LuAnn Piccard, PMP, associate professor and chair, Master of Science Project Management Department at University of Alaska Anchorage, is passionate about developing next-generation project management leaders and professionals seeking to enhance and expand career opportunities through professional development and higher education. Students and graduates appreciate and benefit from the depth, relevance and breadth of Ms. Piccard’s seasoned executive experience, transforming the learning environment into rigorous, positive, collaborative and applied experience.

In addition to academia, Ms. Piccard has over 20 years in technology-sector project and portfolio management, including 10 years as a senior executive for Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies and Advanced Energy Industries, where she led complex, profitable, and cross-functional businesses serving customers worldwide. She has also traveled extensively and lived internationally. Ms. Piccard credits professional success to collaboration with diverse, engaged, customer-centric program and project leaders globally.

Ms. Piccard, proud PMI and PMI Alaska Chapter member, volunteer, and PMP since 2007, served as director and chair for the PMI Global Accreditation Center for Project Management Education Programs, responsible for project management academic program accreditation and quality assurance worldwide.

Inspired by community engagement, Ms. Piccard is well-versed in the balanced strategic and fiduciary responsibilities of board governance partnered with executive and operational leadership, and has served as volunteer director for 11 different nonprofit boards including 10 years as an officer and director for Habitat for Humanity of Anchorage.

Ms. Piccard is distinguished by an ability to articulate an envisioned future, identify stakeholder-centric opportunities made real by engaging and collaborating with people, fostering a bias to action, and crafting foundational, adaptable management processes. Ms. Piccard strives to create a culture of continuous learning that emphasizes agility, innovation and accountability. Her approach is marked by contagious enthusiasm, passionate belief in people and possibilities, and inspiring new ways of thinking, with courage to embrace challenges.

Ms. Piccard holds BS and MS in Engineering/Product Design from Stanford University and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.

Vanina Mangano is a highly experienced project, program and portfolio management practitioner, with nearly two decades of experience leading project management offices (PMOs) across multiple industries and companies, such as NBC Universal, Microsoft and Google. Her experience spans startups to multibillion-dollar portfolios. Currently, she leads a team of program managers within YouTube’s Trust and Safety organization.

Mangano has been actively involved in furthering the project management profession for the past 15 years through her volunteer work with PMI. Most recently, she completed a five-year term as a member of the PMI Standards Insight Team, where she and other global members provided marketplace knowledge, expert observations and input to help guide the planning of the PMI standards program. She also served as chair for The Standard for Program Management – Fourth Edition, core committee member for A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition and committee member for Navigating Complexity: A Practice Guide– First Edition.

Mangano holds a master’s degree from Harvard University, where she graduated with honors; a dual bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Riverside; and holds the following credentials: Graduate Certificate in Strategic Management from Harvard University, Project Management Professional (PMP)®, PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP)®, PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP)®, CompTIA Project+ and Professional Scrum Master. She is the author of PMP® Project Management Professional Exam Review Guide, PMP® Project Management Professional Practice Tests and several other project-management-related books and articles.

Born in Argentina, Mangano immigrated to the United States more than 35 years ago. Her upbringing in a multicultural environment has been instrumental in shaping her perspective and passion for recognizing and leveraging multiple cultural viewpoints. She is a firm believer in the power of positivity, kindness and collaboration to achieve greater success.

Senior State Officer Thilaka Jayasundara, is the Secretary of the Ministry of Education Sri Lanka.

Ms Jayasundara, a Special Grade Officer in the Sri Lanka Administrative Service, received the Commonwealth Excellence Award in 2021 for State Performance and Management. She holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Sri Jayawardenepura, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Information Technology from the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.

Earlier, she was the Secretary in the Ministry of Industries. She has been an Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the State Ministry of Minor Export Crops Development and Export Promotion, and as the Director General of the Public Enterprises Department of the Ministry of Finance.

She has also served as the first Chairperson of Independent Television Network. Ms Jayasundara was also the former Industry Director of Asian Productivity Organization , Tokyo, Japan, and also the head of Asian Productivity Organisation in Sri Lanka for more than 10 years. It is significant that she was also the only female officer in the Organisation’s 56-year history.

Dananjaya is a leading expert in influence, leadership communication, and Peak Performance. He works with leaders and professionals as an executive coach to convert their vision into powerful messages and influence strategies that inspire performance."

Starting his professional career as a human resource development specialist, Dananjaya has invested over 15 years of his life towards understanding and studying how we learn new skills, traits, and attributes to succeed in our lives, as well as in our organizations. Putting his knowledge to practice, Dananjaya embarked on a journey to learn the art and science of public speaking and influence. In 2014, he won the Toastmasters International World Championship of public speaking, surpassing over 30,000 contestants worldwide.

His winning speech titled "I see something" was rated as one of the "Most talked-about speeches" by Fortune magazine, alongside Nobel Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai’s acceptance speech & Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s speech delivered at Harvard University. Dananjaya’s journey towards the top of his craft has allowed him to help those searching for excellence chart a course towards self-mastery and growth.

His world championship speech has been translated into 18 languages and is taken as a specimen of study for leadership communication across the world by leading educational institutions and universities.

Today, Dananjaya combines his in-depth knowledge in Adult Learning, Leadership Communication, and self-mastery to help global leaders and professionals expand their sphere of influence.

Prior to her role as CCO, Brantlee served as PMI’s managing director for North America, responsible for driving the region’s enterprise to ultimately broaden PMI’s impact among organizations, individuals, and communities, empowering people to make their ideas a reality.

Brantlee’s tenure at PMI spans across various roles, including leading global community, organizational, and volunteer leadership transformation initiatives to achieve better engagement and value outcomes for PMI members. She’s led the establishment of PMI offices in Dubai, Singapore, and Brussels, and oversaw business development planning for regional markets, including Latin America. Brantlee coached teams in change and stakeholder engagement, and work-life integration; she co-led the start-up team for implementing PMI’s culture and change management capability.

Brantlee has a bachelor’s degree in German, Russian, and Political Science from West Chester University. She holds PMI’s Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® certification in addition to Certified Association Executive (CAE) through the American Society of Association Executives.

Brantlee resides in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Dr. Ramesh Shanmuganathan is the Executive Vice President / Group Chief Information Officer, of the John Keells Group, Executive Director/Chief Executive of John Keells IT - a boutique IT Consultancy & Service Organization and Chief Executive of John Keells X - the Group’s Accelerator as well as Executive Director of Infomate as well as John Keells Lanka BPO Services. In addition, he also serves as a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Board Advisory Committee for Digital & Technology at Nations Trust Bank.

He provides stewardship for the Business-led Digital/IT strategy & execution across these roles and has over 30 years of experience in the ICT industry in Sri Lanka, USA, and the Middle East with over 25+ years in C-level management. Ramesh is a Hayes-Fulbright Scholar and holds to his credit a Doctor of Philosophy (Technology Management) from Keisei International University (Seoul, South Korea), Master of Science (Information Technology and Computer Science) with Phi Kappa Phi Honours from Rochester Institute of Technology (New York, USA), Master of Business Administration from Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering with First Class Honours from the University of Moratuwa. He is at present reading for his Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) at the International School of Management, Paris.

He is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered IT Professional and a Fellow of the British Computer Society and Institute of Engineers, UK. He has active memberships in several other professional institutions and is a visiting faculty member for several post-graduate programs. He is an active advocate of Disruptive & Open Innovation, Design Thinking, Digital Leadership, Exponential & Distributed Autonomous Organizations and Cyber Resilience and speaks at many international conferences and forums.

Chamil Mendis is an award-winning and experienced IT Project Manager with over 28 years of experience in the industry. He has an impressive 18-year track record in managing projects using both Waterfall and Agile methodologies. Chamil has demonstrated expertise in establishing and implementing best practices for project governance and management, consistently achieving high levels of customer satisfaction which leads him to win multiple awards from government organizations in the UAE. Furthermore, he has an extensive experience in successfully delivering large to medium-scale projects for Government and Semi-Government organizations in UAE such as the Government of Dubai, Dubai Chamber of Commerce, and Emirates Airlines.

Chamil is an AI influencer as well as an AI Enthusiast who utilizes Generative AI tools to streamline project workflows, improve decision-making, and drive successful project outcomes. He is the owner of the AI Today News YouTube channel which brings you the latest AI News daily by utilizing multiple Generative AI tools to create the news videos. Chamil holds multiple project management certifications from the Project Management Institute as well as Scaled Agile. He was the founding President of Sri Lankan IT Professionals Association in the UAE as well as the current Advisory Board Member. Furthermore, he is an active Member of PMI UAE Chapter too.

Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri has a rare combination of being a Chartered Manager, Chartered HR Professional and a Chartered Electrical Engineer. He is acclaimed as a conference speaker, corporate trainer, strategy consultant, author and an academic. He became the first home-grown Senior Professor in Management of the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM), University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka and was a former Director / Chairman of the Board of Management of it. He also serves as an adjunct professor in International Human Resource Management at the Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, USA. He is the President of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) - Sri Lanka Chapter. Being a Past President of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM), he became the first Sri Lankan to lead both CMI and CIPM. He was also a Vice President of the Asia Pacific Federation of Human Resource Management (APFHRM).

He has over three decades of both private and public sector working experience in diverse environments including Unilever and Nestle. He has engaged in consulting, lecturing, training, and conference speaking in over thirty countries around the globe. He serves in the Boards of Softlogic PLC, DSI Samsons Group, and the Benedict XVI Catholic Institute (BCI). He served as a member of the Governing Council of National Institute of Business Management (NIBM) and the Association of Management Development Institutions of South Asia (AMDISA). He completed his nine year stint as an Independent Non-executive Director at the Citizen's Development Business Finance PLC (CDB) last year. He is an independent member of the ethics committee of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

He is a Commonwealth AMDISA Doctoral Fellow, Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow, and a Commonwealth Postdoctoral Fellow. He holds a Ph.D. and an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa.

As an academic scholar, he has presented research papers at key international conferences and was the editor of Sri Lankan Journal of Management (SLM), the pioneer local publication that became the first to be hosted by EBSCO global research database. He has published articles in local and foreign journals and is also an author of ten books. He has won many accolades including gold medals for best papers in two international management conferences, Emerald best paper award in 2014. In 2010, he won the Platinum Award by the Alumni of the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIMA) for outstanding academic contribution. He also was bestowed with the prestigious IPM Lifetime Gold Award 2014, the highest honour for an HIR professional in Sri Lanka.

He is a fellow member of the Sri Lanka Institute of Training and Development (SLITAD). He also functions as a certified Peer Reviewer of the South Asian Quality System (SAQS) and an advisor to the Old Royalists' HR Professional Association (ORHRPRA).

Prof. Dharmasiri likes to identify himself as one who transitioned from being an "Engineer of Electrical" to an 'Engineer of Hearts and Minds."

Aditya Kumar is a distinguished Technology Project Management Luminary, boasting nearly two decades of unrivaled expertise in spearheading transformational initiatives. His delivery footprint spans over more than 40 countries and diverse industries, where he has consistently excelled in steering projects and programs to success. In his roles as an ERP Projects Specialist, Global Business Process Manager, Project & Program Manager, Aditya remains steadfast in his commitment to championing the cause of standardization and continuous improvement of Project Management & Controlling Processes. Aditya specializes in delivering enterprise scale transformation projects & programs with scope and use of emerging technologies like Low Code & Generative AI.

As a published author, his seminal work "The Low Code Disruption" has earned accolades, ranking among the top 50 books by IT Thought Leaders in 2024. Recognized across various online platforms for his insightful articles, Aditya has garnered multiple credentials and awards, including the esteemed title of Top Voice, Asia-Pacific, in IT Leadership & Project Management, conferred by Thinkers360.

A staunch advocate for continuous learning , Aditya has acquired over 20 professional certifications in the realms of technology, transformation, and project management. In his current role as Engagement Lead, Transformation Center of Excellence at EXL, Aditya is working with a highly skilled team of Generative AI specialists to innovate and improvise the way we manage & execute transformation projects.

Nihal brings around 38 years of experience in Design Development, Construction & contract Administration of Public Buildings, Airports, and infra-Structure development projects.

He started his career as a Site Engineer in State Engineering Corporation (SEC) and subsequently joined Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), Public Buildings and Airport Division in 1988.

Biyagama Free Trade Zone Infra-structure development project is one of the major projects that he completed in Sri Lanka as a Resident Agent. After 32 Years of service in Binladin Group he retired as the Project Director of Maldives International Airport Expansion Project in 2020 and continued to provide consultancy services to the few companies as an external consultant.

Nihal has managed 3 International Airports in Malaysia, U.A.E, Maldives and several public buildings in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Dubai as a Project Manager and Project Director. These public buildings and airports have become landmark buildings in those countries now.

Nihal is a specialist in directing and managing design & has built turnkey projects and is a certified Contract Administrator with a good Knowledge on all types of FIDIC forms of contracts.