Keynote Speaker

Dr. Robert Cooper

Co-founder
Stage Gate International

Dr. Robert G. Cooper is creator of the Stage-Gate® process for NPD and a Crawford Fellow of the PDMA. He ISBM Distinguished Research Fellow at Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business Administration; Honorary Advisor, Snyder Innovation Management Center, Syracuse University; and Professor Emeritus at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business (Canada). He co-founded Stage-Gate International.

Bob has published 12 books, including the “bible for NPD”, Winning at New Products, and more than 170 articles on the management of new products, including 17 refereed articles on “AI in NPD” since 2023. He has won the IRI’s (Innovation Research Interchange) prestigious Maurice Holland Award three times for “best article of the year”. He is also ranked #1 “Scholar in Product Innovation” globally, and #3 in Marketing by ScholarGPS.com. Bob has helped hundreds of firms over the years implement best practices in product innovation, including many Fortune 500 firms.

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Speakers

Keyuri Anand

AI Products Lead
Clio, formerly with SAP

Keyuri Anand is a global product leader with extensive experience building and launching enterprise software and AI-enabled products. She has held product leadership roles at organizations including SAP, SAP Fioneer, and Guidewire, where she led cross-functional teams delivering scalable enterprise solutions and drove measurable business impact, including an AI-driven billing solution generating more than $12 million in revenue. Keyuri is the founder of the SAP Product Management Academy, a global enablement program designed to strengthen product management capabilities and mentor the next generation of product leaders. She has coached and mentored more than 100 product managers and supports professional development through AI product management education programs. She is an active leader within PDMA, serving as Founder and President of the Texas Chapter and as a member of the PDMA Body of Knowledge editorial board, where she contributes to integrating AI and modern product practices into the next generation of the BoK.

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Angela Cooper

Portfolio Management and
Market Analytics Senior Manager
Huntsman Advanced Materials

Angela Cooper is the Portfolio Management and Market Analytics Senior Manager for Huntsman Advanced Materials, where she leads global innovation portfolio governance and the Project Management Center of Excellence. With more than 18 years of experience spanning innovation management, commercialization, portfolio strategy and marketing leadership, she has focused her career on building the processes, governance models, and organizational capabilities that enable innovation to deliver business value. In her current role, Angela leads the company's innovation portfolio governance framework, strengthening strategic alignment, executive decision-making, and portfolio visibility across a global innovation portfolio. She also established the Project Management Center of Excellence and leads its ongoing development, driving organizational capability development and execution discipline across the organization. Through these efforts, she has helped strengthen innovation management practices and improve portfolio performance across Huntsman Advanced Materials. She is committed to building the systems, governance, and organizational capabilities that enable organizations to translate strategy into sustainable growth.

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Kristyn Corrigan

Principal
Applied Marketing Science, Inc.

Kristyn Corrigan is a Principal at Applied Marketing Science (AMS), where she leads the firm's Insights for Innovation practice. With more than 20 years of consulting experience, she helps leading B2B and B2C organizations translate the Voice of the Customer (VOC) into smarter product, service, and growth strategies.

Kristyn is a recognized leader in the evolution of VOC methods, including pioneering the use of AI-enabled approaches that allow companies to uncover deeper customer needs faster and at greater scale. Her work focuses on helping teams move beyond traditional metrics to understand what truly drives customer decisions and innovation success. She also trains and coaches organizations to build sustainable, in-house VOC capabilities and integrate customer insight into everyday decision-making.

Kristyn serves on the Executive Board of Directors of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) and is a contributing author to the Handbook of Innovation and New Product Development. Her work has been featured in Fast Company and Marketing News, and she is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and executive forums. She has also guest lectured at institutions including MIT Sloan and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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Mike Dalton

Founder
Guided Innovation

Michael A. Dalton Managing Director, Guided Innovation Group, LLC Mike Dalton is the founder of Guided Innovation Group and the architect of the AcceleTrak OS, an operating system designed to transform your gated development process into a predictable engine for cash flow. With a career spanning over four decades, Mike specializes in helping technology and industrial leaders apply the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to accelerate innovation flow and drive ROI. Prior to founding Guided Innovation, Mike spent 20 years in leadership at SC Johnson, where he served as General Manager, Product Director, and Plant Manager for their specialty chemicals division the fastest-growing and most profitable segment of the $10 billion portfolio. It was here that he first pioneered the application of TOC levers to the innovation pipeline, proving that winning isn't about keeping every developer busy, but about moving high-impact projects to market with speed and precision. An industry authority on product portfolio management and innovation productivity, Mike is the author of two Amazon best-selling books: Simplifying Innovation and Unlocking Innovation Productivity. His methodologies have helped organizations cut time-to-revenue in half while significantly increasing the volume of successful product launches. Mike is a frequent contributor to leading publications, including Industry Week, CFO Magazine, and Research-Technology Management. He is a sought-after speaker for industry associations, where he shares his field-tested framework for making new products a predictable source of growth.

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Wayne Fisher

Innovation Guide
Rockdale Innovation

Wayne Fisher is a senior innovation consultant with more than 40 years of experience helping organizations improve product development and innovation performance. His work has focused on innovation strategy, product development processes, portfolio management, and organizational capability building across a wide range of industries. Wayne has advised global companies on improving innovation effectiveness and has supported numerous organizations in implementing best practices in product development and innovation management.

He currently serves on the editorial board leading development of the next edition of the PDMA Body of Knowledge (BoK 4.0), which aims to modernize the field's foundational reference by integrating emerging practices, digital tools, and artificial intelligence. His work emphasizes the intersection of innovation leadership, data-driven decision-making, and AI-enabled innovation practices to help organizations innovate more effectively in an increasingly complex and fast-moving environment.

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Anshul Garg

Principal Product Manager
Amazon.com

Anshul Garg is a Product Leader and Author who transforms complex business challenges into elegant digital product solutions. With 19+ years at industry-leading organizations including Amazon, Capital One, and Nationwide Insurance, he has delivered over $100 million in annual business value through strategic product initiatives. With an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Mumbai and an engineering degree from National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Anshul combines strategic vision with technical depth, specializing in launching AI-driven zero-to-one products, orchestrating large-scale digital transformations, and leading diverse, cross-functional teams.

Beyond building products, Anshul builds leaders. An avid blogger and mentor, he shares insights on product management, adaptive leadership, and emerging trends. He fosters environments where innovation and personal growth flourish together, building high-performing teams that consistently deliver exceptional outcomes.

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Michelle Jones

Managing Partner
Stage Gate International

Michelle L. Jones is a Managing Partner at Stage‑Gate International and one of the world’s leading authorities on architecting and implementing high‑performing, enterprise‑wide new product development and innovation management systems. For more than two decades, she has worked alongside Dr Robert Cooper, Dr Scott Edgett, and hundreds of leading innovators to research, evolve, and deploy the most influential innovation frameworks shaping corporate growth strategies today.

Renowned as the foremost expert in tailoring and implementing Stage‑Gate® Hybrid systems, Michelle has led more successful enterprise innovation transformations than anyone else globally. She partners with leadership teams across North America, Europe, China, and South America—including some of the world’s most discerning and performance‑driven organizations— to modernize portfolio and gate governance, strengthen decision‑making discipline, and embed innovation capabilities that scale. Her work helps organizations align strategy, culture, and operating models to unlock sustainable growth and accelerate value creation.

Michelle brings a rare combination of strategic insight and practical implementation expertise, grounded in more than 30 years of experience in consulting, R&D management, post‑merger integration, and operational leadership. She integrates change leadership, organizational behavior, and systems thinking to drive adoption, embed new leadership behaviors, and ensure long‑term system durability.

At PDMA’s 50th Anniversary Conference, Michelle will lead an interactive workshop on the hallmarks of next‑generation governance—what world‑class gate governance looks like today, how leading companies are elevating decision quality and portfolio performance, and why governance is re‑emerging as the critical backbone of high‑growth, high‑performance innovation organizations.

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Michelle Kelly

Director, Consulting Expert
CGI

Michelle Kelly is a transformation and innovation leader specializing in AI adoption, digital strategy, and organizational change. She helps organizations turn AI from a promising concept into practical, scalable business value by aligning technology with people, process, and culture.

With extensive experience leading enterprise transformation initiatives, Michelle is known for translating complex ideas into actionable strategies that drive adoption and lasting change. Her approach combines strategic insight with real-world practicality, helping leaders and teams confidently navigate emerging technologies.

At the 2026 PDMA Ignite Innovation Summit, Michelle will co-present “Making AI Adoption Stick: Practical Strategies for Lasting Change,” sharing practical approaches for driving sustainable AI adoption and measurable business impact. 

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Douglas Leal

VP Consulting, Data & AI
CGI

With more than two decades of experience, Doug is a technology and data leader at CGI who helps clients execute critical data-centric solutions, analytics and data engineering strategies, and AI initiatives. He has led high-impact transformations driven by modern cloud data platforms and AI-driven solutions that improve decision-making, streamline operations, and unlock new opportunities across multiple industries. Doug partners with business and technology leaders to accelerate digital transformation and scale innovation. He serves on the Databricks Partner Product Advisory Board, representing CGI, and the Per Scholas Orlando Advisory Board. He also is recognized as a Databricks Champion for CGI, bringing leading-edge insight directly into client strategies.

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Chad McAllister

Founder
Product Mastery Now

Chad McAllister, PhD, is a product management professor, practitioner, trainer, and host of the Product Mastery Now podcast. He has 30+ years of professional experience in product and leadership roles across large and small organizations and dynamic startups, and now devotes his time to teaching and helping others improve. He co-authored Product Development and Management Body of Knowledge: A Guide Book for Product Innovation Training and Certification. The book distills five decades of industry research and current practice into actionable wisdom, empowering product professionals to innovate and excel. He has also helped hundreds of people earn the New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification from PDMA by using his RPM Experience to learn and apply the concepts that make product practitioners successful. Chad also teaches the next generation of product leaders through advanced graduate courses at institutions including Boston University and Colorado State University and notably re-engineered the Innovation Executive MBA program at the University of Fredericton, significantly broadening its impact. Further, he provides online training for product managers and leaders to prepare for their next career step.

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Jay Nakagawa

Director
Dell Technologies

Jay brings more than 40 years of leadership in competitive intelligence, product strategy, and executive management. For over 15 years, he has served as Director of Competitive Intelligence at Dell Technologies, helping drive more than $110B in annual revenue. His career spans executive roles across enterprise companies, high-growth firms, and startups, with global experience in sales, marketing, business development, and product management. Jay is a former Chairman of SCIP, a 2023 Fellow of the Council of Competitive Intelligence inductee, a faculty member at the Academy of Competitive Intelligence, and a lecturer at SMU. He was recently named Co-Executive Director of SAICI, focused on applying AI to strategy and competitive insight. He is also a member of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), Association of Professional Futurists (APF), International Association for Strategy Professionals (IASP) and serves as advisor with a number of companies.

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Chris Perdue

Senior Vice President of Marketing,
Digital and E-Commerce
Perdue Farms

Christopher J. Perdue is a fourth-generation member of the Perdue family and has been a Perdue associate since 2013. He is currently the Senior Vice President of Marketing, Digital and E-Commerce, with responsibility for enterprise marketing strategy, brand stewardship, digital growth, e-commerce, retail media and consumer engagement across the company’s portfolio. Chris has held leadership roles across Perdue Foods and Perdue AgriBusiness, including experience in grain merchandising, business intelligence and plant management. Over the past seven years, he has helped lead the modernization of Perdue’s consumer-facing digital capabilities, including the launch of Perdue’s Direct-to-Consumer E-Commerce business in 2019, the expansion of digital and retail media capabilities, the development of the company’s digital marketing infrastructure, and the use of AI-enabled tools to support consumer engagement and retail growth. He has also been a spokesperson for the Perdue brand since 2017. Prior to Perdue, he held various marketing and leadership positions at MilkPEP, where he worked on the national Got Milk? campaign, as well as co-founding several Silicon Valley digital start-ups. He also served on Delaware Governor John Carney’s transition team focusing on economic development, agriculture and environment and continues to serve on the Board of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Perdue holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Wake Forest University and completed the Corporate Governance Program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

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William Reid

Vice President
Boulder Imaging

Bill has over 30 years of experience in all phases of product development, helping companies bring new products to the market. Over Bill's career he has worked for many innovative large multi-national companies including Ford, General Electric Aircraft Engines, General Motors, and Covidien. In addition, Bill has had extensive involvement with companies as small as single entrepreneur start-up ventures. Throughout his career, he has found enjoyment in being able to teach others about innovation methods. Bill has worked as a consultant in product development and innovation for his company Immersed, since 2007.

Currently, Bill is Vice President at Boulder Imaging. Bill is a certified New Product Development Professional with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincinnati. Bill is named as the inventor or co-inventor on 22 US patents.

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Brooke Rennison

Emerging Technology Manager
BMW Group

Brooke Rennison leads Open Innovation within the BMW IT Tech Office, with a focus on designing and operationalizing enterprise scale innovation processes. Brooke's work centers on building repeatable systems that connect external ecosystems with internal R&D and business execution. With experience spanning technology scouting, ecosystem partnerships, and innovation enablement, Brooke specializes in turning Open Innovation from an aspiration into a measurable, process driven capability. Brooke also leads the Innovation Center of Excellence (CoE), enabling distributed innovation execution across business units through shared processes and governance.

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Brice Westring

SVP, Head of Research & Development
Perdue Farms

Brice Westring, SVP, Head of Research & Development, leads Perdue Farms’ R&D organization, continuing its role as a driver of innovation and product leadership in protein. He joined Perdue from Mondelez International, where he served as Vice President of R&D, North America, responsible for more than $9 billion in sales and leading organizational transformation. Prior to Mondelez, he spent over 20 years at Procter & Gamble in senior R&D leadership roles across multiple categories delivering consumer centric innovation and building winning organizations. He holds an M.S. in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Connecticut.

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Penny Wise

Former Global Marketing Executive and Managing Director
3M

Penny Wise is a senior Marketing and Corporate Affairs executive known for creating clarity and generating momentum in complex environments. Over her career at 3M, she held global leadership roles spanning brand strategy, marketing, new product marketing, communications, public policy, marketing transformation and P&L management, including serving as President of 3M Canada. She is recognized for mobilizing leaders and unifying teams around shared priorities and integrating work across business, marketing, brand, corporate affairs, and communications to deliver enterprise strategy. Penny has led major transformation initiatives, including modernizing marketing systems in a $12B Business Group and guiding the global relaunch of 3M’s brand platform. Her leadership has delivered impactful commercial, reputational, and regulatory outcomes. Penny has been recognized as one of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women and is a recipient of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Business Leader of the Year Award. She holds an MBA in Marketing from the Schulich School of Business at York University.

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