Featured Speakers
We are pleased to welcome our distinguished speakers to #ILA2023Global. Watch this page for additional speakers as they are confirmed.
ILA’s Global Conferences bring together some of the top leaders and thinkers in their field who share their work and discuss complex leadership challenges with ILA’s signature bridging of theory and practice. Read their full bios below.
Live Online, 3-4 October

Featured Speaker Online
Leigh Chapman, RN PhD, Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), Health Canada / inf. aut., Ph. D., Infirmière en chef (IC), Santé Canada

Featured Speaker Online
Professor Jonathan Gosling, Emeritus Professor, Leadership Studies, University of Exeter; Lead Faculty, The Forward Institute

Featured Speaker Online
Dr. Barbara Kellerman, Fellow, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
Live Online, 3-4 October or In Person, 12-15 October in Vancouver

Plenary Speaker
Martha Piper, Ph.D., Former President, University of British Columbia; Co-Author of Nerve: Lessons in Leadership From Two Women Who Went First

Plenary Speaker
Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson, K.C., Gid7ahl Gudsllaay, K.C, Principal and Senior Legal Counsel, White Raven Law Corporation

Plenary Speaker
Indira Samarasekera, Ph.D., Former President, University of Alberta; Co-Author of Nerve: Lessons in Leadership From Two Women Who Went First

Featured Speaker
Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, PhD., O.C., D.Litt., LL.D., Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia

Featured Speaker
Bruce Avolio, PhD, Mark Pigott Chair in Business Strategic Leadership, & Executive Director of the Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking, University of Washington, Foster School of Business

Plenary Speaker Online
Julie Burns, MPA, PhD, Senior Advisor to the Director, and former South Africa Country Director, Peace Corps

Featured Speaker Online
Leigh Chapman, RN PhD, Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), Health Canada / inf. aut., Ph. D., Infirmière en chef (IC), Santé Canada

Plenary Speaker
Felix Giroux, 2023 Trudeau Scholar affiliated with Centre for Climate Justice, University of British Columbia (UBC); Doctoral Candidate UBC

Featured Speaker Online
Professor Jonathan Gosling, Emeritus Professor, Leadership Studies, University of Exeter; Lead Faculty, The Forward Institute

Featured Speaker Online
Professor Keith Grint, Emeritus Professor of Public Leadership, Warwick University

Featured Speaker
Mansour Javidan, Ph.D., Garvin Distinguished Professor and Executive Director, Najafi Global Mindset Institute, Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University

Featured Speaker Online
Dr. Barbara Kellerman, Fellow, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School

Plenary Speaker
Hyppolite Ntigurirwa, 2020 Yale World Fellow & Founder, Be the Peace Global

Featured Speaker
Professor Sonia M. Ospina, Professor of Public Management and Policy, R.F Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University

Plenary Speaker Online
Professor Chellie Spiller, Professor of Leadership, University of Waikato Management School, Aotearoa New Zealand

Plenary Speaker Online
Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, 1st Indigenous Chair for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, Lakehead University; Former Vice Provost, Indigenous Initiatives, Lakehead University
Detailed Biographies
Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, is a member of the Stó:lō First Nation and has kinship in St’at’imc First Nation in British Columbia, Canada. Over a 45-year educational career, Q’um Q’um Xiiem has served as a school teacher, curriculum developer, researcher, author, university leader and professor. She is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Education, University of British Columba (UBC). At UBC, she held the leadership positions of Director of the First Nations House of Learning, Associate Dean for Indigenous Education, and the Director of UBC’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program. She received a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree from UBC, a Master of Education (M.Ed.) degree and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree from Simon Fraser University. Q’um Q’um Xiiem’s scholarship relates to Indigenous knowledge systems, storywork/oral tradition, transformative education at all levels, Indigenous educational history, teacher and graduate education, and Indigenous methodologies. Q’um Q’um Xiiem has been involved with numerous Indigenous national and international research and educational networks, policy engagement, and capacity building initiatives. In 2018, Q’um Q’um Xiiem, was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for her lifelong contributions to advancing Indigenous education in K-12 and post-secondary education through policy, programs, curricula, and research.
Dr. Avolio is the Mark Pigott Chair in Business Strategic Leadership within the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. In the Foster School, he also serves as the Executive Director for the Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking. He is recognized as being among the top 70 most highly cited researchers in the United States in Economics and Business, and among the top 3,000 across all sciences around the globe (Thompson Reuters). He was listed recently at the #18th spot on the all-time most highly cited industrial and organizational psychology researchers over the last 100 years, and # 3 as the most highly cited author in the top OB textbooks used in both undergraduate and graduate programs. This past year Dr. Avolio was recognized as being in the top .02% of all of scientists globally for his research impact and citations by Stanford University.
Julie Burns has lived and worked in Africa for many years beginning in 1988, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zaire/DRC, later as a consultant to development agencies and a qualitative researcher, and eventually as a Peace Corps Country Director in South Africa and Guinea. In the years in between, Julie pursued a career in experiential education and leadership development, working for over a decade with the North Carolina Outward Bound School, National Outdoor Leadership School, and Cornell Outdoor Education. It was while she was directing the outdoor leadership development program at Cornell University, that she began her graduate studies — first her Master’s on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and then her doctorate on post-genocide reconciliation within grassroots organizations in Rwanda. She has also served as the Chief of Operations for the Africa Region at the Peace Corps and is currently the Senior Advisor to the Director at the Peace Corps.
Felix Giroux is a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia (UBC) where he is critically studying questions of power and technology around the energy transition. More specifically, he researches the development of green hydrogen in Canada through an anthropological lens. He is a 2023 Trudeau Scholar and he is affiliated with the Centre for Climate Justice at UBC. Throughout his career, he has been a strong advocate for broadening the climate conversation to include, for example, queer perspectives and nature. Prior to his academic journey, he was a social impact consultant in Montreal and he interned for the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, while vigorously participating in climate activism. He is fully committed to bringing power shifts within the climate space and works through various mediums – scholarly work, activism, art – to enact this change.
Jonathan Gosling is Emeritus Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter, having been Chair and Director of the Centre for Leadership Studies there for 12 years, prior to which he directed the Strategic Leaders Unit at Lancaster University Management School. He has played a key role in developing innovative leadership and management education programmes, including the International Masters in Practicing Management, One Planet MBA, and Roundtables for Practicing Managers. Jonathan has been a Visiting Professor at universities in Canada, China, Denmark, France, New Zealand and Sweden and currently acts in an advisory capacity for leadership-related projects in commercial, governmental and activist organizations. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the ILA in 2021 and is currently Scholar in Residence.
Keith Grint is Professor Emeritus at Warwick University. He has held Chairs at Cranfield University and Lancaster University and was Director of Research at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. He is a Fellow of the International Leadership Association (ILA) and Professorial Fellow of the Australian Institute of Police Management (AIPM). He is also a founding co-editor with David Collinson of the journal Leadership, and co-founder of the International Studying Leadership Conference. He received ILA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. His books include The Arts of Leadership (2000); Organizational Leadership (2005); Leadership: Limits and Possibilities (2005); Leadership, Management & Command: Rethinking D-Day (2008); Leadership: A Very Short Introduction (2010); and Mutiny and Leadership (2021).
Multiple award-winning executive educator and author whose teaching and research interests span the globe, Dr. Mansour Javidan received his MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota. He is Garvin Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. He is a former Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Leadership Association. Mansour is former President of the world-renowned research project on national culture and leadership, titled GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness, globeproject.com) and is currently Project Director and Principal Co-Investigator of GLOBE 2020, working with a team of 426 researchers studying culture change, leadership ideals, and trust dynamics. The project has received close to $2.0 million in funding and has completed data collection from over 50000 managers and professionals in 144 countries. Mansour received the Decade’s Best Paper Award by the Academy of Management Perspectives. He is recognized as among the top 100 most influential authors in Organization Behavior in the world and among the top 2% most cited scientists in the field of business and management in the world. The World Bank and the United Nations Development Program have designated Dr. Javidan an expert advisor on Global Leadership. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has designated him an expert on managing diversity. Mansour has designed and taught executive development courses and workshops, conducted consulting projects, and made presentations in over 35 countries.
Dr. Barbara Kellerman was Founding Executive Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School; the Kennedy’s School’s James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Leadership; and a member of the Harvard faculty for over twenty years. She is currently a Fellow at the Center. Kellerman has held professorships at numerous universities including George Washington and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University and was the recipient of a Danforth Fellowship and three Fulbright fellowships. Kellerman was a cofounder of the International Leadership Association.
Kellerman is the author and editor of numerous books including: Bad Leadership; Followership; Leadership: Essential Selections (2010); The End of Leadership (2012); Hard Times: Leadership in America (2014), Professionalizing Leadership (2018), and (with Todd Pittinsky) Leaders Who Lust: Power, Money, Sex, Success, Legitimacy, Legacy. She has appeared on media outlets such as CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Reuters, and BBC, and has contributed articles and reviews to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Harvard Business Review.
She is a globally renowned speaker who has addressed audiences all over the world including in Berlin, Moscow, Melbourne, Sao Paolo, Jerusalem, Mumbai, Toronto, Kyoto, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Sydney, and Seoul. She received the Wilbur M. McFeeley Award from the National Management Association for her pioneering work on leadership and followership, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Leadership Association. Since 2015, she has been listed by Global Gurus as among the “World’s Top 30 Management Professionals,” and in 2023 she was ranked #10 on the list.
Her most recent book — The Enablers: How Team Trump Flunked the Pandemic and Failed America — was published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. Her next book, Leadership from Bad to Worse, will be published by Oxford University Press in early 2024.
Kellerman regularly posts digital articles at https://barbarakellerman.com/articles/, which is where this blog was originally published.
Hyppolite Ntigurirwa is an artist, author, and peace scholar. He is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations. His research focuses on “Rebuilding Trust as a Means for Sustainable Peace”. He is the founder of Be the Peace Global, an organisation focused on halting the intergenerational transmission of hate, trauma, and violence. Hyppolite is 2020 Yale World Fellow and Peace Ambassador for One Young World. In 2019, he envisioned and conducted the “Be the Peace Walk,” a 100-day walk in which he walked across Rwanda for peace and trust. He has worked with different international organisations including the British Council and Yale Centre for International Human Rights. He is a Public Speaker and his recent memoir “A Boy Called Hyppo” tells the story of surviving the Genocide against the Tutsi, forgiveness, and hope.
Sonia M. Ospina is Professor of Public Management and Policy, at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. She is the former Faculty Director of the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA). Her present academic interests include collective leadership and democratic governance, both in the U.S. and Latin America. She became a leadership scholar by directing a multi-year, national research project that invited 92 U.S. social change organizations to coproduce new knowledge about leadership and social transformation. The resulting practitioner leadership stories, pedagogical cases, peer-reviewed journal articles and other publications theorized collective leadership, identified social change leadership practices, and explored the relationship between race and leadership, among other contributions. Sonia grew up in urban Bogotá, and worked in the education field until returning to the U.S. where she was born to Colombian parents. She has lived with her family for 34 years in another great urban space, New York City. Sonia’s bi-cultural experience and strong ties to both countries are embodied in her transnational and multicultural approach to life. She has a PhD in Sociology, an MS in Policy and Management from SUNY at Stony Brook and a BA in Education and Social Sciences from Universidad Javeriana in Colombia.
Martha Piper served as the first woman president of the University of British Columbia and has been a director of the Bank of Montreal, Shoppers Drug Mart, and TransAlta Corporation. An Officer of the Order of Canada, she was born in Lorain, Ohio and lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the co-author of Nerve: Lessons in Leadership From Two Women Who Went First.
Indira Samarasekera served as the first woman president of the University of Alberta and is a director of Magna International, TC Energy, Intact Financial Corporation and Stelco and has served as a director of the Bank of Nova Scotia. An Officer of the Order of Canada, she was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka and lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the co-author of Nerve: Lessons in Leadership From Two Women Who Went First.
Chellie Spiller is a professor of leadership at the University of Waikato Management School, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research explores wayfinding, authentic, Māori and Indigenous leadership and how businesses can create sustainable wealth and wellbeing.
As 2022 Leader in Residence at the Atlantic Institute, she produced The Catalyst’s Way – A Handbook for People Who Want to Change the World and, as a companion guide, The Catalyst’s Way – Foundational Storytellers at Oxford University. Chellie is also a co-author of a book on traditional Polynesian navigation Wayfinding Leadership: Groundbreaking Wisdom for Developing Leaders with Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr and John Panoho. Released in 2015, Wayfinding Leadership is a best-selling book for Huia Publishing. In 2013 her co-edited book with Donna Ladkin, Authentic Leadership: Concepts, Coalescences and Clashes (Edward Elgar Press) was short-listed for an international leadership book award.
Chellie was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Arizona in 2012. She has received a Research Excellence Award, Dame Mira Szászy Māori Alumni Award, National Māori and Academic Excellence Award. Chellie is also an international speaker and leadership development trainer.
A citizen of, and General Counsel, to the Haida Nation, Terri-Lynn has practised in Indigenous-environmental law since 1995 when she began representing the Haida Nation at all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. She was lead counsel in litigation to protect the old growth forests of Haida Gwaii in the Haida case, the leading case on consultation and accommodation of Indigenous rights. She is counsel for the Haida Nation’s aboriginal title case and related reconciliation negotiations—which have resulted in innovative agreements with British Columbia and Canada—as well as other litigation including successfully challenging the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project, and injunctive relief for herring.
Terri-Lynn serves on the Law Society of British Columbia Truth and Reconciliation Advisory Committee, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada’s Indigenous Advisory Council, the Dean’s Advisory Committee for the Centre for Business Law at Allard School of Law, and she is Co-Chair of the Indigenous Engagement in Regulatory Matters Task Force. She is a co-principal investigator with the Canada Climate Law Initiative. Terri-Lynn has been honoured with the Peoples’ Choice Andrew Thompson Award for lifetime contributions to environmental protection and sustainability (2014); the Courage in Law Award from the Indigenous Law Students Association at Allard Law School (2018); Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in the category of “Changemakers” (2020); Maclean’s “Power List”, ranking 21 of 50 Canadians who are breaking ground in their field (2021); and recognized as one of 500 most influential business leaders in BC in the General Counsel category (2022). In 2021 she was appointed as King’s Counsel.
Terri-Lynn is also a multi-award-winning performer, an artist, dancer, and author (see www.ravencallingproductions.ca), and is currently a PhD student at Allard School of Law, UBC.
Dr. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux served as Vice Provost for Indigenous Initiatives at Lakehead University for three years. Effective September 2016 she was appointed the 1st Indigenous Chair for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada for Lakehead University and continues to develop pathways forward to reconciliation across Canada.
Cynthia was inducted as a “Honourary Witness” by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2014 and is Chair of the Governing Circle for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba.
She is a member and resident of the Chippewa of Georgina Island First Nation in Ontario and has dedicated her life to building bridges of understanding. She sees endless merit in bringing people from diverse cultures, ages, and backgrounds together to engage in practical dialogue and applied research initiatives.
Speakers From Past Global Conferences
Here are just a few of the recent featured speakers at ILA’s Global Conference
John Adair, President, Adair Leadership
John, Lord Alderdice, Member, House of Lords, Parliament of the U.K.; Director, Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict; President of ARTIS (Europe) Ltd.; Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford
Valerie Biden Owens, Political strategist, presidential campaign manager, & author of Growing Up Biden
The Right Honourable Kim Campbell, 19th Prime Minister of Canada; Founding Principal, Peter Lougheed Leadership College
Jagan Chapagain, Secretary General, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Martin Chungong, Secretary General, Inter-Parliamentary Union
Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming, United States Agency for International Development
David Gergen, Political Commentator Presidential Advisor, and Founding Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard’s Kennedy School; Author of Hearts Touched With Fire: How Great Leaders are Made
Ambassador Thomas Greminger, Director, Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Anuradha Gupta, Deputy CEO, GAVI The Vaccine Alliance
The Right Honorable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, 2010 – 2017
Barbara Kellerman, James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change, INSEAD
Pauline Koelbl, Founder & CEO, AfriProspect GmbH’s; Founder & Managing Partner, ShEquity
Reta Jo Lewis, President and Chair of the Board of Directors, Export-Import Bank of the United States
Susan R. Madsen, Karen Haight Huntsman Endowed Professor of Leadership in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University
The Right Honorable Paul Martin, 21st Prime Minister of Canada
Tara McGowan, Political strategist, journalist, CEO + Founder – Good Information Inc.
Stella Nkomo, Professor of Human Resource Management, University of Pretoria
Sudhanshu Palsule, Fellow, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership; Educator, Duke CE
Henk Rogers, Founder and Chairman, Blue Planet Alliance
Diane Rosenfeld, Founding Director, Gender Violence Program, Harvard Law School
Vivian Schiller, Executive Director, Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute; Former President & CEO, NPR; Former Head of NYtimes.com; Global Chair of News for Twitter
Senator/Ànike Nìgànizi Murray Sinclair, Senator of Canada; Parliament of Canada; Aboriginal Judge; Chief Commissioner, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada / Ànike Nìgànizi Kanadàng; Wàbishkìwe Ogimà Kanadàng; Anishinàbe Tibàkonigewininì; Nàgànìkandang Tebwewin Kàbì Ijiwebag
Raj Sisodia, Founding Member, Conscious Capitalism Movement; Distinguished Professor & Chairman, Conscious Enterprise Center, Tecnologico de Monterrey
Brian Stelter, Former Anchor, CNN’s Reliable Resources; Shorenstein Fellow; Author of HOAX: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth
Ambassador Yvette Stevens, Executive in Residence, Geneva Centre for Security Policy; Former Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone
Pavan Sukhdev, Founder & CEO, GIST
Tatiana Valovaya, Director General, United National Office at Geneva
Maestro Karim Wasfi, Founder, Peace Through Arts; Conductor & Renowned Cellist
Margaret (Meg) Wheatley, Co-Founder and President, The Berkana Institute

Featured Online Speaker, Day & Time Forthcoming
Margaret Wheatley, Ed.D., is the author of the classic, Leadership and the New Science. For the past five years, she has been training leaders and activists from 35 countries as Warriors for the Human Spirit. Her latest book (and CD) is The Warrior’s Songline: A Journey Guided By Voice And Sound.

Featured Online Speaker, Day & Time Forthcoming
Professor John Adair is the author of over 50 books which have been translated into 18 languages. His most recent book, The Art of Judgment, is a pioneering exploration of practical wisdom, now coming into prominence as a key leadership quality, especially in these most challenging of times.