Speakers

Chad Robson assumed the role of Vice President of Strategy and Operational Optimisation for Ontic in January 2018. In this role Chad was tasked with elevating the business by implementing a Global Project Management Office with teams based in the US and UK. This included recruiting a qualified cross functional team at each site as well as implementing Microsoft Project Online and Project for the Web.

Prior to his current role, Chad was the General Manager for Ontic’s Chatsworth, California facility. Additionally, Chad has over 20 years of experience performing senior roles in Finance, Operations, Supply Chain, and IT. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Florida State University and a Master of Business Administration from Middle Tennessee State University. Chad lives in Florida with his wife Kristy and 2-year-old little girl, Kylie.

A leader in the field of portfolio and programme management, Martin Parlett is currently Head of Programme Management Office for the Government of Montserrat, responsible for the delivery of the country’s ambitious portfolio of transformational change, including national infrastructure development. Prior to his Caribbean posting, he led the establishment of the Enterprise Portfolio Office, together with the portfolio management framework, for managing $2.5bn annual investment at Sellafield Ltd – the world’s most complex nuclear site. In 2018, he was named as one of Confederation of British Industry’s 35 Under 35 business leaders and served on its committee. Parlett was a campaign manager for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in Virginia in 2008 and is a published author, charitable trustee, and board director. A proponent of contextualised, fit-for-purpose and people-centric implementation, he is the recipient of the Association for Project Management’s PMO of the Year Award 2020.

Michelle Ward is an interim Programme Lead currently working at Defra and is responsible for the delivery of the Unified PMO Programme across Corporate Services plus parts of Defra group. Partnering with Wellingtone PPM, Michelle and her team have successfully deployed Project Online and Power Bi across Corporate Services Portfolio to enable a single way of working for the PPPM community. Michelle uses her experience in leadership, strategic thinking, PPM practice, business change and communications to facilitate the delivery of her stakeholder’s vision. Her previous programmes include Smarter Ways of Working, delivering PAS3000 initiatives across the Public Sector, & BT’s acquisition of EE, leading on pre-merger discovery & post-merger commercial efficiencies.

Ricardo is a Project Management professional with more than 15 years of professional experience leading projects, programs, portfolios and project offices in more than 40 countries, in Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America, in the technology industry, working for multinational companies like Ericsson and Telefonica. A firm believer of the project economy and promoter of the project manifesto principles, like: “We believe that ideas are made a reality through projects”. Involved in multiple pro bono activities like mentoring project managers, small and medium businesses and start-ups.

Stephen is rated as one of the top 3 lecturers at one of Europe’s top MBA Business Schools; Cranfield. He has a reputation of taking complex management concepts such as Project, Programme Change and Crisis Management and being able to distil them down, into highly informative and fast moving lectures – often using “storytelling” techniques. His attitude is “if you haven’t done it – you shouldn’t be teaching it!”

Unusually, for an academic, he has actually has spent most of his working life in real business and still runs his own, highly successful, Project Management Company.

Stephen is an unusual blend of Academic, Businessman and Teller of Tales. He has taught across the World and has appeared on National Radio and TV.

Emma-Ruth Arnaz-Pemberton is the Director of Consulting Services at Wellingtone; a PPM consultancy with offices in Windsor (UK), Madrid (Spain) and Dublin (Ireland). She is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management (APM), is part of the PMI UK Board, member of IPMA AEIPRO, PMI Spain, an Axelos P3M3 Assessor, and an NLP Master Practitioner with a Diploma in Modern Applied Psychology.

Emma-Ruth is a PMO, PPM specialist with extensive experience in the change management industry and a particular focus on collaboration, reminding us that we should be human first and change champions second.

She is involved extensively with a number of organisations; notably the ResponsiblePM.Org, Project Management Without Borders, Project Managers Against Poverty, and PM4Change. Emma-Ruth organises Wellingtone’s two flagship annual events; the FuturePMO conference and Project Management Day of Service.