Speakers

Matt Warren is currently Head of PMO at Capita PLC. Over the last decade, Matt has worked in both the Civil Service and private sector in varying PMO and change delivery roles, including Head Corporate P3MO and Head of Change Delivery for the Health and Safety Executive, and as Head of Portfolio Office in the Cabinet Office.

Key delivery experience includes leading change delivery teams executing EU Exit Transition activity, digital and business transformation, and multiple PMO implementations.

Prior to working in change and program delivery, Matt was a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force, specialising as an Air Traffic Controller. On leaving the Royal Air Force, Matt moved to Australia and continued working in aviation, operating as a safety and quality manager. During this time, he undertook and completed a Master of Business Leadership with a specific focus on Organisational Change and Strategic Project Management.

Kriss Akabusi MBE is an Olympian, media personality, motivational speaker and businessman.

Kriss rose to fame on the athletics track, having begun his international athletics career in 1983 as a member of the 4 x 400-metre relay squad. He will always be remembered for helping Great Britain clinch gold from the mighty Americans at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo. Having amassed three Olympic medals, as well as World, European and Commonwealth titles, Kriss was bestowed with an even greater honour in 1992: an MBE awarded by her Majesty the Queen in recognition of his services to the country through athletics.

Kriss is also a qualified life coach, having earned his Masters in existential coaching.

Ali has 12 years of experience as a project professional, with work across Financial Services and Retail domains, in the UK, Germany and Portugal. He’s a champion of continuous improvement and minimum viable governance. And he hates describing himself in the third person…

He’s currently a portfolio manager at ao.com – the largest online-only white goods and electricals retailer in the UK. Headquartered in Bolton and established in 2000 AO has grown into a company of 3,000 employees. It also boasts its own logistics company and owns Europe’s most sophisticated fridge recycling plant.

AO has scaled substantially in its lifetime. Growing pains of this expansion were starting to show, then were stress-tested as the covid pandemic hit. Riding the wave of these challenges as much as any other team was AO’s Project & Delivery team within its tech department.

In 2022 AO rolled out a project delivery framework. For the first time in its history, it has a one-stop-shop for project processes and practices, access to project managers and stakeholders alike, that explains how the project team do their work and plays their role in helping the organisation achieve its strategic objectives.

Though relatively new to the PMO world, Suze has 8 years of experience in supporting and delivering both operational and strategic change activities in Higher Education. In her current role as PMO Senior Manager at Durham University, she is focused on developing the organisation’s approach to defining and delivering its portfolio of strategic change projects and programmes, managing the PMO’s development roadmap and working with stakeholders across the University to professionalise and build capability and maturity in project, programme and portfolio management.

Presentation: Powering up the PMO: Solving Glitches, Defeating Baddies & Unlocking the Next Level

Set up in late 2019, Durham University’s central PMO was established to help support the delivery of an ambitious new strategy. This session will share insights and lessons learned from Durham’s PMO journey including how and why the PMO was introduced as part of a wider Strategy Delivery Unit. The session will also focus on the approach and tactics the team has employed in working to build strong foundations to underpin the successful delivery of change and to increase P3M maturity across the organisation.

Presentation: How to Invest to Improve Maturity

Stephen is rated as one of the top 3 lecturers at one of Europe’s top MBA Business Schools; Cranfield. He has a reputation for 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.

Katrina has over 20 years of experience as a project professional working in Ireland, Europe and the US, and has managed large programmes across diverse industries.
She is an active advocate for the practice of project management. She recently served for 2 years as the Director of Events at the Ireland Chapter of PMI, where she has organised and hosted over 40 virtual events.
Outside of the project profession, and when not in lockdown, she enjoys travelling and skiing.
Katrina has a Master’s Degree in Project Management and is both PMP and PgMP Certified.

Presentation: AI –  Implications for Project Professionals

Donna has 15 years of experience as a PMP Qualified Portfolio Manager within the Financial Services sector. She has previously led Portfolio Management and PMO functions responsible for prioritising, overseeing and reporting on the enterprise-wide portfolio of change activity, and providing Delivery Assurance to support the successful delivery of change. Currently, she is Programme Director for a number of overarching Transformation Programmes. Donna is a Trustee for Aching Arms UK and is passionate about improving baby loss bereavement support in the workplace.

Presentation: Expanding PMO service: The ultimate Tetris challenge

This session will share the journey of Zurich’s UK Portfolio Team in expanding PMO services outside its traditional IT project focus to areas such as data, analytics and business change. Providing insight into how we stacked the pieces together to provide valued services across a broader remit, alongside sharing some of the pieces that didn’t fit so well and how we rotated/adapted to achieve our vision of Enterprise-wide PMO service.

I currently work within the PMO team at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), based in Coventry. My time at the MTC started as a Project support officer supporting overall project governance and reporting, I was then promoted to the role of PMO Change Coordinator. As part of this role, during 2020 I was the lead and accountable for a major internal improvement programme relating to the MTC’s Project Management Process’s (PMP). Fundamental aspects to this role included consistently engaging with a wide range of stakeholders across the business as well as leading a team of 20 people who the majority are in more senior roles to me in order to improve MTC’s PMP.

My success in delivering the programme was celebrated when I won the APM Midlands Branch ‘Young Project Professional of the Year’ Award, which I am incredibly proud of. As well as this, our success as a PMO was celebrated in 2020 winning the CEO award where my contribution to the internal project was recognised. More recently, I split my time 50/50 with 50% of my time being responsible for driving and leading PMO improvement initiatives and strategy and the other 50% of my time is spent jointly leading the ‘Projects Domain’, supporting our major business change of implementing an entirely new Microsoft Dynamics 365 system.

My background in Psychology (MSc Psychology Degree & Early Years and Psychology BA (Hons) paired with my experience in project management have developed my ethos to be strongly centred around people, where I believe developing strong healthy communication and relationships can lead to success no matter what the task. I am extremely proud of the journey I have been on so far in project management in such a short space of time, especially as I had no prior experience in project management before joining the MTC. I am enthusiastic and excited for the future and have found my passion in delivering improvements to those around me.

Presentation: My Journey to APM Young Project Professional 2021 ‘Small opportunities are often the beginnings of great enterprises’ (Demosthenes)

To say I started out in PMO with no previous experience within project management/PMO and have gone on to win the APM Young Project Professional Award in such a short amount of time still fills me with pride (and disbelief at times!). I would like to share my story to not only inspire other young professionals to reach their full potential, but also to inspire leaders to unlock their own team’s young talent. I will touch on the importance of being given an opportunity, the project that was fundamental to my growth and the leadership qualities that led to my award and our success as a PMO (celebrated by winning our internal CEO award). My background in Psychology (MSc Psychology) paired with my (now) experience in project management has developed my ethos to be strongly centred around people, where I believe developing strong healthy communication and relationships can lead to success no matter what the task.

Caspar Bartington is Head of Volunteer and Education Engagement at Association for Project Management, having previously been APM’s Education Manager from 2018 until 2020. Caspar has more than 15 years of experience in education outreach and engagement for professional bodies and was also a project sponsor for APM’s new mentoring programme. When not promoting the project profession with a network of committed volunteers, Caspar is also a Trustee of a small charity and father to two young boys.

Presentation: It’s Good to Share – APM Mentoring

APM launched its mentoring programme in 2022. A key requirement of the online programme was building in a reverse mentoring option so that learning takes place more easily at all levels. In this session, Caspar Bartington, APM’s Head of Volunteer and Education Engagement who was also a sponsor for the mentoring project, will explore the lessons learned so far from the programme and what he hopes to see in the coming year.

Andy Wall is a project professional with over ten years of experience in both delivery and support. He is currently Head of PMO at the National Trust, tackling conservation and climate change challenges across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Presentation: PMO Impact – A Small Team With a Big Challenge

Andy will share his experience of developing and leading a PMO at the National Trust. The challenges of empowering a team that supports a broad range of projects from building restoration and habitat creation to software implementation and compliance. The focus will be on applying pragmatism and prioritisation to the PMO service as well as discussing some of the challenges his PMO will be tackling over the next 12 months.

Peter has 18 years of experience implementing Microsoft technology to improve project, portfolio- and resource management capabilities for large enterprises. Peter founded the Microsoft Partner, Projectum, and has been a Microsoft MVP since 2011 and a member of the Project & Power Apps Advisory Councils. Today, Peter leads with the Microsoft Platform as the low-code approach to designing modern, flexible and secure business applications ultimately helping companies achieve their goals.

Presentation: The Future PMO – Key Drives and Considerations

During this session, you will experience the importance of connecting strategy to any type of work from traditional projects to agile products teams. The presentation will include theory, best practices and live demonstrations.

Richard Stanton is currently the head of Portfolio for West Midlands Fire Service, having spent 19 years with the Service, 10 of which is a project management role. His current focus is on the alignment of the PMO to the Organisation’s 3-year rolling strategy, and on the attunement of business benefits to improved community outcomes, which deliver the Service’s vision of ‘making West Midlands Safer, Stronger and Healthier’. As the largest Fire and Rescue Service outside of London, its PMO focuses on the delivery of change and transformation across its three Programmes of work.

Presentation: A PMO Journey to Strategy

During this engaging presentation, Richard will focus on the ‘WMFS Journey’, and how they have matured to align the PMO to Strategy and Organisational goals. Focus areas will explore some of the dark arts of PMO including Senior sponsorship buy-in, alignment of the PMO in the organisation, the golden thread of Strategy through P3 delivery, and how to handle learning lessons in a high-pressure environment.

Nicky Normington is Managing Business Partner at The Green Cross Group NHS Practice dealing with the day to day of a cross-border GP practice. As North Locality Manager of Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), he is involved with the commissioning of local services and supports twenty GP practices in the North of the city to implement schemes that support the commissioning intentions of the CCG.
He is also the director of a company that provides and coordinates General Practitioner (GP) cover outside of normal contractual hours providing around 240 extra hours of primary care capacity every single week.
Nicky placed the practice front and centre of the Covid-19 pandemic. Initially closing one of his sites, transferring the care to another, and re-opening as a “hot “site for COVID positive patients needing acute medical care. Green Cross was one of fifteen designated sites in Sheffield for delivering the COVID vaccine and gave the very first vaccine to a patient in a primary care setting in Sheffield. To date, his team has given over 350,000 vaccines to the population of Sheffield.

Presentation: Transforming the Unchangeable

Karin Maule is a Senior PPM Training Consultant with many years experience of in supporting organisations on their ppm maturity journey by designing and delivering learning solutions for UK -based and global companies across a range of industries including pharma, finance, logistics, public and third sector and technology. In her most recent role before joining Wellingtone, she was the PMO Best Practice Lead for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Karin is certified in project and programme management as well as instructional design. She is the author of Wellingtone’s newly APM accredited course Change Management Practitioner and co-creator of Agile for Practitioners.

Emma is the Director of Consulting Services at Wellingtone. A Fellow of the Association for Project Management, member of PMI UK and Spain Chapters, and an Axelos P3M3 Assessor; Emma is a PMO, Project, Programme and Portfolio 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 Association for Project Management, Project Management Institute, Project Management Without Borders, International Project Management Association, Project Managers Against Poverty, and PM4Change.

Emma-Ruth organises Wellingtone’s two flagship annual events; the FuturePMO conference and Project Management Day of Service and has authored articles and chapters for several PPM publications.

Vince Hines is Managing Director at Wellingtone and has worked as a consultant, trainer & speaker in the UK and USA for many years with organisations as diverse as GlaxoSmithKline and Honda to the central UK Government. Vince has worked extensively with clients in the legal profession, bringing best practice project management to this industry.

He leads the Wellingtone Legal Project Management practice where methodology, training and Microsoft-based technology are combined for a complete Legal Project Management turnkey solution.