Below are the independent expert reviewers who have helped shape the Agile Business Awards 2025.
Alfredo Flores Jr
Alfred is a seasoned IT leader with over 25 years of expertise in Lean-Agile training and facilitation, software and application development, and IT project management across industries such as energy, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, nutrition, and healthcare. He has held key roles at Chevron, General Electric, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he drove transformative IT initiatives and earned commendations from senior executives for his contributions.
As a Senior Agile Coach, Alfred developed principle-based Agile coaching frameworks and toolkits, empowering organizations to achieve continuous improvement. He also pioneered bite-sized Lean-Agile workshops, enhancing capabilities and upskilling more than 2,000 professionals globally since 2011.
Alfred is the author of two insightful books, Outcome-Focused Agility and Agile User Stories, both of which are available on Amazon.com.
He holds numerous certifications, including Certified Black Belt in Lean (CBBL), Certified Agile Coach (CAC), Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Certified Flow Framework Professional (CFFP), Certified Kanban Coach (CKC), and SAFe Certified Practice Consultant 6.0 (SPC), reflecting his commitment to professional growth and excellence.
Alize Hofmeester
Alize is a senior advisor, and founder of TwinXter and The People Journey Circle©, she helps organizations explore and reshape the future way of working and ignites a different way of thinking to create a mindset that unleashes business agility. Her passion and dedication to the value of agility-based organizations drives her ambition to inspire managers and leaders to work and live from their purpose and unlock the human potential in their organisation with a key focus on the customers and add value to the world.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/alizehofmeester/
Christophe Martinot
Transformation companion, former executive, and a convinced promoter of Business Agility and Agile Ways of Working for organizations.
Christophe is the co-founder of SeedingEnergy S.L. and the founder of Agilewow4all.
His professional portfolio includes working in FMCG (L'Oréal, Danone), pharmaceutical (Sanofi, Lundbeck, Novo Nordisk,...) and medical device (Abbott) global marketing and corporate communication (Omnicom) companies, with leadership positions within marketing and sales teams locally and internationally.
Christophe is passionate about continuous improvement and the constant search for greater efficiency.
He has complemented his marketing knowledge with training and practice in agile project management. In addition to being certified as a Scrum Master (Scrum Alliance), Lean Change Agent (LCM), Heart of Agile Essentials (Level A), Agile marketing (ICP MKTG), and Agile Leadership (ICP-LEA). In addition, he is also a certified ICAgile Trainer, a Management 3.0 Facilitator, a Certified Team Diagnostic (TDS) Practitioner, and a Certified Insights Discovery@ Practitioner.
Member of the global leadership group for the drafting of version 2 of the Agile Marketing Manifesto, and is the co-author of the Agile Customer Centricity Manifesto and co-initiator of the Business Agility Hub.
His vision: Members of the organizations are happier in their work because of their way of working and the value they bring to their clients and entities.
His mission: teach and support marketing, sales, communication, etc. teams seeking greater efficiency using agile mindset and taylor made transformation processes.
Colleen Dunn Hartoonian
Colleen Dunn Hartoonian is the Agile Coaching Capability Lead at AgileSherpas, specializing in team coaching and training.
With 15 years of marketing experience under her belt in both large corporate organizations and boutique agencies, Colleen is a Swiss Army knife of Marketing Agility. Throughout her coaching career she has worked with Agile teams in finance, pharmaceutical, entertainment, communications, security and advertising industries.
She holds numerous Agile certifications, including, Certified Professional in Marketing Agility (ICP-MKG), Certified Professional in Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC), Certified Professional in Agile Team Facilitation (ICP- ATF), Certified Professional in Enterprise Agility (ICP-ENT), Certified Professional in Coaching Agile Transitions (ICP-CAT) and Certified Professional in Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF), Certified Professional in Leading with Agility (ICP-LEA), ICAgile Certified Instructor, and Certified Scrum Master (CSM),
Her non-Agile achievements include a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from Simmons University and spotlighting as a guest lecturer at Northwestern University.
Her favorite hobbies are baking, wood working, and gardening in her Nashville home, ideally followed by a good Netflix binge on the couch with her husband and rescue dog, Scout.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Website:
- www.agilesherpas.com/
Elizabeth Venter
As a passionate agilist, Elizabeth guides organizations and teams in adopting agility to support the delivery of measurable business outcomes. As a marketer and strategist by trade, with global work experience on both the agency and client sides, Elizabeth understands the full marketing environment and the constant demands being placed on all levels of the marketing organization.
During her time as the Global Digital Marketing Manager for Ford Motor Company, Elizabeth and team took a more Agile approach to designing and delivering a Global User Experience in only nine months. This experience taught her the value of taking a prioritized, iterative approach allowing for experimentation, testing, and fast feedback from markets and customers.
2017 was a key turning point in Elizabeth's Agile journey. While leading an enterprise-wide Lean-Agile implementation at Mercedes-Benz South Africa, she decided to certify as a Scaled Agile Program Consultant (SPC) in 2018. Elizabeth is an energized and engaging change agent, coach, and trusted advisor, with several successful Agile implementations under her belt.
She exhibits a spirit of constant learning and holds several accreditations including ICAgile's Certified Professional in Business Agility designation, along with an Enterprise Business Agility Strategist qualification through Agility Health.
- Website:
- www.agilesherpas.com/about/elizabeth-venter
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/lizventer/
Frederik Schukken
Frederik Schukken is an agile consultant with 15+ years of experience helping organizations, management and teams. He is passionate about establishing change and growing towards high performance. Frederik has been at the forefront of large and small transformations while working for Rabobank, Quint Wellington Redwood and Pink Elephant. He’s a board member of the Agile Consortium and organizer of the annual consortium conference in the Netherlands.
- Website:
- www.agileconsortium.nl/
Giles Lindsay
A Professional Member of the Agile Business Consortium, Giles Lindsay is a business agility coach and transformational leader who is passionate about empowering organisations to achieve their full potential through strategic planning, operational excellence, and continuous improvement. His soon-to-be-published book: "Clearly Agile: A Leadership Guide to Business Agility”, is a comprehensive guide to embracing Agile principles and transforming organisations. It provides insights, case studies, and practical advice for businesses adopting agile and creating a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.’
Ilana Sprongl
Ilana Sprongl is a seasoned software delivery consultant and leadership coach with over 30 years of experience in technology and business transformation. As the founder of HelpText Consulting, she supports organizations in achieving operational excellence and delivering software with efficiency and effectiveness.
Ilana’s expertise lies at the intersection of technology, leadership, and agility, enabling her to guide senior leaders in navigating complex challenges and driving meaningful change. She writes weekly articles on leadership, technology, and agility, sharing actionable insights and practical strategies to help leaders adapt and succeed in an ever-evolving landscape.
In addition to her consulting work, Ilana is a certified Executive Coach with a CIO.D designation, helping individuals and teams develop the skills and self-awareness needed to excel in high-stakes environments. With a strong background in both strategy and execution, Ilana blends practical experience with a forward-thinking approach to leadership and technology.
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/
Jeroen Venneman
Jeroen has made it his mission to bring agile to the organisational level. He has a lot of experience in taking agile out of the ICT domain and making the connection with business and transforming departments like HR, finance and risk. He is the chairman of the Agile Consortium in the Netherlands and examiner for the Agile Master Certificate. With more than 25 years of experience in consultancy, training and coaching, no challenge is too big for Jeroen.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/jeroenvenneman/
Jim Ewel
Jim Ewel is one of the authors of the Agile Marketing Manifesto and the co-founder of the Agile Marketing Alliance (www.agilemarketingalliance.com ). He is also the author of the essential guide to implementation of Agile marketing, The Six Disciplines of Agile Marketing.
He is frequently asked to speak on the topic of Agile Marketing at industry conferences, and he has helped over 80 companies adopt Agile marketing, including organizations as diverse as T-Mobile, Salesforce, Best Buy Canada, Thales, Doxy.me, EQ Bank, Boston Private, CUNA, NAIT, Deseret Digital, SpaceSaver, Great Dane Trailers, Northern Arizona University, Netskope, Sprinklr, and Zenprise.
Earlier in his career, Jim spent 12 years at Microsoft in various roles including GM of SQL Server marketing and Vice President of Server Marketing. Jim was also CEO of three startups in the Seattle area, all of which grew rapidly and were eventually sold to Oracle, Google, and Stratus Video.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Website:
- www.agilemarketingalliance.com
John Barratt
John is a passionate about helping individuals, teams, and organisations reach their full potential. With a military background and experience coaching in various industries, John has developed a unique coaching style that combines the principles of business agility with other coaching approaches.
John specialises in helping organisations simplify and become more resilient and has a proven track record of delivering these results. He uses various tools and methods, including outcome-based coaching and systemic modelling, to help clients identify their goals and achieve measurable results.
Some of John's recent successes include helping IAG Loyalty meet its ambitious targets during turbulent COVID times whilst reducing staff turnover, Creating an internal training and coaching capability for Maersk saving a year in external costs and helping Vodafone's Secure Net product pass 20 million paid subscribers.
In his free time, John is a voracious learner and enjoys attending meetups and conferences worldwide to discover new ideas and learn from others.
- Twitter:
- @coachjohnuk
Konstantine Kevlishvili
Konstantine joined TBC in 2023 as an Agile Coach. Since then he is involved in proactively coaching and mentoring teams in Agile, Scrum and continuous improvement practices to enhance their performance and contributing to initiatives aimed at reinforcing organizational agility in collaboration with various stakeholders.
Before joining TBC, Konstantine's career was rich in project management experience, holding various roles at both local and international companies. His positions included Head of Agile Project Management, Agile Coach, Scrum Master, and Senior Project Manager, among others.
TBC Bank
TBC, established in 1992, is a technology-driven financial company with a significant presence in Georgia and Uzbekistan, with millions of active customers and total assets exceeding $29 billion. Listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2014, TBC has earned various accolades over the years, named as the Best Bank in Georgia by the prestigious Global Finance Magazine, among others.
TBC's mission is simple, yet profound: to make people's lives easier. At the heart of this mission is the company culture, shaped by a team, that is winner by nature, happy, curious, result-oriented, open for new opportunities, honest, and always delivers on its promises.
For over three decades, TBC has been a leading financial institution in the region, however, since 2019, the organization has undegone a fundamental change - an Agile Transformation of core business areas, which resulted in a shift towards customer centricity, improved work environment, and an accelerated time-to-market for products and services. Nowadays, TBC unites around 10,000 professionals, with more than 1,000 in Agile structures, marking a significant rise from the initial 350.
Nowadays, Agile transformation remains an integral part of TBC's strategy, further emphasizing its commitment to continuous improvement across all areas of the business.
Laura Re Turner
Laura is a coach, trainer, facilitator, and founder of Future Focus Coaching. She helps organisations develop an agile mindset, leadership behaviours at all levels, and collaboration skills to adapt to change. As a facilitator, Laura has worked with groups in a range of organisational settings. She hopes that, through her work, people develop the capacity to make courageous decisions and think holistically about the environments in which they live and work.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/laurareturner/
Melissa Reeve
As co-founder of the Agile Marketing Alliance, SAFe contributor and Agile marketing thought leader, Melissa has over 25 years of experience leading marketing teams in the high tech, education and agile spaces. Prior to co-founding the Alliance with Jim Ewel, she created the Agile Marketing with SAFe course, founded the SAFe Business Agility podcast, and helped lead the evolution of the Agile Marketing Manifesto in 2021. An active speaker and thought leader in the Agile marketing space, Melissa lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA with her husband, chickens and dogs, where she enjoys hiking and gardening.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Website:
- www.agilemarketingalliance.com/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/melissamreeve/
Myles Hopkins
Myles Hopkins is a business agility influencer and leads the business agility community in Africa. He is the founder of Be Agile and has been a globally respected consultant for the past 20 years.
Myles is a strategic systems thinker whose strength lies in seeing the bigger picture and understanding how that will translate across the full internal and external ecosystem that a client operates within.
He guides organisations to place the customer at the centre of everything they do whilst, simultaneously, enabling this through winning market strategies, focussed innovation, seamless and timely delivery, digital solutions and real-time business intelligence.
Myles believes that the organisations that thrive in the future are those with the best talent and drives a strong people agenda within his clients.
- Website:
- www.beagile.co.za/
Natasha Ekwuozor
Natasha has 2 decades project experience gained across several industries, spanning a range of projects from counter terrorism to cyber security.
Recognising the growing need for effective change management within projects, Natasha became a qualified Change Management Practitioner in 2014. This dual expertise allows her to seamlessly integrate change management principles into the project lifecycle.
Natasha is currently Head of PMO in a global patent law firm. Leading a team of project managers and business analysts, Natasha is responsible for the delivery of strategic projects and programmes.
In her spare time, she actively contributes to the profession by volunteering to help encourage students and those seeking a career change to pursue a career in project management.
Philippe Guenet
Philippe is an Independent Professional Change Coach, Director of Thought Leadership with ICF UK and certified PCC and ACTC with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and Business Agility Catalyst with the Consortium
Philippe has helped large organisations such as KFC, Carnival UK, Deutsche Bank, and Lloyds Banking Group with their Digital performance, winning awards and, most importantly, winning customers. Philippe also works directly with startups and senior executives (CTOs / CIOs / COOs).
Philippe works with advanced new techniques for strategy, operational excellence, organisation alignment, and Flow agility. Philippe is a qualified professional coach with the ICF (International Coaching Federation), where he also operates as Director of Thought Leadership. Philippe designs change approaches with a coaching stance that enables stronger ownership, reduced resistance, and long-term sustainability.
Pia-Maria Thorén
Pia-Maria is the founder of Agile People and author of Agile People - A Radical Approach for HR and Managers. Agile People is a global network of people who work to improve workplaces by helping HR and leaders to attain an agile mindset for the future of work by using agile tools, methods, values, and principles. Pia-Maria specializes in helping companies move towards a culture of increased agility through agile HR, agile leadership, and motivation. Her main focus is to contribute to creating organizations where people perform better and feel engaged. Her main drive is to see the movement from one state to another in a company, contributing by making that change successful both from a financial and human perspective.
- Website:
- agilepeople.com/
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/piamia/
Priti Vyas
Priti Vyas is an Enterprise Agile Coach, Senior Growth and Transformation Consultant, Trainer and mentor at Tata Consultancy Services. Her agile expedition started in 2009. She has worked with diverse industries like Telecom, Banking, Pharmacy, Technology, Travel Tourism and Hospitality across geographies, working with CXOs for their enterprise’s agile transformation journey. She has contributed to TCS’s signature leadership and agile programs. She has groomed and mentored 2000+ people from different organizations.
She has done M. Tech from BITS Pilani – Specialization in Data and Analytics and has a B.E. in Electronics and Communications. She is SAFe Program Consultant, Lean Portfolio Management Certified, Scrum Certified Professional, Google’s Digital Cloud Leader, Professional Agile Leadership certified.
She has been a speaker in external conferences including Agile India, Agile Network India, written articles, and has been reviewer for external agility awards.
She is an avid reader and globetrotter, travelling; getting to know culture, heritage, language of various countries is some of her interest areas.
Robb Alexander
Forward-thinking Senior Financial Services IT Professional and Agile Program Manager with 15+ years’ achievement leading major process and system improvement projects at premier financial institutions and consulting firms within the derivatives, regulatory, front, middle and back office spaces as well as in the FinTech and InsurTech SaaS industries. Proven record of success leveraging extensive financial and regulatory knowledge to plan and execute strategic improvement projects that realize immediate and sustainable increases in revenues and/or reduction in costs. Diligent strategist and negotiator with a keen ability to influence key decision makers. Especially adept in Agile, Scrum, XP, Kanban, Large-scale Scrum (LeSS), Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Scrum@Scale (S@S), Lean and Six Sigma methodologies, utilizing the latest technological, management and training strategies to drive growth and efficiency in product development and operations.
Outside of work: an avid history buff, NFL and college football fan, boxer, home gym rat and softball trainer of my beloved daughters
Ruchira Parchur
I’m a Professional Coach and a Change Delivery Practitioner, specialising in crafting robust systemic processes and strategies in leading initiatives to drive meaningful and impactful technology change.
Stephen Morris
Stephen is an accomplished and award-winning leader with over 20 years’ experience in complex, uncertain and high-scale technical organizations, including a decade leading customer, infrastructure, product and software functions at some leading UK cloud providers. Stephen co-owns a leadership consultancy, focused on complexity, change, strategic coaching and agility.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/stephencloud
Susie Young
Susie is an enterprise agility coach that specialises in working with business and technology together to deliver end to end value in financial services and retail sectors. Having started her career as a chartered accountant working in auditing and corporate restructuring she understands the importance of robust controls, transparency and strong governance. Susie brings with her experience of working with banks like JP Morgan Chase, LBG, Metro, Nationwide as well as iconic brands such as Dr Martens and Coca Cola, leading her to become a thought leader in the Product and Organisational Tranformation space. Susie is also a trustee of Certitude which provides support across London to people with learning disabilities, autism and mental health support needs.
Tuukka Smolander
Tuukka is a lean-agile advocate, change agent, program manager, leader and advisor with 20+ years of experience in the digital transformation and B2B space. With an engineering background and a diverse history of line organization and consultant positions, from early-stage startups to multinational corporations, Tuukka draws from a deep analytical understanding of lean-agile theory and principles combined with an abundance of practical hands-on experience from the trenches.
In addition to delivering change as a hands-on consultant and advisor, Tuukka is a coauthor of the Kokonaiskettera.fi lean-agile framework for 21st century service organizations by Triari Consulting.
Zoë Merchant
Zoe Merchant is the founder and managing director of Bright, a strategic B2B marketing consultancy that gives marketers the power to do great work and deliver business results. With over 20 years of experience in agile marketing, she helps clients reinvent their marketing operations, align with business goals, and deliver tangible value.
As a leader and innovator in her field, Zoe has been recognised as a top 10 women leader of 2020, a 3x #40overforty advertising and marketing leader, and a #CannesLions70 Creative B2B juror in 2023. She is also a certified Agility in Marketing professional and a member of the Bank of England Decision Maker Panel.
Zoe is passionate about investing and reinventing marketing teams, promoting diversity and inclusion, and championing marketing's role in business transformation.
Enquire About Becoming a Reviewer for 2026 Awards
Thank you for your interest in becoming a Reviewer. Due to the large number of applications, submissions for the 2025 Awards are now closed. To register your interest in being a Reviewer for the 2026 Awards, please complete the form below and a member of our team will be in touch.
Reviewer FAQs
You can raise your professional profile and gain recognition for making a positive contribution to advancing business agility. Be part of the growing community of Business Agility experts. There will be a whole host of learnings on offer, both from the entries themselves and the discussions with others on the review panel. You may also have the opportunity to host sessions during the live event, should you wish to.
As the professional body for business agility, we know it’s not all about qualifications! As a reviewer, it’s important you have good experience in the category you’re looking to review and a deep understanding of agile and business agility.
No. Due to conflict of interest, you are unable to both apply and review.
Before receiving applications for review, you will be sent a list of applicant organisation names. This is so that no reviewer will evaluate entries from organisations with whom they have, or have had, a relationship. Please let us know if this applies once you have received this list.
Register here and we’ll be sure to send you updates.
You will find out whether you are a successful reviewer when we have finalised the review panels. Please note, if you are not successful there will be other ways you can contribute to the awards and conference.
To be aware of:
- Training will be provided for all reviewers in a webinar on the evaluation process for applications
- 18th November 2024, 12pm GMT - Reviewer Training Webinar
- 25th November 2024, 22:00 GMT/UTC – Deadline for Awards applications
- 29th November – Reviewers receive names of applicant organisations
- 4th December – Applications sent out for review
Before receiving applications for review, you will be sent a list of applicant organisation names. This is so that no reviewer will evaluate entries from organisations with whom they have a relationship or potential conflict. Please let us know if this applies once you have received that list.
- 13th January 2025 22:00 GMT/UTC – Deadline for application reviews to be completed
- 20th/23rd January TBC – Balancing reviewer panels per category
- 3rd February – Organisations will be informed whether they have been selected for awards and are invited to speak at the Agile Business Conference
- 4th February – Public announcement of winning organisations in each category, i.e. those invited to present at the virtual Agile Business Conference
- 26th & 27th March – Agile Business Conference
Reviewers will have 6 weeks to review. Note: dates may be open to minor changes, but reviewers should be able to confirm their availability during December.
We strive for a maximum of 2 applications per reviewer. This will depend on the number of applications we receive and the number of reviewers we have on the review panel. Please be assured that our goal is for each reviewer not to be overloaded!
This will vary by application - we suggest to allow 8 hours of concentrated work and writing up of notes per application.
We have put together a guidance for reviewers document, which can be found here.
There will also be regular reviewer check-ins. These sessions are optional to meet other reviewers, ask any questions about the process and guidance criteria.
In addition there will be the Reviewer Training Webinar on the 18th November 2024 at 12pm GMT, which will be recorded for those who cannot attend on the day.
Reviewers will receive their Credly badge after the review process. The Credly badge is only given to those reviewers who have participated in the Awards review process. Sharing the badge on LinkedIn can support your CV and profile.