Close

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

The Premier Cross-Industry Gathering of Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Leaders & Senior-Executives.

Awards

View Award Site Awards

The Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Awards have been established to showcase globally the most outstanding achievements and real results, which organisations achieve through the successful implementation of Business & Digital Transformation, Operational Excellence & Innovation Excellence programs. 

Speakers

Brou Gautier

Brou Gautier

Director Spark Tank and Enterprise Performance Management, United States Air Force

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES 2020)

Wednesday 18th November 2020 | 13:30 - 15:30 pm

Biography

Brou Gautier serves as the Director of Continuous Process Improvement and Innovation (CPI2) and lead strategist for USAF Operational Excellence supporting the Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force, Management and Deputy Chief Management Officer. In this capacity, MAJCOM/NAF commanders, CIOs, CTOs, Senior Executive Service members and government leaders rely on his counsel and leadership on lean policy and business strategies. 

Mr. Gautier is a Master Black Belt and private sector business owner with extensive experience in government and public sectors as both a leader and on-the-ground change agent. He developed tactics, techniques and procedures to improve command effectiveness, readiness & efficiency across a spectrum ranging from maximizing contract ROI and authoring enterprise IT architecture analysis to developing PMO governance support, business cases and root cause mitigation strategies for complex problems. He has presented leader and organization business transformation and deployment strategies for IQPC’s PEX LSS Summit, Shingo International, and multiple DoD CPI Symposia.

Mr. Gautier received a B.Sc. from the US Air Force Academy, a Master of Air Mobility degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Auburn University. 


 

Xiaochen Zhang

Xiaochen Zhang

Global Head - Innovation, Amazon

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence in Financial Services Live - A Virtual Conference

Tuesday 7th November 2023 | 11:00 - 11:45 am

Biography

Xiaochen is a Global Head of Innovation & Go-To-Market with AWS. In this role, he leads a team of both technical and operational staff in shaping AWS emerging technology and Web 3.0 related innovation offerings in the areas of digital assets, central bank digital currency, green finance and regulatory and supervisory technologies in supporting public sector financial institutions to achieve their missions in monetary policy, financial stability, economic growth, climate change and sustainable development.

Cynthia Long

Cynthia Long

Change Leader Continuous Improvement, Intuit

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence in Financial Services Live - A Virtual Conference

Tuesday 7th November 2023 | 12:00 - 12:45 pm

Biography

Cynthia Long is an award winning Continuous Improvement Leader and Strategist.  Over the last 20 years, her passion for Lean Six Sigma has led her to create, innovate, and be a Revolutionary Leader for Continuous Improvement.  She is based in San Diego.

As a leader in technology, Cynthia is driven to mentor other women so that they can find magnificent opportunities for awesome careers in tech.

Her expertise includes, being a Revolutionary Leader for Continuous Improvement, Business Transformation Strategist,  Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Public Speaker and a dedicated  Philanthropist and Mentor to women in tech.

  Her speaking engagements include:

  • Strategic Conversations- Mentoring and Beyond (Women in Technology)

  • Build to Fit - Paint to Match; Continuous Improvement in an ever changing landscape (ICMI Contact Center Expo 2022)

  • Data; Driving from the Customer Seat (Intuit)

  • Cost of Complexity (Intuit)

  • Surviving Domestic Violence (Compass Center For Women and Families )

Ana Flavia Cavagnoli

Ana Flavia Cavagnoli

Head of Business Transformation, Johnson & Johnson

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 13:55 - 14:25 pm

Biography

Ana has 24 years of experience working for Multinationals in different countries, and currently, she is opening her own consulting company named Ignite Business.

Ana works as a Sr Customer Experience Manager supporting Johnson and Johnson to drive cultural change.

She is recently coaching and mentoring Johnson and Johnson technologies teams to implement CX metrics that matter to the business with a human-centric approach.

Ana has Customer Experience Certification, holds an executive MBA, and is fluent in 3 languages (English, Spanish, and Portuguese.)

Anish Sharan

Anish Sharan

Head of Digital Transformation, CME Group

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES18)

Wednesday 14th March 2018 | 14:25 - 14:55 pm

Biography

Anish Sharan is the Head of Digital Transformation at Pritzker Private Capital where he leads the development of digital capabilities that enhance customer experience, drive operational excellence, and deepen data utilization across PPC’s portfolio of companies. Pritzker Private Capital ("PPC"), a leader in family direct investing, partners with middle-market companies based in North America with leading positions in the manufactured products and services sectors.

He joins Pritzker Private Capital from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where he was Director of Transformation and Execution, responsible for driving digitization, technology modernization, and enterprise transformation initiatives. Mr. Sharan brings 20+ years of global leadership experience across digital operations, e-commerce, and technology-focused roles at The Nielsen Company, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Motorola, and Toyota.

Mr. Sharan holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. He is also an adjunct faculty at the Lakeforest Graduate School of Management.

 

Mir Ali

Mir Ali

Head of Digital Engineering, Kraft Heinz

Biography

 

Mir Ali is a seasoned professional with over 22 years of experience in leading technology teams across various industries, including consumer products, restaurants, financial services, travel & and transportation, automotive, and information technology. As a thought leader, Mir has demonstrated the ability to build and motivate organizations towards achieving a shared vision. His career is marked by strategic and technical leadership, along with the successful execution of multi-year transformation initiatives.
In September 2021, Mir joined Kraft Heinz as the Head of Digital Engineering. In this capacity, he collaborates with teams throughout the company to develop innovative digital solutions, enhance customer and consumer experiences across channels, and foster a culture of engineering excellence and innovation.

 

Ian Phillips

Ian Phillips

LM Fellow & Chief Data Architect, Lockheed Martin

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 10:05 - 10:35 am

Biography

 

Ian Phillips is the Chief Data Architect for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth, TX. Ian is also a LM Fellow and INCOSE ESEP.
Ian first started working with data while developing applications using Public Domain INGRES in the mid-1980s. He first developed the concept of Information Lifecycles while working as the Chief Architect on a major project for NASA in 1998, and he continues to refine the Information Lifecycle concept to this day.

 

Kamal Mohanty

Kamal Mohanty

Senior Vice President, Citi

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 11:15 - 11:45 am

Biography

Kamal Mohanty is Senior Vice President at Citi, New York.

An Indian American business executive with 20 plus years of cross functional expertise across product, technology, and risk in global organizations. Kamal is an expert at creating growth strategy for scale and leading transformational change with excellence. Successes include strategy, client experience, digital transformation, building global teams, cross-functional team leadership, general management, diversity, and inclusion.

Kamal holds a Bachelor's Degree in Electronics engineering from National Institute of Science and Technology India and later completed the Senior Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business School.

 

Anu Pujji

Anu Pujji

Principal of Operational Excellence and Transformation, Amazon

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES 2020)

Wednesday 18th November 2020 | 13:30 - 15:30 pm

Biography

Anu is an experienced and passionate change agent.  She has expertise in partnering with c-suite executives and peers to drive the successful execution of strategic and transformational programs, building lasting collaborations, delighting customers and establishing best practice solution portfolios for Quality-boosting initiatives.

Throughout her career she has served in four Fortune Healthcare companies and non-for profit organizations such as WEDI (Work group for EDI) where she chaired the workgroup for Healthcare Policy guidance. Her contributions towards setting up best practices for interoperability and harmonization of Healthcare Information were published in the 2013 WEDI Report.

Anu is an active contributor and champion of leading industry best practices such as developing the rule book for the ICD 10 Testing programs. She was the one of the leading members of the ”ICD-10 Testing collaborative” that promoted sharing quality best practices amongst major healthcare payers including UnitedHealth Care and Blue Shield of California. In 2019, Anu delivered a compelling presentation at BTOES 2019 on driving innovation in the cultural transformation for rapidly changing organizations. This presentation showcased the transformational work that she has led at Molina Healthcare Inc.

Most recently, she has been invited by Amazon as their Principal of Operational Excellence to establish global best practices and build a culture of operational excellence for Human Resources of their Devices business.

Anu holds a Baccalaureate in Science, a Masters in Organic Chemistry and has obtained Management credentials in Healthcare Administration from the Wharton School of business. She is also a Certified LEAN Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

She is devoted to the cause of elevating the career goals of young women through coaching and mentoring.

Her Hobbies include travel, study of period architecture and water sports.


 

Howard Tiersky

Howard Tiersky

CEO and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 11:15 - 11:45 am

Biography

Howard is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance which was recently listed by Forbes as “One of the ten most important business books of 2021.”

Howard was named by IDG as “One of The Top 10 Digital Transformation Influencers to Follow Today,” and by Enterprise Management 360° as “One of the Top 10 Digital Transformation Influencers That Will Change Your World.”
As an entrepreneur, Howard has launched two successful companies that help large brands transform to thrive in the digital age: FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency and Innovation Loft. Among his dozens of Fortune 1000 clients are Verizon, NBC, Universal Studios, JPMC, Morgan Stanley, the NBA, Visa, and digital leaders like Facebook, Spotify, and Amazon.
Prior to founding his own companies, Howard spent 18 years with Ernst & Young Consulting which then became part of Capgemini, one of the world’s leading global consulting firms, where he helped launch their digital practice.
Howard speaks regularly at major industry conferences and is proud to have been on the faculty of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, his alma mater. He is a frequent contributor to CIO Magazine.
Victoria Preys

Victoria Preys

Operational Excellence Expert, Merck

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 01:30 - 02:00 am

Biography

Caring and Experienced Portfolio Operations and Project Management Leader within the Pharmaceutical Industry. I aspire to lead and grow organizations with vision and strategic focus, developing highly performing teams with energized leaders who work transparently and ethically, go the extra mile to ensure delivery to realistic and data-driven plans, collaborate with a sense of urgency to address unmet medical needs and bring innovation to patients and healthcare communities worldwide. Managed multi-million dollar annual budgets exceeding $100 million. Proactively self-started and led several successful strategic initiatives generating project lifetime savings greater than $52 million. I continually seek to learn new skills while delivering and creating a value-added rewarding work environment.

Thomas Bertels

Thomas Bertels

Founder and President, Purpose Works Consulting LLC.

Biography

Thomas Bertels is a management consultant and business transformation expert on a mission to make work more productive, valuable, meaningful, and impactful. He has more than 25 years’ experience helping companies across a range of industries, from start-ups to Fortune 500, transform how work gets done. Prior to founding Purpose Works, Thomas was a founding partner at OXYGY/Valeocon Consulting, a global consulting boutique. Earlier in his career, he led the process improvement and design practice at Aon Consulting/Rath&Strong and held various line management positions at ABB. Thomas has written several books and authored numerous articles on process redesign, strategy deployment, change management, organizational learning, metrics, and innovation. His latest book, Fixing Work, will be published in September 2023.

 

Michael Dove

Michael Dove

Vice President Enterprise Process Excellence and Quality, PSCU

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 04:00 - 04:30 am

Biography

 

Michael Dove is a member of the PSCU Member Experience organization and leads the Enterprise Process Excellence & Quality team. This team consists of Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belts & the Black Belt Process Engineering team, our Business Transformation Program Managers, Operational Business Intelligence, Operational Governance, Compliance & Quality as well as the Robotic Process Automation Center of Excellence.
PSCU is the nation’s premier payments credit union service organization (CUSO). For more than 40 years, PSCU has partnered with credit unions to help them grow and meet evolving member demands. Leveraging digital technology, PSCU now supports the success of more than 1,500 credit unions, representing more than 5.4 billion transactions annually.
Michael has been at PSCU since 2013, working 23 years with Bank of America prior to that. He is a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Certified Scrum Master, certified ADKAR Change Manager & International Coaching Federation Associate Certified Coach. After more than four years in the role the enterprise leader for operational excellence at PSCU, Michael and his staff of Master Black Belts & Black Belts have trained over 700+ employees with 200+ of them gaining their certification in Yellow Belt, Lean Specialist or Green Belt, as well as have produced over $>1.2MM of financial value in improvement projects annually.
He is a regular speaker at OPEX Financial Services conferences, including this year’s most upcoming virtual conferences.
He is also very active in PSCU’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiative. He is the eastern regional leadership sponsor for PSCU’s Sankofa business resource group, which provides mentoring and access to people of color within the organization. He is also a member of the African American Credit Union coalition.
He received a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the University of Phoenix and Master’s degree in Adult Education from the University of South Florida.
Prasanna Palakonda

Prasanna Palakonda

Senior Enterprise Architecture Leader - Digital Business Transformation Leader & Enterprise Strategy Leader, Molina Healthcare

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 04:30 - 05:00 am

Biography

Highly Focused and a Visionary Digital Transformation leader with 23 years of experience and a successful track record in leading Organizations to achieve significant business results in large, global and complex Fortune 500 organizations achieving strategic and tactical goals. An Enterprise Architecture and Strategy Leader with a big picture visionary thinking and providing thought leadership to craft transformation strategies, aligned with Business Vision and Organizational goals. Extensive experience with driving Business, technology and architecture choices by setting up standards for simplification, standardization, innovation and modernization. Proven ability in the areas of Digital Business Transformation, Customer Experience & Growth, Change Enablement, Operational Excellence, Business and IT Alignment Strategy,M&A and Enterprise Business Integrations across various Business and Industry domains such as Banking, Finance, Insurance, Pharmacy, HealthCare, Real Estate, IT Consulting, Government and Retail Industries.

As a Digital Transformations, Enterprise Architecture and Strategy Leader, I have led globally distributed cross functional teams in highly matrixed organizations with people, processes, technologies and cultural barriers in Cloud strategy, Application Rationalization, Modernization, API/Cloud Modernization roadmaps, COE & Enterprise Governance, establish EA practices to achieve desired Organization and Business goals.

Steven Allen

Steven Allen

Vice President, Fiserv

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 05:00 - 05:30 am

Biography

Accomplished executive with a 25+ year career globally in commerce, financial services, hospitality, telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries. Business development and revenue generation expertise to ensure profitability. Creator of innovative solutions that drive operational efficiency. Repeated success transforming business environments resistant to change.

Stan Howell

Stan Howell

Vice President - Strategy & Business Excellence, Bristol Myers Squibb

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 05:30 - 06:00 am

Biography

Stan Howell, Vice President, Strategy & Business Excellence at Bristol Myers Squibb, holds an excellent track record in strategically leading and transforming organizations to achieve manufacturing excellence. He has expertise in developing strategic deployment plans that enable high-performance workforces to achieve stellar business results while serving customers through right-first-time business processes. With a career that spans across manufacturing, supply chain, strategy realization, program management and operational excellence. Stan is a proven leader in driving bottom-line results and improving KPIs across numerous operation modalities including Small and Large Molecule, Vaccines, Medical Devices and Cell Therapies.

Paul Moretti

Paul Moretti

Vice President Enterprise Transformation & Chapter Lead, Citizens Bank

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Friday 10th May 2024 | 15:15 - 15:50 pm

Biography

Paul Moretti is an Agile Transformation Executive Leader with expertise in agile solutions, design thinking, and passion for embedding good practices, shifting mindsets, perspectives, and cultural changes. He coached and mentored highly collaborative cross-functional teams and stakeholders in FinTech, Banking, IT, Insurance, Education, and Risk Management industries. He is recognized for sustainability, operationalizing frameworks, developing and managing stakeholders, and innovative leadership across multi-year agile culture transformations. Paul is a solution designer and architect of enterprise agile planning frameworks.

Michael Cavanaugh

Michael Cavanaugh

Senior Training Specialist, Stanford Healthcare

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Friday 10th May 2024 | 10:25 - 10:55 am

Biography

Michael is a Change Maker, holding his Project Management Professional (PMP), Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM), and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) credentials.  Formerly a Project Manager for the performing arts, Michael joined Stanford Health Care in 2020 on the Business Operations Transformation's Training and Communications team. There he spearheaded the creation, development, and tracking of standard operating procedures, training lessons, and role-specific onboarding.  He also designed a tailor-made Learning Management System within Supply Chain to be the source of truth for knowledge management.  In his work takes an Agile approach to prioritize value-based solutions to unsolved problems or unmet needs. During his tenure he has helped a dozen colleagues earn their Scrum certifications, eight leaders to earn their PMP, and four Certified Materials Resource Professionals (CMRP).  In his communication role, Michael produces a Supply Chain specific newsletter and podcast, as well as maintains their internal web pages and external website Lately Michael has been leading Change Management for Supply Chain Supply Chain transition ERPs.  Ask Michael about his Masters's in Puppetry or time at Clown College. 

Brad Morrow

Brad Morrow

Principal Process Excellence Champion and Lead LEAN 6 Sigma Trainer, Helmerich & Payne

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Wednesday 8th May 2024 | 08:30 - 10:00 am

Biography

Brad Morrow is a Master Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma. He is a Principal Process Excellence Champion and Lead LEAN 6 Sigma Trainer at the Tulsa Based firm Helmerich & Payne. Brad invented and published the Lean tool TaaG analysis (Trends at a Glance). He is also the creator of the new contemporary art form Ignatian Rogue Art. Beyond this he is a professional magician (who performs under the stage name Zane Black). As a magician he invented the magic genre of Improv Magic. Brad is also a motivational speaker who speaks on topics such as how to turn dreams into reality and he is the creator of the empowerment podcast

Rachel Lockner

Rachel Lockner

Senior Vice President Operational Excellence, dentsu

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Wednesday 8th May 2024 | 10:30 - 12:00 pm

Biography

I have been leading operational excellence for over 20 years at financial services, insurance and media companies. I currently lead Operational Excellence for the media in the Americas at dentsu. Since joining, dentsu in November 2021, my team has driven change for our external clients by leading the transformation of our company’s largest external client and redesigning key processes for other global clients. Recently, my focus has been to improve the satisfaction of our largest global clients through leading operational excellence remediation programs. I have designed and implemented core operational excellence foundational trainings and the structure to drive a culture of continuous improvement globally. Prior to joining dentsu, I created and led the process excellence and automation team at Moody’s for shared services. In this role, I introduced and embedded a culture of process excellence in order to drive results that resulted in the reduction of 365 days of cycle 6500 hours of non – value add work within 18 months through process and automation efforts. The Moody’s process excellence program was a finalist for The BTOES Business Transformation and Operational Effectiveness organization award for program with best value creation and innovation.

Niloofer Darbary

Niloofer Darbary

Strategy and Business Transformation Leader,

Cultural Transformation Live - A Virtual Conference

Tuesday 11th July 2023 | 09:00 - 09:45 am

Biography

Niloofer is an accomplished leader, with proven expertise driving strategic initiatives at the CXO level, with significant impact for global conglomerates. She has an innate understanding of diverse cultures, working across Asia, Europe, and Americas.

Since joining Fiserv in 2016, she has lead multiple business innovation and transformation initiatives, around go-to-market strategies, improving customer experiences, and cost optimization. Preceding Fiserv, she was the transformation lead at Hewlett Packard involved in the design and execution of mergers & acquisitions, organization transformation and global delivery. She has been a Diversity & Inclusion leader at Fiserv a topic she is passionate about.As an industry-leading expert, Niloofer has been a key speaker at prestigious conferences across Asia, Europe and Americas. She was also a judge for the largest-scale, cross-industry leadership level event Digital Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards in 2021, and was nominated for the "Change Agent" award at the Women in Payments USA Symposium 2022.

She is also a founding member of a global taskforce focused on creating more awareness of a genetic mutation called G6PD Deficiency that affects approximately 400 million individuals from diverse ethnicities.

Fahrurazi Bin Baharum

Fahrurazi Bin Baharum

Head Organization Improvement, Senior Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Petronas

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 17:20 - 17:50 pm

Biography

 

Fahrurazi Baharum has more than 25 years of experience in business process reengineering, process improvement & optimization, and continuous improvement in Manufacturing and Oil & Gas sector. As a Head of Organization Improvement cum Senior Master Black Belt, under the Organization Transformation Unit, Change Management Department, Group Human Resource Management of PETRONAS, Fahrurazi has led Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt training, and has trained & coached more than 700 Lean Six Sigma Practitioners for the past 16 years. Fahrurazi attained his license and certification in Lean Six Sigma from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) & Six Sigma Academy US. As a passionate continuous improvement practitioner, Fahrurazi has led and facilitated numerous Business Transformation, Process Reengineering, Improvement & Optimization, and Lean Six Sigma initiatives across PETRONAS, with realized audited value creation of more than USD 10 Billion of Cost Savings & Cash Generation and contributed to more than 300,000 of man-hours savings.
Fahrurazi has been invited as the judge at various Innovation Competitions in Malaysia, and guest speaker & panelist at established international and domestic conference related to Manufacturing, Operational & Process Excellence and Continuous Improvement.

 

Thomas Ball

Thomas Ball

Architect Lead, Starbucks

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 09:15 - 09:45 am

Biography

Thomas Ball spent his early youth growing up among the radar sites and beautiful countryside of rural Germany as an USAF Airman after joining the AF at the earliest age possible. Transitioning through various technical programs, earning his BS in Electronics Systems from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and leaving the AF after serving on board a Communications Platform that performed redundant technical services to the US Pentagon and our National Command Authority, Thomas joined EDS, a pioneering technology leader, as Systems Engineer. Leaving EDS with a core group to launch a technology internet startup Thomas was pivotal in creating a foundational and pivotal technology platform that lead to new directions for correlating search and personal preferences in a new and challenging internet ecosystem. After consulting internationally, Thomas joined Starbucks as Infrastructure Architect. While at Starbucks Thomas has moved between the Data Platform, Foundational Infrastructure, and Cloud transformation space. Thomas very much enjoys sharing his foundational technology passion and experiences with others as well as listening to the questions and observations on how technical ecosystems can be more resiliently instantiated to provide higher levels of service and lower costs.

Patrick Tam

Patrick Tam

Vice President of Corporate Operational Excellence, ServiceNow

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Friday 10th May 2024 | 11:35 - 12:05 pm

Biography

Patrick Tam is the Vice President of Operational Excellence at ServiceNow. In this role, he is responsible for driving enterprise-wide operational performance. Prior to ServiceNow, Patrick held various executive roles at Cisco, including leading Corporate Transformation & Corporate Planning. Patrick is also a professor at San Jose State University, teaching operational excellence management to the next generation of leaders.

Kevin Inman

Kevin Inman

Senior Director SRE DevOPS, Fannie Mae

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Friday 10th May 2024 | 10:25 - 10:55 am

Biography

A seasoned Technology Executive with a proven track record in Silicon Valley, including Apple, eBay PayPal, Cisco, AppDynamics AWS, , I am highly adept at optimizing team performance and building world class organizations at scale.. Passionate about system design and architecture coupled with disruptive technologies to achieve remarkable results. Leveraging my expertise, I have successfully built and elevated world-class engineering teams, organizations and companies. My approach to work involves embracing the cutting edge of technology and assembling a team of exceptionally talented individuals to work smarter and more efficiently.

Artur Vartanyan

Artur Vartanyan

Digital Technologies Expert, Dell Technologies

Biography

 

Digital Technologies expert. Certified in digital technologies by top universities (Harvard, INSEAD, Wharton, NYU) and global companies (Dell, IBM, Linux Foundation).
18+ years of practice in IT industry across EMEA, including experience in leadership roles in global IT companies – Dell Technologies, EMC & IBM.
7+ years of teaching digital technologies. Developed and led 12+ educational programs on Big Data and Digital Transformation for leading universities in CIS – Moscow State University, Russian Technological University (MIREA) and Moscow Aviation Institute.
Author of 15 scientific publications on digital technologies, including SCOPUS publications.
Presented at more than 200+ IT and digital conferences.

 

Erin Neumann

Erin Neumann

VP, Operations Excellence, United Rentals

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Wednesday 8th May 2024 | 13:30 - 15:00 pm

Biography

Erin Neumann serves as the Vice President of Operations Excellence at United Rentals, the North American equipment rental leader. In her current role, she supports a branch network of 1,500+ locations through continuous improvement and automation of critical maintenance and logistics processes. Ms. Neumann joined United Rentals as a Director of Operational Excellence in 2017 and led multiple customer service and operations efficiency initiatives across the organization. Prior to joining the Company, Ms. Neumann specialized in Lean Manufacturing and Strategy in the Aerospace & Defense sector. She served both public and private sector clients as a Management consultant at Kearney in Washington, D.C. From 2007 through 2014, she held various roles at the former United Technologies subsidiaries Raytheon Technologies, Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky Aircraft. Ms. Neumann holds a Master’s in Business Administration from NYU Stern and a Bachelors of Business Administration from Loyola University Maryland.

Isabella Manning

Isabella Manning

Head of Organisational Change Management, Virgin Australia

Biography

15 years partnering with organisations and leaders to architect and execute complex organizational change and transformation programs. Spent many years in Mining and Resources as well as Banking and Finance, with the most recent experience in aviation. Background as an Occupational Therapist. Ex Deloitte Consulting.

Jordan Thurston

Jordan Thurston

SVP, Global Head of Regulatory Profile Management & Performance Analytics, Citi

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Wednesday 8th May 2024 | 15:30 - 17:00 pm

Biography

Dr. Jordan C. Thurston is a 2x TEDx Speaker, self-starter, and thought leader who shies away from the phrase “this is the way it’s always been done” and drives efficiencies in his job and everyday life through process improvement. Jordan has worked across the retail and financial industry, honing his craft of improving processes and organizations globally, bridging the gap between theory and practice.
Jordan currently works as Senior Vice President, Global Head of Regulatory Profile Management & Performance Analytics at Citi where he drives process improvement across his remit. In addition to his corporate role, he is the Founder & CEO of Evolve Like a Dragonfly LLC and The Neopte Foundation, a nonprofit that provides purpose and direction to youth from low-opportunity backgrounds to pursue higher education (university & trade school).
In 2021, Jordan created The Dragonfly Construct, a process improvement methodology that challenges the status quo of how strategy is developed and implemented within a corporation and streamlines efficiencies to derive a new format for strategic management and process improvement.

Todd VanHouten

Todd VanHouten

Senior Director of Strategy & Innovation, Cintas

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 08:45 - 09:15 am

Biography

Todd VanHouten is Senior Director of Strategy & Innovation at Cintas, overseeing Product, Technology, and Operational strategy along with large change initiatives. Todd has always been driven by a passion for innovation and views technology-done-right as the greatest enabler of innovation in our generation.

Ken Fredman

Ken Fredman

VP, Head of Editorial, Design and Publishing, S&P Global

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 11:45 - 12:15 pm

Biography

Ken leads the Editorial, Design & Publishing (EDP) team created as part of S&P Global’s merger with IHS Markit. His team supports the creation of essential intelligence content, including articles, reports, presentations, infographics, cartography, videos, podcasts and dashboards on global markets with high-quality and consistent standards. The team uses its scale, with staff members located in 19 U.S. States and 10 countries, to provide 24/5 follow-the-sun operations for sector and regional-specific news, analysis, research, and economic insights.
Ken is a member of S&P Global’s Research Council and heads the firm’s Editorial Council to define style, develop editorial talent, share best practices, drive content innovation, and protect the franchise through governance and standards.
Prior to S&P Global, Ken directed digital marketing strategy for investment management businesses with BNY Mellon and J.P. Morgan.

Robert Cartia

Robert Cartia

VP- Business Process, ProMach

Digital Transformation Excellence World Summit (BTOES DIGITAL)

Thursday 16th December 2021 | 16:00 - 16:30 pm

Biography

Rob is the VP- Business Process at ProMach. He is responsible for developing and driving ProMach’s best practice approaches and KPIs for customer service, operational improvements and excellence, and margin growth. Rob’s experience spans 11 industries within 8 companies to include Sony, PepsiCo, Allegheny Technologies Inc., GE, Johnson Controls Intl., Global Container Terminals, and REV Group. In addition, Rob serves as the Chairman of the Board for Parkview Community Federal Credit Union and Committee Member for the Aviation Maintenance Program at Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics.

Rob has an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and is a graduate of MIT’s Advance Certificate in Executive Leadership Program. Rob’s background is in Operations, Engineering, and Operational Excellence. In addition, Rob is a veteran of the United States Air Force. 

Rob has published breakthrough concepts through the American Society for Quality and is currently in the process of publishing his first book.

Monika Mangla

Monika Mangla

Managing Director, Deloitte

Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES)

Thursday 9th May 2024 | 13:55 - 14:25 pm

Biography

Monika is a Managing Director with our Los Angeles practice focusing on driving finance transformation across various global energy clients leveraging digital technologies. She is a consulting boomerang joining Deloitte after spending more than a decade in the OG&C industry. Outside of work, Monika is passionate about volunteering and mentoring, in the area of sustainability, education, and women empowerment, and serves on the board of a Maryland based non-profit. She enjoys spending time with family, especially reading and traveling with her son for soccer in her free time.

Why Attend?

The Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit & Industry Awards (BTOES) focuses on how organizations around the world are rethinking and adjusting the role of operational excellence to prepare for the future, transform their businesses, and gain a competitive advantage.

This event is the largest gathering of senior-level executives across the entire business transformation & operational excellence ecosystem. 

  • CEOs, COOs CSOs, CIOs, CAOs, CMOs, CFOs, CLOs, Chief Excellence Officers
  • Heads of / SVP & VP Global Operations, Global Operational Excellence Leader
  • Global Heads, Heads of, EVPs, SVPs, VPs, Directors of Business Excellence, Business Transformation, Innovation Excellence, Innovation Deployment Value Creation, Productivity, Operational Excellence, Continuous Improvement, Process Excellence, OpEx, Process Engineering, Strategy Execution, Change Management, Customer Experience, Lean Enterprise, Capability Excellence, Process Optimization & Process Management.
  • VPs of Global Operational Excellence, Global Continuous Improvement, Process Analysis, Enterprise Risk Management, Global Production & Logistics, Lean & Six Sigma, Operational Excellence & Productivity, Business Process Management.
  • Business Process Management Champions, BPM Project Leaders. 
  • Lean Six Sigma Deployment Leaders / Champions / Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belts
  • Directors of Operations, Process Re-Engineering, Productivity, BPM, Lean Six Sigma, Continuous Improvement, Business Reengineering, Performance Excellence, Operational Excellence, Process Analysis, Manufacturing Excellence, Productivity, Software Process Improvement
  • From across all industries, including Manufacturing, Hospitals, Healthcare, Medical Devices, Automotive & Transportation, Banking, Capital Markets & Insurance, Consumer Products & Retail, Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences, Government, Armed Forces & Public Sector, Mining & Metals, Oil & Gas, Power & Utilities, Real Estate, Hospitality & Construction, Technology, and Communications.
Learn More

Why is BTOES the “must attend” event for senior Excellence and Transformation Strategists?

  • Hear from the best selection of senior level Operational Excellence and Business Transformation Leaders from the world’s biggest, most advanced companies 

  • Gain insights from the fastest growing, most agile, most innovative organisations into how they are achieving unprecedented levels of excellence

  • Benchmark against the best in class across all major industries 

  • Get to grips with the evolving role of Operational Excellence as part of a strategic tool kit for managing change

  • Uncover cutting edge solutions, forge winning partnerships and grow your network

  • More discussion sessions, networking opportunities and interactivity

 

What makes the event truly unique?

  • The ONLY event to meaningfully address strategic BT and OE challenges in the context of the bigger picture trends and global industry movements transforming the way we do business

  • The ONLY event to actually act on your feedback - More networking, more interaction, more case studies

  • The ONLY event to build its agenda through 6 months of painstaking primary research with select innovative industry leading practitioners, ensuring our content is weighted precisely to the most pressing industry challenges and future trends

  • Unrivalled levels of speaker content scrutiny to deliver the best content of any event in this space and put our foot down on NO SALES PITCHES

  • The event with the best spread of industry expertise, allowing you to learn from parallel sector expertise and benchmark with the best in class

  • The ONLY end-to-end Business Transformation & Operational Excellence event on the market bringing the whole value stream and ecosystem together to look at Innovation, Strategy, CX, Culture, Leadership & Agility to achieve top line growth.

Learn More

What is the rationale behind BTOES? 

Managing the rate of Change in Industry 4.0

While the fourth industrial revolution has brought about unprecedented opportunities to drive value creation through data-led, intelligent machine-supported operational excellence; the comprehensive transformation needed to realise this potential brings with it a great deal of uncertainty, risk and complexity. 

Rapid technological change has democratised innovation. While smaller, more agile companies disrupt traditional industries, large organisations with ingrained multi-layered legacy systems, processes, practices and cultures are having to reassess how to bring their clout and experience to bear in ever-changing business environments. Business as usual is simply not an option, and the ability to effectively transform and continuously improve is fundamental to survival and growth.

We are working towards:

  • Increasing agility to manage constant rapid change

  • Gaining enterprise wide visibility on systems, processes and culture

  • Prioritising change and managing resources

  • How to apply lessons from smaller, innovative, more agile companies

Holistic data-led, customer value centric approach 

The modern customer is better connected, better informed and more vocal than ever before; they have far less reliance on brands to provide them with the information they need to make purchasing decisions. Seamless interactions across all touch-points is the new baseline for customer experience excellence. Whether consumer facing or not, the creation of customer value needs to be at the heart of strategic development for all businesses. The systems, processes and culture that support the development and delivery of customer value are of equal importance to success.

We are working towards:

  • Understanding changing customer demand and segmentation 

  • How to align E2E transformation with customer value creation

  • Instilling a customer focused culture in non-customer facing business units

  • Minimising risk of reputational damage and harnessing the power of customer advocacy

The evolution of company culture in line with the future of work 

As ever, cultural challenges remain the most significant barrier to operational excellence and transformation success. The way we work is evolving: Mundane and repetitive tasks are increasingly automated, the need to work on-site is diminishing and traditional working siloes are being deconstructed. To overcome resistance to changes in working practices, tools and environments, you need to provide transparency and clarity around change and create consistent agency and accountability at all levels of the business.

A culture of innovation is needed to harness the value that exists throughout the organisation. A culture of continuous improvement is needed to inspire and manage positive change. A culture of empathy and inclusion is needed to improve wellbeing and performance. A balance between standardization and diversity needs to be struck to get the best out of the people who embody the identity and values of your organisation. 

We are working towards:

  • Hiring and retaining employees with the relevant skills 

  • Developing effective cultural change KPIs and metrics

  • Strategies for effective communication and engagement

  • Understanding future of work trends 

Developing the leadership needed to support sustainable change and continuous improvement  

One of the things that successful transformation and excellence initiatives have in common is consistent, ongoing,  involvement from senior leadership. Meaningful and lasting change can only happen if the people in your organisation are aligned behind a strategic vision. Gaining an enterprise wide view of change initiatives under strong leadership to prioritise resources is an extremely complex challenge.

Operational Excellence and Transformation leaders feel frustrated in many cases by the lack of sufficient top-down involvement and support for their initiatives, and their own efforts are often frustrated by a personal lack of strategic vision and enterprise-wide view of resources and priorities. Communication between C-level executives and change leaders needs to be improved to bridge the gap. 

We are working towards:

  • Techniques for getting meaningful C-level buy-in for change

  • Competency gaps 

  • Leadership development program management

  • How to develop an enterprise level strategic view as a change leader

  • How to overcome project inertia and change saturation

Identifying and prioritising RPA and AI opportunities and other Industry 4.0 Technology

Data has been described as the oil of the modern age; the effective capture, analysis and application of data is the fuel that drives successful operations in all companies. There is nothing “magical” about AI or RPA. They simply provide the opportunity to capture, analyse and use that data on a larger scale, more precisely and more efficiently. The implications for efficiency, cost-reduction and personalisation are enormous. 

A pressing challenge for many organisations is identifying the right opportunities and prioritising investment in RPA transformation. Operational excellence methodologies are an indispensable tool in paving the way for implementation and managing the necessary change. The scale of change, cultural impediments and technical integration challenges are added to by the intrinsic uncertainty that comes with the adoption of any rapidly developing technology. 

We are working towards:

  • Developing a business case and demonstrating ROI

  • Risk mitigation 

  • Integration of new technology into existing processes and systems  

  • Overcoming cultural resistance to adoption of new technology

  • Making the right decisions, at the right time for the right reasons 

Ensuring the future of your organisation as a key element of value-creation ecosystems

Traditional, inward looking innovation organisations working on long-term product and service development cycles are no longer sufficient in their own right to meet the demands of today’s markets. Fast-paced, agile innovation needs to run in parallel with longer-term innovation and be strategically aligned. Further to this, the scope of value-creation needs to be broadened to develop new business models and diversification strategies, particularly in sectors like energy, transport and financial services where traditional business models have already been in part superseded by those more in tune with customer demand and technological advances. 

It isn’t enough for corporations to be reactive to disruption; they must become an indispensable element of a value-creating ecosystem defining the future of their industries. Many companies are increasingly looking outward to meet demand through partnership, acquisition and investment in small, high-potential start-ups. For companies large and small, defining their role in a value-creating ecosystem will be key to shaping their future.  

We are working towards:

  • Maintaining relevance to survive and thrive

  • Business model innovation and diversification strategy

  • M&A integration strategy

  • Incubator and accelerator investment and partnership strategy

What are the hottest new areas of focus on this year’s agenda?

Scaling Excellence and Agility

As disruptive business models, technology and organisations have matured and entered the mainstream, there is an ever growing demand to bottle the essence that made rapid success possible and apply it to operations at scale. This track will provide focus on scaling excellence and agility from a joint perspective of traditional industry giants and rapidly growing newer entrants. How do we maintain the agility that lies at the heart of rapid growth organisations as they continue to expand and scale up operations and put scalability at the heart of Operational Excellence strategy?

How Environmental Sustainability is fast becoming a leading driver of transformation

Climate change presents an existential threat to mankind, and environmental sustainability will be an increasing driver of change both through consumer demand and regulation. The winners will be organisations who embrace change and the opportunities presented by moving ahead of the curve. This is an emerging focus of great importance and will become a future segment of increasing weight year on year. We are giving leaders in this space a forum to be at the heart of developing a strategic approach to accelerating change both within their organisations and wider sectors. 

Moving the needle from awareness to action in correcting gender inequality

Thanks to the tireless work of many inspirational leaders, we have reached a point where there is unprecedented awareness of inequality in the workplace. The damaging effects of the gender pay gap, under-representation of women in leadership roles, unconscious bias at all levels of business are now starting to get the attention they deserve. We will be highlighting some of the real world strategies that can be deployed to take the next steps in your organisation and providing an environment in which to innovate new initiatives, grow collaborative partnerships, formulate KPIs and develop training techniques to help move the needle from talk to action. 

Addressing supply chain transparency and compliance 

There is increasing regulatory and customer demands on organisations to provide supply chain transparency. Managing these risks is a growing area of focus, particularly for large organisations with global operations. Distributed ledger technology (Blockchain) has provided an opportunity for incorruptible traceability of transactions at all stages of the supply chain which is a game-changer for supply chain excellence. What do you need to do to take advantage of the opportunities available? 

Learn More

Operational Excellence 

  • Excellence & Innovation Acceleration: Unleashing the Power of Great People and Organization

  • Deploying Toyota Kata to Enable CI Culture Development 

  • Standardized Work Implementation

  • Leveraging Vendors to Drive Global Scale

  • Enabling Supply Chain Excellence with Blockchain and the IoT

  • Accelerating Project Execution using the Scaled Agile Framework and Total Business Management

  • The Evolving role of Operational Excellence in Industry 4.0

  • The Approach to Human Manipulation: The Intersection of Psychology, Six Sigma and Change Management

 

Business Transformation 

  • The Secrets to Large-Scale Business Transformation Success

  • Enabling Value-driven Transformation with People, Process and Technology Aligned Behind Organisational Culture

  • Defining your Identity as part of a Value-creating Ecosystem

  • Identify and Prioritize Transformation Opportunities

  • Process Controls Digital Transformation

  • Aligning Business Transformation with the Future of Work

  • Managing Large-scale E2E Supply chain Transformation

  • Systems Thinking & Approach:  The Enterprise Operating System for the Concept to Cash Value Stream

  • Agile Transformation in a regulated environment

  • Enabling and Delivering Operational Excellence (OE) Through Management System (OEMS) and Operational Discipline (OD)  Deliverables

  • World Class Manufacturing Transformation

  • Managing Disruption to Industry Supply Chains

 

Culture Transformation 

  • Mastering Change Management & Cultural Transformation 

  • The Recipe for Sustainable Organizational Productivity

  • Culture Transformation KPI and Metrics Development

  • The Neuroscience of Change and How to Make it Stick

  • Developing an Action-oriented Mindset and Positive Culture to Drive Transformation 

  • Approaching Operational Excellence Culture – The Systematic Way

  • The Underestimated Value of Empathy in Sustainable Business Change

  • Elevating Quality Culture & Quality Competencies for a Global Workforce

  • Using E2E Customer Value and E2E Process to Drive Culture Change

  • Supercharge Your Culture

  • Why is Sustaining the Effects of Operational Excellence Programs so Difficult?

 

Innovation Excellence 

  • From the Disrupted to the Disrupter - Leveraging your Business Value to Become an Indispensable Agent of Change

  • The Importance of Enduring Technology Partnerships to Future Success

  • Design Thinking to Empower Industry 4.0 Leadership 

  • Sowing the Seeds of an Enduring Innovation Partnership Strategy

  • Innovating culture! - Is it possible to unlock the intrapreneurial spirit within a big traditional multinational corporation?

  • Harnessing IoT Innovation to Transform

  • Inspiring Innovation Enterprise Wide

  • Designing a Roadmap to Optimize Short-term and Long-term Innovation

 

Technology Excellence 

  • Applying Lean Six Sigma to Big Data Analytics

  • Introducing the Digital Workforce of the Future - RPA Change Management Program

  • Realising the Benefits of CMMI 2.0

  • Innovation and Digital in the Future Supply Chain 

  • API and Open Architecture Development

  • Exploring the role of Organizational Competencies in Information Technology Outsourcing

  • Enabling AI Project Initiatives with Agile Development

  • Digitalization: How to move from hype to Generation of Business Return

  • Digital Workforce Demand Management

 

Customer Excellence 

  • Bringing your Customer to the Center of Operational Transformation and Intelligent Automation Adoption

  • Connecting Customer Service to the Business Transformation Value Stream 

  • Managing Industry Change in line with ACES Mobility Trends

  • Building Data-Privacy Compliance into your Customer Experience Excellence Programs

  • Leveraging Customer Journeys to Create end-to-end Value

 

Leadership Excellence 

  • Introducing the Digital Workforce of the Future with an Automation Change Management Program

  • Leader as Coach – A Lean Approach to Creating a Coaching Culture

  • Lean Transformation of Training and Skills Development 

  • The Impact of Leadership Choices During Times of Transformation

  • From Change Sponsors to Agents of Change - Leading a Re-imagined People-first Transformation 

  • Assessment as an Accelerant to Operational Excellence

  • Developing Frameworks to Inspire and Support Continuous Improvement Champions, Attract and Retain Talent

 

Scaling Excellence and Agility

  • Cutting Through the Noise - How can you use AI to Drive Transformation and Operational Excellence now?

  • Operational Excellence, a Value-based Systems Approach at Scale

  • Reinvigorating the Lean Approach with a Scalable Pilot Approach

  • Best Practice from a Comprehensive Continuous Quality Improvement Program in times of rapid change

  • Creating a Symbiotic Relationship with Startups

  • Agile and Innovation Approaches

 

Strategy Execution Excellence

  • Transforming through analytics in a non technical world

  • Aligning an Organization Post Merger and Acquisition

  • How to Identify and Resolve “Points of Failure” in Business Processes

  • Delivering Exceptional Operations Results: Breaking Inertia Through the Combination of Processes, People, and Measurements (KPIs) 

  • Process Management and Agile: A Joint Design and Implementation Approach

  • Gaining Complete Visibility of your Processes with Data Mining

  • How Advanced Communications Skills Can Turbo Charge Change Management 

  • Portfolio Workflow Management with Kanban and SAFe

Learn More

More parties, dinners, and get-togethers, all about making new industry friends, in the beautiful setting of the Orlando

  • Welcome Cocktail Party - May 08, 2024. 
  • Operational Excellence Awards Gala Reception in the Peninsula 5-7 - May 09, 2024
  • Operational Excellence Awards Gala Event in the Peninsula 5-7 - May 09, 2024
  • Awards After Party in the Peninsula 5-7 - May 09, 2024
  • VIP Pre-Reception Party - May 09, 2024
  • NEW! Night Summit
  • Hot Full-Service Breakfasts - May 07-10, 2024.
  • Mid-Morning and Mid-Afternoon Themed Breaks - May 07-10, 2024
  • Sit Down Full Service Plated Lunches in the Atrium B - May 07-10, 2024. 
  • Meet the Speaker Topic Themes Lunch Tables in the Atrium A&B/Broadwalk - May 09, 2024
  • Industry Sector Themed Lunch Tables in the Atrium A&B/Broadwalk - May 10, 2024
  • Organized Dinners - Around Conference Themes & Topics
  • Wine Tasting
  • Pre-event Golf Challenge 
  • Fun games to break the ice. 
Learn More

BTOES  has been engineered to exceed expectations and create more engagement opportunties:

  • 80+ Speakers – All Practitioners - Industry Leaders, Thought Leaders, Disruptors, & Legends.
  • Over 100 Sessions
  • 3 in-depth Dedicated Tracks with unparalleled opportunities for knowledge sharing and networking, entitled the People Summit, Process Summit, Technology Summit
  • 20+ hours of social networking
  • 16+ hours of session time dedicated to peer to peer exchange of ideas. 
  • 3 parallel Tracks Steams
  • 60+ Track Sessions.
  • 6+ Thought Leader Panel Discussions
  • 5+ Leaders Benchmarking Boardrooms e.g. CEOs, Global Heads, VPs of.
  • 50+ Round-Table Discussions.
  • 20 Summit Interactive Workshops & Master Classes
  • 100+ Poster Board Presentations
  • 25+ Industry Press to be announced at the end of October
  • 30+ Credible Solutions Providers in the Exhibit Hall, announced end of October.
  • 60+ Hours of Content on the Agenda
  • 600+ Past Attendees. Amalgamation of 5 previous leading industry events
  • 35,000+ Social Media Community Members.
  • 1,00,000+ BTOES Insights Subscribers
Learn More

This event has been designed to provide create more meaningful conversations and commercial connections. 

  • More lavish gala receptions and an award dinner after party (bubbly anyone?).
  • More boardroom meetings, roundtable sessions, and interactive presentation formats.
  • More informal networking opportunities and breaks due to shorter presentation formats
  • More upscale food service, Hot Full Service Breakfasts, Delicious Mid-Morning and Mid-Afternoon Breaks, Sit Down Full Service Plated Lunches (Filet Mignon anyone), and don’t forget the Awards Dinner on May 09, 2024.
  • More social activities to relax and unwind with your industry friends, wine tastings, fun tours, dinners, golf events. 
  • More exclusive VIP events.
  • Networking App - Best in class, easy to use, networking tool to arrange meetings, both prior, during and post-event. 
Learn More

The summit will address some of the biggest challenges, which are:

  • Rethinking operations end to end, incorporating digitalization activities along the whole value chain
  • Adapting and embracing new technologies and the new business models
  • Cultural Transformation and creating a culture of Operational Excellence and Innovation. Implementing effective Change Management programs. Driving Corporate Culture Change and How to build and transform Organizational Culture
  • Leadership Understanding, Buy-In, Support and Sponsorship from ALL Leaders which is critical. Operational Excellence needs commitment, resources and cannot be optional. 
  • Sustaining a Continuous Improvement Culture (Key to this is Leadership Buy-In)  
  • Achieving an Enterprise-Wide Operational Excellence Strategy
  • End-to-end business transformation, with all departments’ processes working in unison at scale to aligned goals and priorities.
  • Keeping up with new technologies, relative value relevance, and the creation of new opportunities. AI, Robotic Process Automation, Machine Learning, IOT, Cloud Computing, Big Data, Data Analytics, Advanced Robotics, 3D Printing, Mobile Applications are just some of the technology shifts.
  • Integrating New Advanced Technologies
  • Acquiring and managing start-ups
  • Changing Customer Demands & Channels
  • Building New Competitive Advantages.
  • Integrating CI methodologies personalized to the organization.
  • Ensuring initiatives are aligned with Key Strategic Priorities, across the organization.
  • Failure to innovate fast enough.
  • Building a culture of innovation & agile mindset.
  • Changing Workforce, Millennial Generation, Freelance Culture. 
  • Customer Experience Excellence in a less high touch environment. 
Learn More

What is Operational Excellence? It is important we define it.

Operational Excellence is the execution of the business strategy more consistently and reliably than the competition, with lower operational risk, lower operating costs, and increased revenues relative to its competitor. It is needed more than ever in today’s technology-driven rapidly changing business models, which require organizations to undergo an end-to-end business transformation. Operational Excellence can also be viewed as execution excellence.

Some of the key process methodologies used are Lean Thinking, Six Sigma, Hoshin Planning, Balanced Scorecard etc.

However, the focus of Operational Excellence goes beyond the traditional continuous improvement methods to a long-term change in organizational culture. Companies in pursuit of Operational Excellence do two things significantly different than other companies: they manage their business and operational processes systematically and invest in developing the right culture.

Operational Excellence manifests itself through integrated performance across revenue, cost, and risk. It focuses on meeting customer expectation through the continuous improvement of the operational processes and the culture of the organization. The goal is to develop one single, integrated enterprise level management system with the ideal flow. The second component, a culture of Operational Discipline, is commonly described as doing the right thing, the right way, every time. This culture is built upon guiding principles of integrity, questioning attitude, always problem-solving, daily continuous improvement mindset, level of knowledge, teamwork, and process driven. 

Learn More

Get Involved

Attendees

Get The Latest Info

Get the Agenda as soon as it's released. Plus, announcements on the forward-thinking speakers and visionaries. 

Testimonials

The Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit & Industry Awards is the industry's largest senior-level event that is driven by the huge industry demand for a large-scale, cross-industry, future-focused operational excellence event that is energizing, inspiring, and engaging.

This event is an entirely fresh experience that defines the ecosystem and is where the industry leaders gather to create the future. 

It brings together the best and brightest individuals & organizations from across key sectors to engage, network, benchmark and discuss the key challenges and future trends within Operational Excellence, Lean, Six Sigma and Agile and its application & impact on Business Transformation, Innovation Execution, Agility, Customer Experience, Value Creation, Strategy and the very important challenges surrounding Leadership & Cultural Transformation. 

I have found the summit to be among the best I've attended in my 30+ years. The speakers are professional; the presentations are informative and no sales attempts as I've seen in other settings. 

VP Performance Process Improvement , Universal Health Services

The Summit and Industry Awards was outstanding.  It was my pleasure both to participate and attend.  I compliment both Brian and you and, of course, Vijay, on what can only be classified as a first class event. The pleasure in meeting you was mine and I look forward to future interaction.

Strategic Planning & Continuous Process Improvement Director, US Army Military District of Washington and Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region

Thank you for such a great Conference. Over the years, I have attended 25+ conferences and I have never participated in one better. We appreciate you and your team's hard work!

Raytheon Six Sigma Institute, RAYTHEON

A tremendously informative and useful event. Unlike most summits that focus on presentations, this event informed, stimulated and provided insights that participants could use when they returned to their organization

 

Director, Army Distributed Learning, US Army

Great event. Very informative and eye opening to current issues

TNG Analyst, US Army

This summit is an excellent opportunity to interact with leaders across the spectrum of industries involved with Lean and Six Sigma and to re-energize our own deployments with new ideas and renewed passion for operational excellence

 

Operational Excellence Analyst, Newfield Exploration

The opportunity to network, hear practical implementation examples, see vendor updates and take away new ideas is just outstanding. Thank you!

Manager, SW Process Improvement, RIM

You guys run the best business improvement conferences with exceptional business leaders sharing best practices

Lean Six Sigma Corporate Deployment Leader, BMO Financial Group

Another great year! You have great people with Claire and Flora and others. I always enjoy your events

SVP, SunTrust Banks, Inc.

The 4th Annual Global Lean Six Sigma & Business Improvement Summit and Industry Awards was outstanding.  It was my pleasure both to participate and attend.  I compliment both Claire and you and, of course, Vijay, on what can only be classified as a first class event. The pleasure in meeting you was mine and I look forward to future interaction with your organization.

Strategic Planning Officer and Continuous Process Improvement Director, US Army Military District of Washington and Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region

It was very nice to finally meet you at the conference in Orlando.  I really enjoyed everything. Congratulations on such wonderful work.

Co-ordination Officer, United Nations

Thanks for organizing another successful conference. There were quite a few opportunities for dialogue among experienced practitioners (MBB forum, Consultant panel, Deployment Leader benchmarking forum, etc). Well done.

Strategy Deployment Leader - Six Sigma MBB, Black & Veatch Corporation

I was very impressed with the representation at the conference and at the awards ceremony. Always striving for excellence!

Vice President, Operational Quality & Training, Wyndham Vacation Ownership

It was a great conference with some outstanding presentations.  I look forward to next year.

PE, MBB, Lean Six Sigma, Merck

As in prior years, the Annual Global Lean Six Sigma & Business Improvement Summit and Industry Awards Program did an excellent assembling a diverse group of business professionals that all share the same passion for Continuous Improvement. This was clearly evident during the presentations they gave during the track sessions as well as their active participation in the plenary sessions.

Productivity Director – NAIG, Praxair Inc.

I was impressed at the diversity of industries that were represented at the conference. From technology to steel, to pharmaceuticals, there were a wide variety of companies who are really interested in learning best practices and sharing them with others. 

Senior Manager, Consumer Care and Tech Support Strategy, Dell Inc.

The range of companies and industries that were represented resulted in superb exchange of ideas

Lead Master Black Belt, CR&D, DuPont

As a new deployment leader, I attended three conferences last year, and yours was by far the best! I found the sessions to be varied and informative, and they were supplemented by opportunities to mingle with other participants and industry specialists. I look forward to making your an annual event!

VP Service Quality, TD Canada Trust

Interesting perspectives provide an excellent basis for determining how we can benefit from Six Sigma. Great location and venue!

Director Head of Global Operations, World Bank

Excellent insights…excellent thoughts. The speakers shared inspirational stories and helpful lessons learned

Altas Program Improvement, Lockheed Martin

This was a great opportunity to see first hand how other companies approach building quality into the design process. I have taken away numerous new ideas that I will incorporate into our model

VP Six Sigma Business Excellence, Cigna Corporation

Leadership, Energetic, Engaging, Wonderful Presentations

Senior Vice President, Mckesson Corporation

The conference on Lean Six Sigma showed how to integrate these proven methodologies in Manufacturing and Service companies as well as how to enable both Lean and Six Sigma by removing complexity from your business.

VP, Master Black Belt, Quality & Productivity, Bank of America

The speakers were all excellent

Project Leader, United Space Alliance

The summit was outstanding -- great networking and process improvement sharing! 

Electrical Value Stream Leader Process Excellence, Northrop Grumman Corporation

The WCBF Global Six Sigma Summit and Awards Conference was our most successful marketing event for 2007. This was largely the result of the personal interest WCBF staff took in finding ways to optimize our visibility and facilitate contact with key prospects.

VP Marketing, Instantis

Very good! Excellent topics, pertinent to todays circumstances

Driector Quality & O p Ex, Harley Davidson

Excellent Balance of superb speakers, best vendors and relevant, practical topics. Must attend this event.

LSS Champion, Northrop Grumman

A Summit very well organized where the aim of the program is the content and the real research of best Practices.  It was a hard job as an Awards Judge due to the real top level of competitors and their great results.

Head of Quality, Ferrari Racing

Thank you for such a great Conference. Over the years, I have attended 25+ Six Sigma Conferences and I have never participated in one better. We appreciate you and your team's hard work!

Founder, Raytheon Six Sigma Institute, RAYTHEON

I have found the congresss to be among the best I've attended in my 30+ years. The speakers are professional; the presentations are informative and no sales attempts as I've seen in other settings.

VP Performance/Process Improvement , Universal Health Services

These congresss are simply the best, and there really are no others even close. I have attended almost every year. The speakers are top shelf, there is great opportunity to make new contacts, and the event organization is wonderful. 

VP, Quality , Saint Vincent Health System

You provide the most in-depth conferences that I have ever been to.

VP - IP Capture Quality, US Bank

Pre-summit workshops were very practical, tool-based, and I will certainly leverage.  The summit had powerful key note speakers, experienced practitioners sharing their learnings and best practices.  The awards ceremony event and dinner was very well done - pace was good, dinner was lovely, atmosphere was celebratory.  Evening drinks events where we could spend more time networking.  I was not able to stay for the post-summit workshops although I heard good things from 2 who did stay behind.  As a speaker I also found the experience to be very rewarding.  Your team was very organized from requesting the bio, updating the website, keeping me apprised via emails, etc.  Thank you for the experience.  I hope you will continue to reach out to us for other events.

 

Co-Head, Process Excellence - Retail Deployments, Lean Six Sigma Centre of Excellence and Governance , RBC Royal Bank

Overall the summit was excellent, and I especially enjoyed, and had some good new learnings from a couple of the keynote speakers (Al Switzler and Norman Bodek) Good mix of topics on the panel breakout discussions.

VP Operational Excellence, Intel

The congress was exceptional--it also was great to hear Jim Collins.

Global Consulting Enterprise Services, Ingersoll Rand

Thank you for all the hard work you did to make it a success.

Director of Lean Six Sigma, Department of Defense

I always enjoy networking with professionals leading in problem solving. This year's congress was a good sharing of lessons learned and fresh practical ideas.

Director of Continuous Improvement, United Airlines

I would like to compliment you again on pulling off quite the event! It was well planned, organized and very informative. I spoke to several experts in the Six Sigma field who were very pleased with the entire event.   

Marketing & Sales Director, National Republic Bank of Chicago

 

I have been attending WCBF conferences for 8 years, particularly those on Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare. These conferences are simply the best LSS conferences in healthcare, and there really are no others even close. I have attended almost every year. The speakers are top shelf, there is great opportunity to make new contacts, and the event organization is wonderful. Recently, I was asked by WCBF to chair the conference, so I was able to see deeper behind the scenes, and I know what great work is being done to produce these conferences. Given this exceptional product, I would highly recommend Vijay as the leader of this organization.  
 

 

Vice President, Quality, Saint Vincent Health System

Over the last 10 years I have attended and spoken at many WCBF conferences around Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare. I have found the conferences to be among the best I've attended in my 30+ years in Healthcare. The speakers are professional, the presentations are informative and not sales attempts as I've seen in other settings and the staff of WCBF has always been very receptive in solving any problems that were experienced. I recommend these conferences without hesitation to my colleagues in Healthcare. 

VP Performance/Process Improvement, Universal Health Services

Diverse, excellent agenda of topics delivered by actual practitioners of Lean Sigma. Good representation of multiple healthcare organization models.

MBB, Lean Kaizen Leader, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Your conference is a winner and I like being a part of it.

US Army Military District of Washington , US Army Military District of Washington

It was an honor for Avis Budget Group to win Best Organizational Achievement in Lean Enterprise Improvement from the WCBF in the first year of our Lean Six Sigma deployment.  The award process was thorough and it gave Avis Budget Group a tremendous platform to demonstrate the success our young Performance Excellence deployment has achieved.  The $40 million of verifiable hard-dollar savings ABG’s Performance Excellence team was able to achieve in its first year was a key deliverable of the company’s annual strategic plan.

Performance Excellence Deployment Leader, Avis Budget Group

It has been an honor to accept the award for Best Achievement of Organizational Business Improvement in Healthcare this year.  The WCBF award has allowed SSFHS to increase the credibility of its Lean Six Sigma Program within its own system and in the communities it serves.  The award shows our customers and competitors that we are committed to excel and progressing steadily as we improve the quality of care for our patients.

Regional CEO, Sisters of St. Francis Health Services, Inc. – Northern Indiana Region

I was very pleased to accept the award of Best Project Achievement in Business Enabling Processes on Delphi’s behalf. It was especially gratifying to receive external validation from a diverse and global audience that included contingents from some of our key customers and competitors.

Global Director of Customer Satisfaction, Delphi Gas Engine Management Systems

We are extremely excited to have received this recognition from WCBF for Best Emerging Business Improvement. I believe this terrific award recognizes that customers can depend on our ability to live our mission statement every day with on time delivery, lowest industry turn times, customer service of exceptional value, service and products of the highest quality.  Also, I'd like to compliment WCBF for their excellent recognition program. 

President and Chief Executive Officer , PAS Technologies

Capital One has received multiple awards through our participation in the WCBF Global Six Sigma Award Program, including most recently the 2008 Platinum Award for Process Excellence Project and the Best Project Achievement in Innovation or Product Development. This prestigious external recognition is a great confirmation of the exceptional business results delivered by our associates. 

Sr. Vice President, Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Capital One Bank

It was an exceptional moment when we first learned BMO Financial Group was the recipient of three WCBF Global Six Sigma and Business Improvement Awards. Theses awards are truly attributable to all the hard work and dedication of our employees across North America. Lean Six Sigma has enabled BMO Product Operations to significantly improve our customer service and organizational cost management in today's challenging economic environment. We are determined to intensify our commitment to Lean Six Sigma business improvements as we continue to deliver great customer experiences.

Deployment Leader and Master Black Belt, BMO Financial Group