The 2026 World BRMConnect® Conference
The 2026 World BRMConnect will be in Denver, Colorado
September 21-23, 2026
Best Practices and Leading Edge
Practical Skills and Knowledge
Every year, professionals search for the one event—the experience that changes how they think, how they lead, and how they deliver value within their organizations. For leaders, professionals and BRMs who want to make an impact that event is the World BRMConnect Conference.
Why Leaders are Bringing Their Executives
BRMConnect isn’t one size fits all: the event program is designed to meet professionals wherever they are in their development journey. Take a look at some of the tracks below.
Each speaker session is cooresponding with the color code for the track theme.
Mastery & Legacy –
Craft enduring capabilities that transform how organizations create and sustain value
Build a legacy of strategic imprint that outlives roles, initiatives and market cycles
Elevate partnership at enterprise scale
Organizational Transformation-
Build stakeholder adoption when alignment is fragile
Strengthen relationships that support organizational resilience
Lead boldly under intense pressure to deliver lasting organizational impact
Powered by Partnership-
Convert vision and strategy into tangible action
Deliver concrete business wins in weeks, not years
Co-create value across complex ecosystems and partner networks
Design convergence strategies that hold strong under pressure and change
Professional Presence-
Build trust across cultures, power dynamics and high pressure environments
Develop storytelling that moves real decisions in complex organizations
Influence powerfully and authentically without relying on formal authority
Anticipatory Value Orchestration-
Anticipate emerging needs and orchestrate value before it’s requested
Lead human-AI convergence: amplify relationships to co-create exponential results across ecosystems
Build enduring advantage by mastering what AI can’t do: contextual judgement, trust, relational intelligence
Malini Jayaganesh
Strategic Advisor
ITSM Hub
Keynote Details
Session Title: Walk Fast, Walk Far
Business Relationship Managers are expected to respond, adapt, and make rapid progress. At the same time, we must sustain cohesion and bring others with us over the long term. In other words, collaboration needs to be optimized for both speed and endurance. Yet these forces often pull in different directions, and one is frequently achieved at the expense of the other.
In this keynote, Malini Jayaganesh draws on lived experience and a distinctive lens to explore how collaboration actually unfolds and what it takes to build momentum that lasts. Business Relationship Managers will leave with a deeper awareness of the conditions that enable us and our teams to move with pace and cohesion so we can walk fast, and walk far.
Andrea Pence | Emcee & Storyteller
Principal, AI Business Relationship Management
ABBOTT
Session Details
Session Title: Making AI Stick: Enterprise Enablement in Action
About this Session:
Can BRMs lead enterprise AI adoption? Yes! Here’s how.
Join Andrea Pence, Principal AI Business Relationship Manager, as she shares the key initiatives to drive AI adoption at your organizations. You will learn about an AI Ideas Campaign, IT-focused AI training plan, AI Ambassador Community, a Coding Agents Community of Practice, and enterprise-wide AI webinars. No matter where your organization stands on its AI adoption journey, you’ll walk away with concrete initiatives you can take back and bring to life.
Dr. Dawn Belamarich
President/CEO
Collaboratory
Keynote Details
Session Title: You First: The Secret to Leading Everyone Else
You cannot lead others well until you lead yourself honestly.
In this keynote, Dr. Dawn Belamarich strips away the performance of leadership to get at what actually drives it — self-awareness, alignment, and the courage to close the gap between who you are and how you show up. Drawing on her journey from licensed clinician to executive leader, Dawn introduces an internal Committee driving our decisions and leadership — the internal voice that keeps even the most accomplished leaders spinning instead of moving — and gives current and budding Executive leaders a practical framework for silencing it.
Walk away with a name for your inner critic, a reframe on readiness, and permission to stop waiting to feel ready.
You First. Because leading others starts there.
Larry Hibbs
Business Relationship Manager
City of Aurora
Session Details
Title: How to Train Your Business (Dragons)
About this Session:
Building and shaping dynamic value-driven relationships across a diverse organization is difficult ….but not impossible. In this session, we will start with self-discovery and purpose then look at the growth stages and events through the beginning and development of a dynamic business relationship.
As we progress to develop a relationship we will look at BRM tools for each stage and how they will ensure a solid foundation and growth in a business relationship. As a backdrop to our session, we will look at examples from the movie How to Train Your Dragon.
How did Hiccup and Toothless’ relationship change their village (organization) future? Come and experience the growth, tools, and some fun examples that you can use in your daily life.
Angela Misir-Swindler
Senior IT Business Relationship Manager
City of Austin
Session Details
Session Title: Network Weaving & Neuroinclusion: Building Partnerships that Last
About this Session:
Strong partnerships don’t happen by chance—they’re woven through intentional connections and diverse perspectives. This session explores how network weaving and neurodivergent thinking can accelerate collaboration and drive results under pressure. You’ll learn practical techniques to design resilient networks, co-create value in complex environments, and harness cognitive diversity as a strategic advantage. Leave equipped to build partnerships that deliver faster outcomes while fostering inclusion and adaptability across your organization.
John Krogh
Principal
Value Shepherd
Session Details
Session Title: The Human Edge Under Pressure: Why Relationships and Strategy Break Down
About this Session:
Business Relationship Management is evolving. For years, the profession has helped organizations build stronger partnerships, facilitate collaboration, and connect business strategy with technology delivery. But today’s environment demands something more. As organizations become increasingly complex and AI reshapes how information is gathered, coordinated, and communicated, the unique value of the Business Relationship Manager is shifting from managing relationships to understanding the human and organizational dynamics that determine whether relationships actually create strategic movement.
We believe this next evolution is Business Relationship Intelligence. Experienced Business Relationship Managers know how to build trust, facilitate conversations, and connect people across organizational boundaries. Yet many still find themselves outside critical decisions, coordinating rather than shaping strategy, and watching well-supported initiatives stall. Why do strong relationships sometimes fail to produce organizational movement?
In this interactive session, we will explore two interconnected dimensions of that question. We will introduce the human dynamics that influence trust, resonance, protection, and strategic influence and further examine the organizational and cultural forces that determine whether strategy can be translated into sustained action. Together, these perspectives reveal why trusted relationships alone are often insufficient—and why understanding both human and organizational systems is becoming an essential capability for modern BRMs.
Participants will leave with practical ways to recognize where strategic relationships are breaking down, distinguish interpersonal challenges from systemic organizational barriers, and begin developing the capabilities that define the next evolution of the profession: Business Relationship Intelligence.
Jay Benoit
IT Business Relationship Manager
Epiq
Session Details
Session Title: Seeing the Business, the Way the Business Sees It: Capability Modeling as the Trust Engine
About this Session:
Business Relationship Managers often struggle to break free from tactical work. Business Capability Modeling offers a practical and collaborative way to shift the conversation — and the relationship toward strategy.
This session explores how capability modeling help BRMs understand the business on its own terms, reveal value opportunities, and leverage shared language to build credibility. You will see how capability modeling uncovers misaligned investments, reveals hidden strengths, opportunities, and sparks strategic dialogue that positions the BRM as a trusted advisor.
Anita Charlot
Business Relationship Manager
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Session Details
Workshop Title: Trust as Infrastructure: The Hidden System Behind Innovation, AI, and Resilience
About this Session:
The Problem: Leading tech initiatives while managing crisis care for my 92-year-old mother with dementia, I thought I had to do it alone – failing at both, exhausted, out of options.
What shifted: I told my manager and team the truth. HR policies I didn’t know existed surfaced. My team-built coverage protocols so I could handle emergencies without dropping commitments. Then came the hardest part: a candid conversation with the care facility about what truly counts as an emergency, when to call, and how to start the call so I wouldn’t panic. Connection became the foundation-then AI amplified information management and decision support.
What participants will learn: Why trust isn’t separate from performance – it’s what makes speed, decision-making, and AI adoption actually work. You’ll see the moment vulnerability created capacity, how teams design convergence strategies, and why organizations trying to adopt AI without first building trust are building on sand. This isn’t soft skills – it’s the hidden infrastructure behind innovation and resilience.
Rayma Vinyard-Jacoby
IT Specialist Business Relationship Manager
USDA
Session Details
Session Title: This Wasn’t in the Playbook: Change Leadership on the Fly
About this Session:
In this session we will talk about how to keep change moving when everything is messy and official channels stall out. Drawing from real examples inside USDA (and other large complex systems) we will explore how to: Navigate fragile alignment without blowing up trust; Get reluctant stakeholders to lean in (without begging); Spot and work around legacy drag that slows everything down; Build relationships that actually fuel transformation; Keep momentum alive – even when it feels like everyone’s stuck.
If you have ever had to fix the plane while flying it, this session is for you.
Aaron Monroe
Managing Director, Global Technology
JP Morgan Chase
Session Details
Session Title: Inviting Innovation: Spark Efficiency, Insight and Growth
About this Session:
In high-performing organizations, innovation and efficiency don’t happen by accident—they are intentionally invited in. Business Relationship Managers partner with executive leaders to uncover opportunities, align priorities, and turn ideas into meaningful outcomes through trusted relationships and strategic dialogue.
In this session, we’ll explore how BRMs shape demand, surface efficiencies, and guide responsible adoption of emerging technologies like AI to drive enterprise value. Through real-world insights, you’ll discover practical ways to engage leadership, co-create innovation, and help your organization operate smarter and faster.
Peter Lijnse
BRM Leadership Coach
Lead the Pack Consulting
Session Details
Dr. Jericha Hopson
Business Relationship Manager
Taleton State University
Session Details
Session Title: Network Weaving & Neuroinclusion: Building Partnerships that Last
About this Session:
Strong partnerships don’t happen by chance—they’re woven through intentional connections and diverse perspectives. This session explores how network weaving and neurodivergent thinking can accelerate collaboration and drive results under pressure. You’ll learn practical techniques to design resilient networks, co-create value in complex environments, and harness cognitive diversity as a strategic advantage. Leave equipped to build partnerships that deliver faster outcomes while fostering inclusion and adaptability across your organization.
Tommy Kile
IT Business Relationship Manager
Akamai Technologies
Session Details
Session Title: BRM Unbound: Going Where the Business Needs You
About this Session:
Three years ago, I thought BRM success meant having the right answers. I built the playbooks, rolled out the templates, and helped define the role. On paper, it worked.
Then the scope grew—from a process, to an organization, to nearly a third of the company—and I learned the hard truth: clarity doesn’t show up when things are working. It shows up when they’re breaking.
The work that mattered most wasn’t clean or well-defined. It was messy, ambiguous, politically charged, and quietly failing. That’s where BRM stopped being a framework and became a responsibility.
In this session, I’ll share what changed when I stopped managing demand and started navigating uncertainty—how to anticipate shifting tides, build trust through empathy and curiosity, and deliver real value when the path forward isn’t obvious.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing all the “right” BRM things and still wondering if it’s enough, you won’t want to miss this.
Jessica Sudduth
President and Chief Experience Officer
Buffalo Consulting
Session Details
Session Title: Performing Under Fire! Resilience in a Time of Significant Cultural Shifts
About this Session:
In this powerful and personal session, I’ll open with a brief story of my own journey through a toxic workplace—an experience that challenged me, reshaped my perspective, and ultimately led me to the BRM Institute and a career path I now know is exactly where I’m meant to be.
From there, we’ll shift to you—exploring practical ways to navigate negative cultures and poor leadership while protecting yourself, documenting challenges effectively, and standing tall in the face of adversity. We’ll also touch on the critical role of self-care, mindset, and personal growth, because resilience isn’t just about getting through—it’s about rising stronger, with clarity, confidence, and purpose.
Suresh GP
Managing Director
TaUB Solutions
Session Details
Session Title: Experience Management to Impact BRM
BRMs should become instrumental in pioneering the human experience across the end-end value chain. This requires people to understand cultural nuances, expectation management and influencing without authority. At the end of the session, participants will walk away with pragmatic approach to create business impact and valuable emotional experience with their business partners and colleagues
Workshop Title: The Experience Economy of BRM: Why Every Interaction Is a Transaction of Trust
Description: Experience Management is fast becoming a critical capability for BRMs to influence outcomes and deepen trust – yet most BRMs have no practical toolkit for it. In this interactive workshop, participants will work through real scenarios to map experience touchpoints, identify moments that build or break trust, and leave with a practical framework to elevate how their business partners experience every interaction
Ken Fanta
Business Relationship Manager
Madison School of Medicine and Health
Session Details
Session Title: The Bridge that Started to Break
About this Session:
During Relationship Health Assessments across multiple clinical departments, initial feedback felt validating—leaders repeatedly said, “If it wasn’t for Ken, we’d be scoring this a two or three.” At first, it seemed like a sign of strong relationships and effective communication.
But a deeper look at the data revealed a different truth: the scores weren’t tied to consistent processes or shared understanding of IT—they depended on long‑tenured individuals. Trust was following people, not the system. I realized I wasn’t just supporting relationships; I was the bridge. And if I stepped away, the structure underneath might not hold.
This session highlighted the importance of shifting from individual-dependent relationships to building durable, system-level trust and processes
David Prater
Sr. Director of IT BRM
Maximus, Inc
Session Details
Session Title: “One Show, Multiple Teams: What a Rock Tour Teaches About Alignment at Scale”
About this Session:
Every organization has strong teams. Logistics, delivery, operations, and leadership all doing what they are supposed to do. And yet, execution still breaks down.
This session uses the metaphor of a major rock band tour to explore why. The show does not fail on stage. It fails in the handoffs behind the scenes. When teams are aligned on their role but not on the outcome, speed disappears and friction takes over.
Participants will experience how misalignment shows up across a system, and more importantly, how to correct it. They will leave with a clearer understanding of how to align ownership, decision rights, and tradeoffs so that strategy does not just sound good in the room but actually works in execution
Leanne McGiveron
Assistant Director, Business Relationship Management
Enterprise Community Partners
Session Details
Session Title: Connection: Three Women, Three Journeys, One BRM Mindset
About this Panel:
Organizational change often treats job elimination as an individual event. In reality, it’s a relationship challenge—testing trust, resilience, and the strength of professional networks.
This panel brings together three BRM professionals who experienced job elimination from different roles and organizations. While their journeys diverged, their response converged through intentional connection.
Panelists will share how BRM skills—relationship building, strategic communication, empathy, influence without authority, and value-based thinking—became essential tools for navigating uncertainty. Through mutual support, honest dialogue, and shared perspective, they transformed disruption into momentum.
Attendees will gain insight into how a professional community can serve as a stabilizing force during career disruption, and how BRM competencies extend beyond organizational boundaries. This session highlights resilience with purpose and the power of connection in times of change.
Kimarley Mowatt
Director IT, Strategy & Planning
State of Missouri
Session Details
Session Title: What Drives YOU
About this Session:
Organizations often struggle to move forward, not because of a lack of ideas, but due to deeply rooted resistance to change.
In this session, Kimarley explores what’s shifting in today’s environment—where accelerating technology demands and rising customer expectations are forcing organizations to adapt more assertively than ever before.
He highlights the critical role of understanding the underlying motivations of leaders and stakeholders, and how uncovering these drivers enables Business Relationship Managers (BRMs) to translate intent into actionable strategies. By connecting what matters most to the business with clear value and ROI, BRMs can turn resistance into momentum and position themselves as catalysts for meaningful change.
Sonia Ardeel
Head of Strategic Partnerships
ERP Risk Advisors
Session Details
Session Title: Connection: Three Women, Three Journeys, One BRM Mindset
About this Panel:
Organizational change often treats job elimination as an individual event. In reality, it’s a relationship challenge—testing trust, resilience, and the strength of professional networks.
This panel brings together three BRM professionals who experienced job elimination from different roles and organizations. While their journeys diverged, their response converged through intentional connection.
Panelists will share how BRM skills—relationship building, strategic communication, empathy, influence without authority, and value-based thinking—became essential tools for navigating uncertainty. Through mutual support, honest dialogue, and shared perspective, they transformed disruption into momentum.
Attendees will gain insight into how a professional community can serve as a stabilizing force during career disruption, and how BRM competencies extend beyond organizational boundaries. This session highlights resilience with purpose and the power of connection in times of change.
Shatha Dweik
Business Relationship Manager
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Session Details
Session Title: Can you trust me? No, you can’t….but you will.
About this Session:
In a world filled with deadlines, KPIs, and formality….let’s remember to be human first. Trust isn’t a given, its built, tested and rebuilt one interaction at a time. This session unpacks what trust means inside organizations and under pressure, we will draw on the mechanics of trust (credibility, reliability, self-orientation) and look at why the BRMs who get trusted fastest aren’t the ones with the most polish, but the ones with the most consistency. Leave with a practical lens for building trust on purpose.
Philip Wehrenberg
Information Technology Business Relationship Management
USDA
Session Details
Session Title: This Wasn’t in the Playbook: Change Leadership on the Fly
About this Session:
In this session we will talk about how to keep change moving when everything is messy and official channels stall out. Drawing from real examples inside USDA (and other large complex systems) we will explore how to: Navigate fragile alignment without blowing up trust; Get reluctant stakeholders to lean in (without begging); Spot and work around legacy drag that slows everything down; Build relationships that actually fuel transformation; Keep momentum alive – even when it feels like everyone’s stuck.
If you have ever had to fix the plane while flying it, this session is for you.
Jennifer Ersland
Senior Business Readiness Consultant
Principal
Session Details
Session Title: Buy-In to Breakthrough
About this Session:
Driving change in a culture resistant to it isn’t about pushing harder—it’s about influencing smarter. This session explores how Business Relationship Managers can shift mindsets through intentional conversations, thoughtful preparation, and influence tactics that resonate with business leaders, focusing on how to frame value, build trust, and align to what leaders truly care about—because in BRM, gaining buy-in is often the hardest part.
Join this session to learn how to get Buy-in breakthrough!
Barbara Brinson
IT Business Solutions Partner, Director
Group 1001
Session Details
Session Title: Connection: Three Women, Three Journeys, One BRM Mindset
About this Panel:
Organizational change often treats job elimination as an individual event. In reality, it’s a relationship challenge—testing trust, resilience, and the strength of professional networks.
This panel brings together three BRM professionals who experienced job elimination from different roles and organizations. While their journeys diverged, their response converged through intentional connection.
Panelists will share how BRM skills—relationship building, strategic communication, empathy, influence without authority, and value-based thinking—became essential tools for navigating uncertainty. Through mutual support, honest dialogue, and shared perspective, they transformed disruption into momentum.
Attendees will gain insight into how a professional community can serve as a stabilizing force during career disruption, and how BRM competencies extend beyond organizational boundaries. This session highlights resilience with purpose and the power of connection in times of change.
Kimball Lovin
Principal & Founder
AtlasXT
Session Details
About this Session:
Allison O’Brien
Leadership Development
LQ Listening Intelligence
Session Details
Session Title: Listening… and My Existential Crisis
About this Session:
Kip Fanta
Principal
Kip Fanta Group
Session Details
Session Title: Courageous Conversations
About this Session:
In organizations, the conversations that matter most are often the ones people avoid…because they feel risky, uncomfortable, or politically unsafe. Yet those conversations are where trust is built, value is protected, misalignment is corrected, and relationships are strengthened. This session explores what it means to lead with courage in moments that count: challenging assumptions, naming the “unspoken,” addressing misalignment early, and standing for value without damaging relationships.
We’ll look at why courageous conversations are hard, what happens when they are avoided, and practical tools to prepare for and navigate them with clarity, empathy, and confidence. Attendees will walk away with language, frameworks, and confidence to have the conversations their organizations desperately need, but often don’t have.
Ramsay Gonzalez
Principal & Founder
Colabra Labs
Session Details
Session Title: The Platform that Speaks BRM. Live Demo!
About this Session:
BRM practitioners have no shortage of tools. What they have a shortage of is tools built specifically for how BRM practice actually works. In this 20-minute live demo, I walk through Colabra BRM, a platform designed around the complete BRM lifecycle: relationship health and maturity, demand from intake to closeout, capability governance, value delivery, and AI-powered executive reporting. Attendees will also see the partner portal, a dedicated space where BRM teams and their business partners can collaborate, communicate, and stay aligned with full transparency into priorities, progress, and outcomes.
Tyeasha Harris
Business Relationship Manager, Wolters Kluwer
Session Details
Session Title: Partnerships with a Purpose
About this Session:
Partnerships don’t happen by accident. They’re built — intentionally, strategically, and with a clear sense of what “value” actually means to the people on both sides of the table. This session explores what it takes to move beyond transactional relationships and into the kind of partnerships that stick: ones grounded in shared purpose, mutual trust, and outcomes that matter. Whether you’re navigating internal stakeholder dynamics or building cross-functional alliances, you’ll leave with a framework for turning relationships into results.
Change the Way You Think About What BRM Can Do
Hear Christians’s Testimonial.
At BRMConnect, leaders come together not just to learn—but to see the future of business in action. The BRM role has evolved from connector to strategic partner, and forward-thinking BRMs are already delivering AI-enabled insights, demand shaping, and enterprise relationship orchestration. Participants gain a fresh perspective on building influence, strengthening collaboration, and leveraging human-centered skills that AI cannot replace, equipping them to create lasting impact and accelerate growth.
Hotel & Venue Details
The Inverness Denver
Hilton Golf & Spa Resort
200 Inverness Dr. W Englewood, CO 80112 | 303-397-7132
Use code: BRMC
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Customizable Justification Letter For Your Boss
BRMConnect is the most valuable event you’ll attend all year.
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