keeping fit, travelling and spending time with her family
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/ady-dike
Arlene Rebello
Arlene is an expert Technologist and Agile Coach. She has been fortunate to spend 20 years in the oil and petrochemical industry and within this time, to have experienced a range of technical and commercial roles, different project management and communication techniques and styles, in pursuit of delivering customer value.
When she was introduced to the concept of agile in 2020, through in-house training, it just made sense to her. It took the best parts of what she had experienced in the Oil and Gas industry and brought them together.
She knew then that she wanted to be a proponent of this style of working and since then, has been fortunate to be able to develop her knowledge and experience in this space. As an ICP-ATF and ICP-ACC certified coach, she has been privileged to be part of an Agile Working Group known as the Agile Transformation Unit since its inception.
As a member of this group, she has worked hard to define and embed how to apply the agile mindset and culture in her part of the business and supporting teams to select the practices and frameworks that will best help them. She believes that the Division has come a long way and that there is still more to come!
Barbara Cheong
Barbara has been part of RHB Bank’s Agile transformation journey from the start in 2018.
She is a certified Scrum Master, ICP-ATF and ICP-ACC certified coach and in the core Agile@Scale team in designing and delivering Agile transformation initiatives and outcomes through coaching stances and capabilities.
Barbara has the privilege and opportunity of both coaching Agile teams as well as leading a team of Agile Coaches in supporting the delivery of enterprise-level business objectives and outcomes.
Her experience and competencies in Agile, Design Thinking and Lean is an added advantage to coach and guide Agile teams on the focus areas of customer centricity, faster speed-to-market, innovative and creative mindset, effectively manage changing priorities, increase productivity and improve employee engagement.
Diane Bell
Diane is a Planning & Performance Lead in Marketing at the NatWest Group. Diane has worked with NatWest Group for over 20 years in a variety of customer facing, HR, Communications and Marketing roles.
Diane is part of the of the Marketing Planning team that was instrumental to the introduction and roll out of Agile in NatWest Marketing since 2021. With no Agile knowledge or experience, Diane learned at the deep end, learning on the job and learning from mistakes on the way. Diane now works with cross-functional teams and senior leadership to cultivate an Agile culture and Agile ways of working within the Marketing Function, with a particular focus on PI Planning.
Diane is a strong believer in valuing people and interactions over procedures and a passionate supporter of opportunities for neurodiversity in the workplace.
Esmee van de Giessen
Esmee is a catalyst, driving change with enthusiasm and with a strong belief that the sum of the whole is greater than its siloed parts. Graduated as Master in New Media & Digital Culture and trained as Enterprise Agile Coach, she has a unique background. After being a production assistant of large festivals and entertainer in Italy she got all into tech. Not so strange with her brother and dad bringing home gadgets and a fascination for the promising stories that came with them. Starting as a member of a scrum team her scope of impact increased throughout the years as product owner for sales solutions, (delivery -, people-, workforce-) manager, and Agile Coach.
All those experiences help her to walk the talk, transforming from the inside out. She loves using them to help an organizational part from c-level to operations make sense of their role in the whole. She uses the voice of the client as feedback while she coaches Capgemini NL adopting an agile mindset, values and principles to increase the value they deliver. “In the end, I am the instrument for change, the better I understand myself, the more in tune I can be with others.”
- Website:
- www.capgemini.com
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/esmeevandegiessen/
Helen van der Straaten
Helen has a background in engineering and agile project management. Currently responsible for the PMO at News UK which has grown from a reactive instance to a dynamic proactive team based across Sofia and the UK. Responsibilities include recruitment, finances, strategic management reporting, establishing guidelines and governance frameworks.
- Website:
- www.news.co.uk/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/helen-van-der-straaten-aba973136/
Herbert Celen
Herbert joined Capgemini in 1990. As a consultant in Capgemini's Global Practice, Herbert has engaged with leaders in Manufacturing, Consumer Products, Retail and Logistics in more than 40 countries on 5 continents. Building upon solid experience in successful project delivery Herbert moved into business development. Herbert has proudly served as Global Account Executive for some of Capgemini's largest global clients. Mid 2019 Herbert assumed responsibilities as Chief Sales and Portfolio Officer for Capgemini Netherlands. He has been consistently recognised by his peers and Industry leaders as one of the most influential commercial leaders in The Netherlands.
Herbert believes in sales based on sustainable relationships, respect and mutual trust. That means developing skills and knowledge are crucial, just as a successful sales professional must possess perseverance, passion and a high dose of energy. He believes that if you really understand the customer and the customer's customer and know how to touch them, then you can start adding distinctive value in the relationship. Therefore, Herbert's sales motto is: “Make Meaning before You Make Money”.
- Website:
- www.capgemini.com/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/herbertcelen/
Jan Otterbach
As Elavon Europe’s Business Agility lead, Jan helps lead and coaches key strategic change initiatives and plays a key role in improving ways of working across the organisation. He has been with Elavon since 2018. Having been part of both the commercial and technology side of our business, he is passionate about expanding collaborative and cross-functional ways of working that drive results and put people first.
Jan has an extensive background in technology consulting, risk management, compliance and audit – having worked for KPMG in both Germany and Ireland before joining Elavon.
He holds a Master of Science in Strategic Management and Planning from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and a number of certifications with respect to Agile Coaching and project management, as well as Information Security, Risk Management and Auditing.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Website:
- www.elavon.co.uk/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/janotterbach/
Lisa Hall
I am an instinctive cross-functional integrator who actively leans into change. I strive to inspire transformation and continual learning by creating an aligned vision, empowering teams to thrive and developing future talent.
Having worked for bp for +15 years I’ve had the opportunity to work globally with multiple teams, and the privilege of being part of an organisation that values diversity at all levels.
My career began as a Chartered Management Accountant, working in industry as a Finance business partner. My desire to lead teams and drive strategic transformation has informed my career choices. So being part of the applied sciences Leadership Team allows me to challenge the status quo to drive continuous value towards our net zero ambition.
My personal development journey has focussed on learning future skills, experimenting and implementing those skills to build greater capability in the organisation. I measure my achievement through the extent to which I can lead and support teams to deliver sustainable value. I am very fortunate that my role in bp allows me to collaborate with incredible people who share my passion for growth and learning.
Mandana Al Obeidli
Chief Transformation Officer, & Director of Development & Corporate Performance Department at Roads and Transport Authority
A proven leader with more than 20+ years of experience in the field of Corporate Excellence, Total Quality Management, Corporate Planning, Organizational Transformation and driving culture change. With a long successful track record of leading high performing teams that specialize in driving complex large-scale organization Agile transformation initiatives. In addition, she was recognized for achieving more than 20+ National & International awards over her professional career with RTA. She earned her MBA in Strategic Human Resource Management from the University of Wollongong in Dubai, in addition to obtaining over 15+ internationally recognized professional certifications including CSM, SAFe, and being a certified assessor in multiple fields like EFQM.
- Website:
- www.rta.ae/
Nzinga Gardner
Nzinga Gardner is currently a Business Operations Analyst at News UK. She has spent most of her career in the media and tech sectors performing key business functions for large complex organisations often in a state of flux due to the rapidly changing tech market. Nzinga’s roles have grounded her in business and project management, governance, strategy, communications and corporate affairs. Outside of work Nzinga enjoys the arts, photography and volunteers as a Patient Advocate and sits on the board of Trustees for a charity tackling poverty in the UK.
- Website:
- www.news.co.uk/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/nzingagardner/
Rok Zajc
Rok Zajc is CEO and co-founder of Bold.group marketing agency. Before that, he was a Marketing manager with 5 years of experience in branding and marketing strategies for the Slovenian and EX-YU markets (Balkan region). His passion is a sports marketing and athlete branding. This is not surprising, because he is a passionate athlete and his biggest wish is to complete the Iron Man before the age of 40. He admires passionate people from whom he can learn and expand his horizons, and he really doesn't like seafood.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Website:
- www.boldgroup.si
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/rokzajc/
Ruth McCarthy
Ruth has been a Scrum Master and Coach at Save the Children UK since 2020. She works with cross-functional teams and senior leadership to cultivate agile culture within the organisation, with a focus on transparency, outcomes, prioritisation and continuous learning.
Ruth has supported the teams within Marketing Delivery since the beginning of their agile journey, when the department restructured into multi-disciplinary squads working in scrum. Today the department has evolved to a more flexible model, using a combination of agile values and principles to plan and deliver effective fundraising and marketing.
Ruth’s career at Save the Children UK began in the Creative Team in 2017, where she held a number of roles before stepping into the role of Scrum Master in 2020.
Prior to this, Ruth worked for over ten years in the television industry as a Production Manager specialising in delivery of factual programmes.
- Website:
- www.savethechildren.org.uk/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/ruth-mccarthy-07971922/
Silke Eggert
Passionate about driving complex change, setting up new capabilities and providing leadership in cross-functional complex transformation programmes, Silke is the Head of Lean Portfolio Management & Transformation in the global Digital & IT organisation in Vodafone. In this role, Silke is establishing Lean Portfolio Management for Digital & IT and responsible for the implementation of SAFe for Vodafone.
Silke has 25 years of successful management experience in large-scale transformation and technology integration programmes, customer service delivery, strategic alliance management/partner management and marketing in the ICT industry. She first adopted and implemented agile ways of working in 2018 and has put SAFe into practice for the largest OSS and BSS transformation programme for VodafoneZiggo in the Netherlands. She lives near Düsseldorf, Germany, with her husband and their two daughters. Outside work, Silke enjoys spending time with her family and dog, travelling and reading
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Website:
- www.vodafone.com/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/silkeeggert/
Sylvia Rausch
As Marketing Director of Saba, Sylvia has kick-started and driven a customer-centric digital transformation in an industry pivoting from “Infrastructure Management” to “Mobility”.
She considers the “Agile” framework that she discovered in 2016 and that she has applied ever since with the group’s global Marketing team and strategic partners to have been instrumental in this success. Putting the customer at the center, listening to her, and aligning the organization around these insights to assure on-going relevant value-creation have been at the heart of her professional career, in both B2B and B2C environments. A digital optimist, she declares “Constant Beta” her life philosophy.
Sylvia is Austrian and has been living in Barcelona with her husband and 3 now adult daughters for many years.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/sylvia-rausch/
Award 2023 Videos
Watch the Conference 2023 videos, to learn how the successfully selected organisations embraced business agility.