Leslie Martinich of Competitive Focus

Topic: Engaged Leadership: How to Deliver Products Faster!
How can you deliver products faster and more reliably? Part of the answer lies in retaining your talent and their knowledge. (And we all know that employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers!).

So what can you, as an engineering leader or manager, do to improve retention? Engaged Leadership. In this brief talk, you’ll learn the method that leaders can learn to improve employee engagement. And with employee engagement comes higher performance!

In a 10-year study of mid-level managers who learned this method, 70% of the participants elevated their careers to the C-Suite! Some became entrepreneurs. All moved up the corporate ladder. This proven method can help your career too.

Biography: Leslie Martinich is the founder of Competitive Focus and a long-time practitioner in the software industry. She has worked on projects with IBM, H-P, Compaq, Novell, 3M, Lek Pharmaceuticals, Freescale Semiconductor, Sun, Intel, and others, in the Americas, Europe and Asia. She helped architect RPC (Remote Procedure Call) technology, and led the team that implemented RPC at Novell. Descendants of RPC technology today allow for cloud computing.

Ms. Martinich is a noted author and expert in technology leadership and innovation, lecturing at international conferences and executive education programs. She was the IEEE-USA 2012 Congressional Fellow, serving as a technology policy adviser to the US Congress in the office of Representative Steve Israel.

She has been on several advisory and editorial boards, including the IEEE Engineering Management Society and the IEEE Technology Management Council where she served as Vice President of Publications for many years.

Ms. Martinich has been a visiting lecturer at many universities around the world, including the Fudan University School of Management in Shanghai, Xi’an Union University in Xi’an, China and the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.

She holds degrees from University of California San Diego and the University of Texas at Austin. Her publications include numerous articles.

She currently chairs several Central Texas IEEE chapters, including Women in Engineering, the Education Society, and the Technology and Engineering Management Society. She is the Past Chair of the IEEE Central Texas Section.

Karen Koepp of Koepp Research Corp.

Topic: How Can Talented Professionals take their Ideas and Research to the Next Level?
Everyone – at every level – wants to believe that their organization will be able to keep up with constant industry change. With technology moving so fast and disruption the norm, being an innovative, organization is fundamental to your organization’s very survival.
The problem is that while change is constant and fast, innovation requires ideas and adoption. Ideas are sporadic and adoption is slow.
That’s why true, sustainable institutional innovation isn’t about waiting for ideas to strike, it’s about actively implementing an inclusive innovation process that incorporates effective technology management, finding opportunities, gaining executives’ buy-in, and moving forward with our best ideas. It is important to avoid distractions (financial concerns, internal power struggles, finding the “big idea”) so we don’t overlook opportunities around us. We should enact the leadership capable of piloting our organization to success so that our capabilities keep pace with market realities and emerging opportunities. This means tapping into the genius of each employee for new product ideas and then providing the leadership that fosters the trust and collaboration needed to bring those ideas to fruition.

Biography: Dr. Karen Koepp, founder and CEO, has dedicated her career to understanding and overcoming the challenges talented professionals face as they pursue advanced degrees, create unique thought leadership, and influence their fields. Since she founded the business in 2002, she has helped more than 700 professionals around the world and across industries earn their masters and doctoral degrees and turn their research into meaningful work beyond the degree. Her clients have produced innovative research; bestselling books; and insightful, well-recognized articles for publication in popular, professional, and scholarly publications. She also has an extensive track record helping for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations and agencies optimize their operations and establish thought leadership.
Karen’s professional background includes more than 20 years of experience as an executive coach, researcher, writer, and editor; project manager; and management consultant. She holds a doctorate in psychology, a Master of Science in organization development, and a Bachelor of Science in management computer systems. Karen works with a network of highly qualified research, writing, marketing, and change management, professionals to help her clients achieve their goals.