This year for International Women’s Day, Project Manager News is celebrating women in project management—that’s women in agile roles, leadership positions, and project-based work all around the globe.
There are so many individuals who strive to transform the project management profession, and we can’t possibly recognize them all. Here are just a few of our favorite agilistas and transformative leaders who are shaping the field of PM in 2020.
Celebrate Women in Agile: 6 Femme Agilistas and Transformative Leaders We Love
1. Delisa Brownley
Senior enterprise and program agile coach sharing over 25 years of agile and lean experience, in addition to wisdom from her 22 years of honorable service in the United States Air Force.
Known for her talk, The Comma In My Resume, Delisa is an agilist leader, instructor, and speaker with a unique background serving as a war planner and logistics expert in the U.S. military. After getting into agile and scrum, Delisa realized that for many years she had unwittingly been practicing lean waste management when dealing with a diminishing government budget all of those years in service.
Because of the struggle she faced in transitioning into the private sector after retiring from the military, today, Delisa rallies for businesses to find constructive ways to help other veterans transition into a private-sector jobs with a lean and agile focus.
2. Monica Yap
Agile coach, trainer, and speaker who assists in large scale agile transformation, coach development.
Monica Yap was the first female Agile coach on the staff at Accenture | SolutionsIQ, where she currently serves as a transformation agile coach.
Drawing from her experience as an introvert in a work environment where extroverts often get more results, Monica has spoken on the topic of introversion in the workplace, the strengths that introverts possess, and the challenges introverts can face when trying to be louder and more aggressive in order to accomplish their goals.
Monica is a standout leader for any introvert in the agile field who feels pressure to change themselves in order to be successful—in her talk Women’s Strengths in the Technology World last year, she provided simple techniques to help introverts capitalize on their traits instead of fighting against them.
3. Lyssa Adkins
Coach, facilitator, author, teacher and inspirer focused on improving leadership teams and amplifying women’s voices in agile PM.
A self-described holder of a “soup of certifications”, Lyssa Adkins is a major influence and inspiration to anyone working in agile project management. She co-founded the Agile Coaching Institute back when agile coaching was just emerging as a practice in 2010.
She’s been on the member board of the ICAgile working committee, evaluates candidates for the org’s Expert in Agile Coaching certification, and has served as an application reviewer for the Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach designation.
Lyssa is also the founder of the Women In Agile program TENWOMENSTRONG, and the author of Coaching Agile Teams, which has remained among the top books for agile practitioners over the last decade.
4. Natalie Warnert
Coach, consultant, speaker on project and product management topics, and the founder and president of the Women In Agile Org nonprofit.
Natalie Warnert is not only an international keynote speaker on topics in product management and strategy, UX integration, and agile, but also the founder and president of the influential Women In Agile nonprofit organization.
Through Women in Agile, for over half a decade Natalie has been deeply involved in the movement and organization of international gatherings of diverse women and their allies. The organization has grown through the years to encompass a podcast, conference, and the seeding of dozens of local Women in Agile groups where project managers can network, mentor one another, and find support.
5. Moira Alexander
Project management influencer and thought leadership writer.
Moira Alexander has a strong voice in the project management field as the founder of PMWorld 360 Magazine and Lead-Her-Ship Group, and as the author of Lead or Lag: Linking Strategic Project Management & Thought Leadership. Beyond this, she has written on digital workplace and project management topics for dozens of top-tier publications.
Moira has been recognized several times over as a thought leader and influencer in the project management field. She is a rare example of a project professional who blends PM industry experience with editorial, publishing, and marketing expertise to enrich the body of work that is shaping the project management field.
6. Nadia Vincent
Author, speaker, coach, consultant, and digital transformation advisor.
Nadia Vincent has lived and worked in numerous countries and is a brilliant example of what it means to rise in the digital industry in order to influence organizations on a globally transformative level.
She earned her MBA with a specialization in IT Management and went on to become an MIT Certified Digital Transformation Executive Advisor.
She holds multiple other certifications from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and is the author of the book, Leveraging Digital Transformation – Proven Leadership and innovation Strategies to Engage and Grow Your Organization.
Fluent in four languages, Nadia travels throughout the world speaking on leadership, change management, digital transformation, and innovation topics. Over the years, she has also been instrumental in developing training and coaching programs for multiple international organizations.
Who Belongs On This List?
We acknowledge that there are hundreds of other people working in PM and agile who deserve to be on this list.
Please comment, share, and tag the people who inspire you to be better at the important work that you do. Let’s celebrate them!
For more women in agile and PM topics, see: New Study: Promoting Healthy Work-Life Balance And Managing Workload Could Benefit Mental Wellbeing Of Female Project Managers