AgilePalooza Atlanta Speaker Bios

Mike Cottmeyer

Mike Cottmeyer is the Vice-President and General Manager of Pillar Technology Southeast. Pillar Technology a leading provider of agile transformation services helping companies develop the technical practices and leadership competencies required for sustainable organizational change. Prior to joining Pillar, Mike was a product consultant and agile evangelist for VersionOne. Mike has twenty years of experience leading IT initiatives using a combination of traditional, agile, and lean project management best practices. Mike is a certified PMP Project Manager and a certified ScrumMaster. Mike speaks internationally on the topic of Agile Project Management and writes for several blogs including http://www.leadingagile.com and http://blog.versionone.com and occasionally for http://www.agilesoftwaredevelopment.com. Mike co-authored the paper "Rethinking the Agile Enterprise" for the Cutter Consortium and is writing a book on Agile transformations.

George Schlitz

George Schlitz is a Principal Coach and co-founder of BigVisible Solutions, a coaching and enablement consultancy. George has focused on coaching teams and leaders in adoption of Agile product development and Lean Thinking, methodology and process improvement, and leadership of complex programs and projects. He has had extensive experience consulting in large organizations covering many industries. With a focus on systems thinking and organizational change, George is effective at guiding large-scale change efforts in very challenging organizations.

George is a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He received 2 bachelor's degrees (Operations Management, Resource Economics) from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Bentley College. He is also a 12-year veteran of the U.S. Army and U.S. Army Reserves.

Lee Henson

Lee Henson is a Product Expert and the resident Certified Scrum Trainer at VersionOne. Prior to joining VersionOne, Lee worked hands on as a GUI web developer, quality assurance analyst, automated test engineer, senior product manager, senior project manager, ScrumMaster, agile coach, consultant, and ADDIE training professional. He has worked with hundreds of teams in many different business sectors to assist them in successful implementation of thousands of agile projects.

Lee is one of a handful of Certified Scrum Trainers worldwide and is very actively involved in the Scrum Alliance where he serves as Chair Person for the Certification Advisory Board. He also has been recognized by the National Forensics League for excellence in public speaking and has received a number of accolades for his community involvement and motivational speaking sessions. Lee has a unique ability to convey practical, detailed, and complex topics through the use of real-world experiences and analogies.