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Please join us for the International Project Management Day 2021 on November 13, 2021, Online Event!

Our annual forum brings together project/program professionals, functional managers, and consultants in different industries along with our Chapter's Leadership and Board of Directors.

Don’t miss this chance to

• Make connections (Networking 8:00am to 8:30am)
• Learn about the New Frontier in Program and Project Management
• Build new skills

You will also earn 5 PDUs

This event is open to Members, Non-Members, and Students. Seats are limited, Register Now!

Prabhu Gopalan

Prabhu Gopalan is currently working as a Head of TPM Org at Facebook and possesses over 15 years of leadership experience at various leading companies. Prabhu also serves the Bay Area Project Management community as CEO of PMI SFBAC Chapter.  Prabhu is both PMP and ACP certified and has been a member since 2005.

Ben Goldsmith

Ben Goldsmith has been providing project and program management to Silicon Valley companies for over 15 years.  He has led cross-functional program teams delivering products like large capital equipment for the semiconductor industry, software solutions for the telecom and IT industries, and regulated medical devices at companies ranging from 80 to 20000 employees. Ben earned a degree in Materials Science & Engineering from Northwestern University, an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon University, and completed his PMP certification in 2009.

Doreen Linneman

Doreen is the founder and leader of The Riverbend Group, LLC®, an international people and organizational development company focused on management consulting, professional development, and teambuilding. Since 2002, Riverbend has applied their proprietary action-based learning® methodology across industries and functions, including specialties in healthcare, sports, and technology. In 2012, Doreen created a new division of Riverbend called Prepare To Roar®, an adventure-based learning® company. It takes leadership and professional development out of the “boardroom” and into nature – to exotic locations such as Africa and Belize. Also in 2012, Doreen opened Riverbend’s first International branch office, located in Johannesburg serving clients in South Africa and East Africa. Riverbend’s European and Asia-Pacific clients are served out of both the USA and the South Africa offices. In 2018, Doreen spun out her Ignite programming, goal setting retreats, and keynote offerings into its own brand to help further differentiate service offerings to customers.

Janet Tsai

Janet Tsai has over 23 years of professional working experience in the Aerospace Defense Industry with 22 years in IT managing various projects.  She has supported various IT functions from PC Database Administration, PC Refresh Projects, Help Desk, Mobile Support, Desktop Support, OS Migrations, IT Planning and Process Projects, Internal IT Auditor, Information System Security Plans, to now working in IT Program Management with a high focus on Cybersecurity related projects. 

Jeff Butler

Jeff Butler is an author and workplace strategist who explores human behavior within the working world. His experience spans over 40 industries in 4 continents on how different cultures and employees interact with each other. He studies common threads of behavior in industries such as IT professionals, underground utility workers, police officers to clothing retail chains. In addition, companies like Google, Amazon, John Deere, and Coldwell Banker. As a researcher and practitioner, he also runs a consulting company and a tech company, TrinityFix where he is able to test his ideas in different workplace environments. His ideas have made it to TEDx twice, appeared in dozens of media outlets including two books on human behavior:- The Authentic Workplace and The Key To The New You . Currently, he lives in Dallas, Texas as an out of place Californian.

Kimberly Wiefling

Kimberly Wiefling is the founder of Wiefling Consulting, a Silicon Valley-based global consultancy. A physicist by education, she recognized long ago the crucial role of human skills – what her engineering friends sometimes call “the touchy feely crap”. Kimberly enables managers to become leaders and groups of people to become a true team, who can achieve TOGETHER what would be impossible to achieve alone. She has helped companies from startups to the Global 1000 to fix problems that have been proven to damage or destroy organizations.

Theresa Walsh Arietta

Over 28 years in professional services with active CPA license, working for Robert Half in senior field management roles, national accounts, sales leadership, business consulting, and consulting services for S&P 500 and Big 4 organizations. For the last 20+ years, I have worked for Robert Half International (RHI), a global leader in professional services, specializing in accounting, finance and information technology.

Carolyn Chiu, P.E - Exploring New Territories Panelist & Deep Dive in Government Sector

Carolyn Chiu has over 30 years of experience in process engineering and project management in water and wastewater infrastructure.  Most of her work tenure has been with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC).  She started her career as a process engineer at San Francisco’s Southeast and Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Plants and then transitioned to project management, where she managed the City’s systemwide conversion to chloramine disinfection for its drinking water.   Currently, Carolyn is a Senior Project Manager overseeing major wastewater capital improvements, including the Southeast Plant Biosolids Digester Facilities Project – a $2.3 billion dollar project to fully replace all the digesters and solids handling facilities at the City’s 250 million gallon per day treatment plant.  Carolyn is a licensed Civil Engineer with degrees from UC Berkeley and UC Los Angeles. 

Julie Wiley - Exploring New Territories Panelist & Deep Dive in Finance Technology

Julie Wiley is an experienced PMO & Business Operations leader, who has worked across various industries from non-profits, hardware manufacturing, to retail and fin-tech. Serving in many different roles, she has lead organizations and teams focusing on driving business outcomes across Program & Project Management, Portfolio Management, Business Operations and Strategic Planning.

Mahesh Deshpande is a Principal Consultant @Enquero and has over 15 years of PM Consulting experience in leading large-scale cross-functional transformation initiatives in high-tech, pharmaceutical and bio-tech companies, across geographies. 

A high impact leader with a great blend of strategic thinking and operational excellence, Mahesh, has led complex and business-critical programs in Data & Analytics, Sales Operations, Tech Implementation, and Customer Success. With a data driven mindset and an assertive problem-solving approach, Mahesh is known for building lasting client relationships and creating a culture of accountability. 

Mahesh has an MBA in International Business from Thunderbird School of Global Management and is winner of the Pi Sigma Alpha award. He is PMP certified and leads the Mentorship Program @ PMISFBAC

Scott Sarnikowski - New Skills (Accountability)

Scott’s diverse career spans development engineering, product management, and marketing, to general management, strategic planning, and program management for industry-leading technology companies such as Apple, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Facebook, and VC-funded start-ups.  Scott believes that execution is a company’s most strategic asset.  His unique combination of deep technology expertise, insightful people skills, and proven business acumen fuels his passion of turning strategic aspirations into operational success and organizational effectiveness.”

Alicia Wong - New Skills (Strategy)

Alicia Wong is a Strategic Leader and Executive Scrum Master to the C-SUITE at Astra, a Space Tech company located in Alameda, California. She is an experienced technical product and transformation leader with a successful track record for quality delivery in high-growth fast paced environments. Her expertise spans from designing and building Agile systems for scale, Lean Product Management, technical program management, world-class engineering teams, agile transformations, and driving increased value and execution amidst constant organizational change.

Alicia is known for her successful history of architecting and leading large scale enterprise & operational transformations yielding high quality delivery structures and deliverables under rigorous timelines at previous companies Autodesk, Salesforce.com, Macramedia/Adobe and NTT DoCoMo. She graduated with a B.S. in Mathematics / Computer Science from the University of Southern California and is a Volunteer at the SF-Marin Food Bank and Make-A-Wish Foundation.

As a part of celebrating her culture, Alicia has been dancing Hula and odori for over 25 years. She also enjoys trail running, cooking, reading and indoor rock climbing when she’s not working. She has two sons, ages 10 and 13, who keep her busy as a working Mom. You can find Alicia snowboarding with her sons in the winter and playing basketball or mountain biking in the spring.

Brian Harman - Closing 

Dr. Brian Harman is a passionate professor and professional coach from Los Angeles, CA. Prior to becoming a coach, he was a project manager who spent many years directing projects up to $100 million in size with program management experience on $450 million portfolios in the construction and biopharma industries. Today, his firm Business Management Hallmark offers career coaching, corporate training, executive coaching, and leadership retreats. He's also a 4-time global TEDx speaker who's obsessed with laughing. After being diagnosed with a rare bone disease in his spine and enduring 4 surgeries, he went on to get a PhD so he could change the course of leadership by bringing more love and trust into the workplace. He also LOVES helping people achieve their biggest professional goals because it drives more energy into his life. He studied at Pepperdine University and the University of Oxford, now teaching at UCLA and UC Berkeley part-time in their management and leadership programs. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, and 2 dogs.