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Who are the project management influencers and brightest minds shaping the industry today? Which influential thinkers and top strategists should you be following during this unprecedented time of change and upheaval in the industry (and in the economy at large)? 

If you want to stay on top of the latest in project management and related topics like change management, business strategy, and leadership, make sure you’re following these movers and shakers: the top project management influencers of 2024.

82 Top Project Management Influencers of 2024

photo of Galen Low

1. Galen Low

Galen is a client services professional and an agile project management delivery specialist with over 13 years of experience in digital project management, shaping and delivering human-centered digital transformation in the government, healthcare, transit, and retail sectors. He is the co-founder of The Digital Project Manager and hosts the DPM Podcast. You can catch Galen and his thoughts on everything from digital strategy to project management to project coaching elsewhere on The Digital Project Manager and in our membership program.

photo of Ben Aston

2. Ben Aston

Ben brings over 15 years of experience in both strategic thinking and tactical implementation from a career at top digital agencies including FCV, Dare, Wunderman, DLKW Lowe, and DDB. Ben is a certified scrum master, PRINCE2 practitioner, and a co-founder of The Digital Project Manager. Ben has worked across verticals including transit, utilities, FMCG, consumer electronics, ecommerce, automotive, financial services, public sector, and retail brands. Find Ben’s writings on project management on The Digital Project Manager.

photo of courtney johnston

3. Courtney Johnston

Courtney has been in the field for 20+ years. She’s spent time in both the account management and project management worlds for top agencies including Critical Mass, FCV Interactive, Wunderman, and Y&R Interactive and in verticals such as financial services, automotive, communications, and the nonprofit world.

headshot of sarah hoban

4. Sarah M. Hoban

Sarah is a project and program manager and former strategy consultant with 15 years of experience, specializing in executing high-risk, high budget projects as well as product operations, operations management, strategic planning, and more. Her current role is the Senior Director in the project management office at Aura, a digital security company. You can find Sarah’s writing on The Digital Project Manager, and on her website, sarahmhoban.com.

photo of Sonaya Williams

5. Sonaya Williams

Sonaya brings over a decade of experience leading digital organizations, along with a background in financial systems analysis. She is the founder of The CEO Partner, a boutique agency that focuses on helping businesses discover new sources of growth and revenue through online products. Her specialties are systems & frameworks, productivity, digital tools, online business management, and seeing the big picture of a business. Sonaya is a DPM Expert, and you can find her in our membership community.

photo of Annie MacLeod

6. Annie MacLeod

Annie is a project management coach and mentor with over 30 years of experience in managing projects and ensuring client success. She began her career in the tech sector in the 80s and started her own consulting firm almost 25 years ago. More recently she has become a Miro expert and is an evangelist for harnessing the power of collaboration in project teams. She is a co-founder of the Project Management GameBoard, a tool for improving project performance and project management confidence. Read her writing on The Digital Project Manager.

photo of Pam Butkowski

7. Pam Butkowski

Pam is a serial PMO builder who has spent her entire career in the agency and consulting world. She is a DPM Expert and is currently the Vice President of Delivery Management for Hero Digital and has previously built and led teams for organizations such as Wunderman Thompson, Nerdery, and AIM Consulting. She is also a self-professed process junkie and specializes in team leadership, agile methods, and process improvement. Find Pam in The DPM’s membership community.

Bill Moroz Headshot 2

9. Bill Moroz

Bill is a seasoned client-facing delivery champion with over 22 years of experience helping large organizations in the banking, financial services, and telecommunications sectors. He specializes in promoting, developing, delivering, migrating, and sometimes recovering complex enterprise-wide programs and projects. A DPM Expert, Bill has a solid track record of positive on time and on budget results, but his true passion is bringing out the fun in digital delivery through strong team building, data-driven storytelling, and celebrating wins with teams and stakeholders. Find Bill in The Digital Project Manager membership community.

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10. Jean Kang

Jean is a trailblazing career coach and seven-time career pivoter paving the path for future program managers. She’s worked in Project/Program Management and Operations at leading companies such as Meta, Pinterest, Intuit, LinkedIn, and now Figma. She is the founder and CEO of Path to PM, a coaching service helping career pivoters and aspiring PM professionals land dream jobs without PMP certifications. On LinkedIn, Jean shares daily valuable project/program management and career tips Her content-packed weekly newsletter and guide provide actionable advice for driving impactful programs and supercharging your PM career.

photo of jeff chamberlain

11. Jeff Chamberlain

Jeff has been a project manager for over 25 years in various industries such as telecom, healthcare, IT, government services, and even outdoor adventure. His speciality is, as he puts it, “in making things easier,” be it reporting, scheduling, monitoring, and automation. He is currently a Senior Project Manager for Edwards Performance Solutions which provides consulting and management for operations, cybersecurity, and IT. He is PMP certified, and also has a lean certification, a Six Sigma Yellow Belt, and a Scrum Master Certification. You can read Jeff’s writing here.

photo of Mackenzie Dysart

12. Mackenzie Dysart

Mackenzie is a PMP and CSM certified project manager with over 9 years of experience. As a project manager who specifically chose the profession, Mackenzie has worked in both senior roles and a PMO, and is currently a product manager with global technology company Thoughtworks. Her focus has been on digital projects such as website builds & redesigns, apps, social campaigns, branding, email campaigns, and more. She is also an accessibility advocate and a DPM Expert. Find Mackenzie in The Digital Project Manager membership community, and read her writing here.

photo of christina sookram

13. Christina Sookram

With over 15 years of corporate experience as a project manager, Christina is an experienced project leader and educator. She has provided project leadership experience at some of Canada’s largest technology companies, and is a subject matter expert in both waterfall and agile project delivery and product management functions with a focus on Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe® agile methodologies. Christina is the founder of CNS Project Consulting Inc. and an instructor at Wilfrid Laurier University and OCAD University. Read her writing here.

Photo Of Sally Shaughnessy

14. Sally Shaughnessy

Sally has been a project manager since the early 2000s with both global ad agencies and smaller startups. She is a Director of Production for New York-based marketing agency Code and Theory. She is both PMP and CSM certified, and in her current role, she works at the intersection of change management, agency leadership, and leading the PMO. Her focus areas include hybrid project management, agile and waterfall methodologies, workflow process analysis, risk assessment and mitigation, and more. Sally is also a DPM Expert, and you can find her in The Digital Project Manager’s slack community. Read her writing here.

photo of kelly ostrowercha

15. Kelly Ostrowercha

Kelly is a freelance project management leader with 15+ years of successfully developing people, teams, and processes in digital agencies, small start-ups, and larger corporations. She specializes in developing and implementing process efficiencies and automations, strategic action plans, and mentoring both teams and individuals. Kelly is also a regular contributor to The Digital Project Manager, and you can read her writing here.

photo of kelly vega

16. Kelly Vega

Kelly is a Program Director at Wunderman Thompson, a global creative agency. Kelly has a passion for DPM and specializes in evolving process, delivery, and documentation, with experience in projects ranging from full custom e-commerce builds to digital strategy and custom applications. Kelly is a certified scrum master as well as a DPM Expert, where she has contributed to the publication and the membership community since 2015. You can find Kelly in The Digital Project Manager membership community, and read her writing here.

Emily Hannon Luijbregts Headshot

17. Emily Hannon-Luijbregts

Emily has worked in project management for over 10 years. In this time, she has specialized in a variety of project management methodologies and has been a strategic project manager, facilitator, and scrum master. She is also an avid coach and trainer, working to ensure the development of the next generation of project managers and project professionals through training, knowledge sharing and team building. She is currently a Project and Programme Manager Team Lead at Siemens Digital Industries Software, as well as a DPM Expert. Find Emily in The Digital Project Manager membership community, and read her writing here.

Photo Of Bob Sutton

18. Bob Sutton

Robert is a Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, where he co-founded the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the Institute of Design. He has published over 200 articles in academic and popular outlets, along with seven books. He won the Eugene L. Grant Award for Excellence in Teaching, and awards for the best paper of the year in the Academy of Management Journal and in the Academy of Management Review. He is regarded as one of the top influencers in business.

Photo Of Susanne Madsen

19. Susanne Madsen

Susanne has been building a successful career for the past 17 years leading large change programmes of up to $30 million for organizations such as Standard Bank, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase. She is a fully qualified corporate and executive coach, an NLP practitioner, and a regular contributor to the Association for Project Management (APM). Susanne is the author of two books, The Project Management Coaching Workbook and The Power of Project Leadership. In addition to coaching and training, Susanne regularly speaks on the topic of project leadership and stress in project management for organizations and at conferences.

Photo Of Lindsay Scott

20. Lindsay Scott

Lindsay is the Director of PMO Learning, a training organization within the PMO field. She is also a PMO Mob Collector for House of PMO, which is a learning and social meetup organization for PMO professionals. She is also a conference organizer for The PMO Conference (UK’s largest conference for PMO’s). On top of this, Lindsay is the project management careers columnist for PMI’s Network magazine, and co-editor of the Gower Handbook of People in Project Management.

Photo Of Hala Saleh

21. Hala Saleh

Hala is the Vice President of Product at GigaStar. With over 15 years in the technology industry, she is a successful project manager and business strategist. Using her past experiences and love for delivering value and people-driven products, she has the ability to solve challenging problems. She combines her love for technology and start-ups through her coaching, training, and workshops; 27Sprints.

Photo Of Falk Schmidt

22. Falk Schmidt

Falk is the CEO of FS/CS GmbH, an organization which guides businesses through the strategic and organizational change process in digitization. He is also a lecturer in data protection at Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen. With more than 20 years of experience in strategic innovation consulting and operational project management, he is an expert in business process optimization and user-centric systems.

Cornelius Fichtner

23. Cornelius Fichtner

Since starting his career in 1990, Cornelius has worked as a project manager in Switzerland, Germany and the USA. He is the President of OSP International LLC, a PMI Registered Education Provider, and the host of PM Podcasts. He also works with project managers who need to maintain their PMI credentials by providing webinars and online learning tools that allow them to earn professional development units (PDUs) for their recertification.

Photo Of Brad Egeland

24. Brad Egeland

Brad is a Business Solution Designer & IT/PM consultant & author working with development, management, & project management experience leading initiatives in a variety of industries such as healthcare, higher education, gaming, and hospitality. With over 25 years of experience in the field, he has published over 6,000 project management articles, eBooks, and white papers.

Photo Of Bill Dow

25. Bill Dow

Bill has been working in IT for more than 25 years, with 23 years focusing on project management. He has built 6 project management offices from the ground up using the best practices and core principles of PMI. He is the co-author of the Project Management Communications Bible. He also wrote another two books called The Tactical Guide for Building a PMO and Project Management Communication Tools. He is also a part-time Adjunct Professor at Bellevue College where he teaches several project management classes, and the Director of Enterprise PMO at UW Medicine.

Kiron D. Bondale

26. Kiron Bondale

Kiron has over 20 years of experience helping more than 150 companies spanning multiple industries to achieve their strategic goals. He has done this as a trainer, a coach, a trusted advisor and a speaker. As a specialist in portfolio management, training, risk management and agile, he is an active coach and project management coach executing the right projects in the right way.

Photo Of Suze Haworth

27. Suze Haworth

Suze is a freelance senior digital project manager in London. She has over 10 years experience working in agencies, moving through the ranks from her early days in account management before seeing the light, and realizing her true calling for project management. She now leads teams on all sorts of digital and web builds, ranging from social campaigns and digital media to large and complex websites. Her current role is a Research Program Manager at Meta, and you can read her writing on The Digital Project Manager here.

Photo Of Robyn birkedal

28. Robyn Birkedal

Robyn is a digital project manager based in Portland OR. Her current role is a Senior Technical Producer at BASIC/DEPT. She has over 7 years’ experience in the industry producing a wide swath of digital efforts including websites, product UX/UI, digital experiences, social, and even a national broadcast spot. Her professional project management experience has led her to develop expertise in the athletic, tech, quick service restaurant, and entertainment industries. She is also a member of the DPM Expert Team at The Digital Project Manager. Read her writing here.

Photo Of Patrice Embry

29. Patrice Embry

Patrice is a freelance digital project manager and certified scrum master. With 17 years in the field, she has worked for agencies, corporations, and everything in between. Her client roster includes ExxonMobil, Merck, Granite Construction, Edwards Lifesciences, GS1 Global, and many more. She has worked on large scale websites, mobile apps, CRM and CMS systems, and even print. As well as this, Patrice is passionate about project management philosophy and is a member of the DPM Expert Team at The Digital Project Manager. Read her writing here.

Photo Of Margaret Meloni

30. Margaret Meloni

Margaret has more than 18 years’ experience in corporate America which included roles in Fortune 500 management. She is the President of Meloni Coaching Solutions Inc and an instructor in Project Management Certificate Program in UCLA Extension and UC Irvine Extension. Margaret’s students and clients often find that what she really brings them is freedom—freedom to bring their authentic selves to the workplace.

Mike Griffiths

31. Mike Griffiths

Mike is an agile consultant, author, and trainer in Alberta. He helped create DSDM in 1994 and since then, he has adapted agile approaches. He helped design the PMI-ACP credential and authored two best-selling books on how to study and pass the exam. He teaches courses in agile leadership, agile for executives, and preparing for the PMI-ACP. He is also the founder of LeadingAnswers.com.

Photo of Mike Clayton

32. Mike Clayton

Mike is an author, speaker, a facilitator, and a trusted advisor with a background of integrating complex change in major national and multinational organizations. He has authored 13 project management books and offers keynotes and seminars for conferences, events, and in-house workshops. He is the founder of OnlinePMCourses.com, which offers high-quality video-based project management training.

Bart Vermijlen

33. Bart Vermijlen

Bart is one of the co-founders of Box of Birds, an Antwerp based strategic digital design studio. He authored “The Agile Agency” where he shares his insight into project management in creative agencies. He is an agile coach and is passionate about lean, design thinking, and innovation games.

Steve McConnell

34. Steve McConnell

Steve is the CEO of Construx Software, a software consulting firm based in Washington. He is the author of several books, including More Effective Agile: A Roadmap for Leaders, Code Complete, Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art, Rapid Development, Software Project Survival Guide, and Professional Software Development. He is the former Editor in Chief of IEEE Software and former chair of the IEEE Professional Activities Board. He also hosts the Software Executive Summit annually.

Johanna Rothman

35. Johanna Rothman

With over 30 years’ experience in the industry, Johanna is an expert in managing high technology product development. In 1994, she founded the Rothman Consulting Group, a consultancy that helps people manage projects and project development. She is the author of 14 project management related books. She also offers project management workshops for agile approaches, pragmatic project management, and geographically distributed agile projects.

Photo Of Jim Highsmith

36. Jim Highsmith

James has more than 25 years experience in the IT industry and currently works as an executive consultant at ThoughtWorks. As an agile expert, he authored various books in the field of software development methodology. He was one of the 17 original signatories of the Agile Manifesto, the founding document for agile software development.

Photo Of Anne Gabrillagues

37. Anne Gabrillagues

Anne is an agile coach at essensei. She supports teams in sustainable adoption of agile practices and the improvement of their work processes. She is also a tech activist for Code4Change and a member of the FlowCon France.

Photo Of Bert Heymans

38. Bert Heymans

Bert is as much a project manager as he is a digital architect. He is a project manager and a business analyst with a strong background in software development. He is a PRINCE2 certified project manager and a certified scrum product owner with 2 Lean Kanban University certifications. He has led a variety of projects such as web production projects, digital marketing, and social media projects.

Photo Of Donnie MacNicol

39. Donnie MacNicol

Donnie is an expert programme and organizational consultant who has married his 30 years of delivery experience with a passion for personal development, change, and strategy to offer consultancy services. He is the author of The Delivery Manifesto and co-author of Project Leadership 3rd Edition, as well as a contributor to multiple other books.

Photo Of Deanne Earle

40. Deanne Earle

Deanne is a senior consultant and seasoned practitioner with extensive practical global experience in project, program, and portfolio management. She has worked with and for major software and professional service providers around the globe structuring, planning, and delivering projects.

Photo Of Lew Sauder

41. Lew Sauder

Lew is a lead project manager at 3Cloud, and has experience in IT Software implementations, business-process design and the alignment of IT with corporate strategy. He has diverse consulting experience across major technologies in a wide range of industries such as retail, publishing and manufacturing. He is the author of 3 books; Consulting 101: 101 Tips For Success in Consulting, Project Management 101: 101 Tips for Success in Project Management, and The Reluctant Mentor.

Photo Of Dawn Reid

42. Dawn Reid

Dawn is a PMP certified project manager with experience in applying project management theories and principles across functional and technical domains to deliver results. She is a servant-leader and student of certified scrum master (CSM). She’s proven successful in coaching geographically dispersed teams and motivating them to fulfill their highest potential.

Oliver F Lehmann

43. Oliver F. Lehmann

Oliver is a project management professional and certified scrum master. With his extensive experience as a project management practitioner, he is now a project management trainer at OliverLehmann.com. He is also a speaker, writer, and reviewer for PMBOK Guide (4th to 6th Editions).

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44. Gerald J. Leonard

Gerald is a Washington D.C.-based consultant on corporate culture. He is the CEO of Principles of Execution, a consulting practice with more than 20 years of experience working with federal and state governments and multinational corporations. He is also the author of Culture is the Bass: 7 Principles for Developing a Culture that Works.

Tania Melnyczuk

45. Tania Melnyczuk

Tania is experienced in guiding organizational leaders, entrepreneurs and career-minded individuals towards the initial fundamental changes required for effective project management. She is a director at ProjectManagement.co.za, a company that provides training, mentoring, and coaching in project management. She has led training in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania, working with one-man businesses, small charities, and medium-sized companies as well as governments and multinational organizations.

Dan Chuparkoff

46. Dan Chuparkoff

Dan is a hands-on product manager helping the world’s most innovative teams build the world’s most disruptive software. In the past two decades, Dan has led the designing and building of the world’s most ubiquitous and disruptive products with his software in the hands of more than 250 million users. He currently works as a group product manager at Google. In his spare time, he often speaks at conferences on product innovation, data science, and software delivery.

Bob Galen

47. Bob Galen

Bob is an experienced software development leader who has earned his chops in development, testing, and project management across a wide variety of business and process domains. For 20 years, he has focused on leveraging agile methods as the best way to deliver software value. He is a certified enterprise coach providing agile team coaching and training with a focus on scrum, XPM, and lean and Kanban practices.

Photo Of Elizabeth Larson

48. Elizabeth Larson

Elizabeth was the co-principal and CEO of Watermark Learning up until her retirement in October 2021. She has over 30 years of experience in project management and business analysis. She has presented workshops, seminars, and training classes since 1996 to thousands of participants on 5 different continents. She has co-authored three books: The Influencing Formula, The CBAP Certification Study Guide, and The Practitioners’ Guide to Requirements Management. She was also the lead author on the PMBOK® Guide Fourth and Fifth Editions, as well as the BABOK® Guide 2.0.

Photo Of George Pitagorsky

49. George Pitagorsky

George is a master facilitator, change agent, coach, meditation teacher, and consultant with more than 40 years’ experience working with individuals interested in applying wisdom teachings in daily life and in organizations, managing change and performance improvement with a special focus on project, engagement, and service management. He has served as CIO for a multi-billion dollar organization, director of product development for an international training organization, and principal in two technology start-ups.

Photo Of Jesse Fewell

50. Jesse Fewell

Jesse is a writer, coach, and trainer in innovation and agile methods. In addition to speaking at agile, scrum, and PMI conferences, he has helped teams across the world deliver products faster with higher quality. A leader in the advancement of management practices, he founded the PMI Agile Community of Practice, co-created the PMI-ACP® agile certification, and co-authored the Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide®. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, he is the world’s only certified Project Management Professional® (PMP) to also hold the expert-level agile designations of Certified Scrum Trainer® (CST), and Innovation Games® Qualified Instructor (IGQI).

Photo Of Eileen Roden

51. Eileen Roden

With a degree in business studies and applied project management, Eileen has pursued a successful career in project management and so decided to use her experience in the field to provide training for PMO professionals as part of PMO Learning. Passionate about the practical application of project management within organizations, she’s an active member of PMI, as well as a conference speaker.

Jeff Sutherland

52. Jeff Sutherland

Jeff is the inventor and co-creator of scrum. He has been VP of Engineering and CTO or CEO of eleven software companies. In the first four companies, he prototyped scrum and in the fifth company created scrum as we now see it used in 74% of agile software companies in over 100 countries. In 2006, Sutherland established his own company, Scrum, Inc. now recognized as the premier source of scrum training in the world.

Cliff Gilley

53. Cliff Gilley

For over 10 years, Cliff has spent the vast majority of his career working with companies who were focused on solving complex problems through the application of technology to traditionally human-based objectives. Cliff shares his knowledge and experience on his blog “The Clever PM” (currently on hiatus) to help others become better and more clever product managers. He currently works for Gartner as a senior research director and as a vice president research analyst in product management.

Photo Of Harry Hall

54. Harry Hall

Harry served as the director of enterprise risk management for the Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company for five years. He has more than 15 years of experience in managing projects and implementing PMOs. He is the author of The Project Risk Coach blog, where, as a principal trainer and consultant, he supports project managers from around the world in leading projects in an effective and successful way.

Photo Of Adrian Turner

55. Adrian Turner

Adrian has over 15 years experience as a project manager with many years of experience in manufacturing businesses, managing several projects through the product lifecycle. He is a PRINCE 2 practitioner and holds the APMP qualification—now PMQ. He has been involved in 3 ERP system implementations of SAP R/3, Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision), and EFACS E/8, all in manufacturing environments.

Bernardo Tirado

56. Bernardo Tirado

Bernardo is a seasoned management executive with extensive experience in developing strategic enterprise-wide business and technology solutions, building global PMOs, and transforming organizations through process improvement. He is a certified Project Management Professional, Six Sigma Blackbelt, and industrial psychologist with faculty experience and book publications related to project management, leadership, and human behavior in the workplace.

Photo Of Sam Silverstein

57. Sam Silverstein

Sam Silverstein is a former executive and owner of manufacturing and distribution companies which sold over $100 million in products and services. Sam sold one of these companies to a Fortune 500 company. He is now the president of Sam Silverstein Enterprises where he is writer, certified professional speaker, and consultant working around the globe. He is also the CEO and Founder of The Accountability Institute, and the author of 7 books including No More Excuses, No Matter What, and Non-Negotiable.

Photo Of Peter B. Taylor

58. Peter B. Taylor

Peter is a PMO expert who has built and led five global PMOs across several industries, and he is also the author of the number 1 bestselling project management book The Lazy Project Manager. In the last 5 years, he has delivered over 330 lectures around the world in over 25 countries and has been described as ‘perhaps the most entertaining and inspiring speaker in the project management world today’.

Photo Of Kevin Ciccotti

59. Kevin Ciccotti

Kevin is a certified professional coach, keynote speaker, and trainer as well as a design and business management expert. Kevin is the President of Human Factor Formula where he delivers targeted, engaging, and inspiring programs. He has spoken at PMI conferences around the world including two PMO Global Congresses. Kevin also shares real, raw content on his blog about leadership, success, and productivity.

Photo Of Andy Jordan

60. Andy Jordan

Andy is the founder and president of Roffensian Consulting where he is focused on strategic and business transformation initiatives, PMOs, and portfolio selection and management. Andy is a seasoned business professional with experience in many industries on two continents. Andy runs a Portfolio Management Foundations course on Lynda.com and is the author of Risk Management for Project-Driven Organizations.

Mike W Cohn

61. Mike Cohn

For over 20 years, Mike has been building high-performing software development teams and organizations through the use of scrum and agile. He is the founder of Mountain Goat Software. Mike is also an in-person trainer and coach, and he offers an online video course. He has also been blogging since 2005 and now has one of the most active and popular project management blogs about agile and scrum.

Photo Of Esther Derby

62. Esther Derby

Esther is the founder and president of Esther Derby Associates Inc. and works with a broad array of clients from Fortune 500 companies to startups. Esther is a programmer, tester, team leader, dev manager, and internal consultant. She is the author of two books, Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management.

Adriana Girdler

63. Adriana Girdler

Adriana is the president and chief efficiency officer at Cornerstone Dynamics, a business productivity consulting firm. She is a productivity specialist, entrepreneur, professional speaker, facilitator, and author. She is the author of several books such as, The Visual Vision Statement Workbook: Personal Edition and Efficiency Matters. She is a TedX speaker and contributor to Huff Post and Thrive Global. She also writes for the CornerStone Dynamics blog, which is ranked as one of the top 200 blogs online.

Photo Of Moira Alexander

64. Moira Alexander

Moira has over 25 years of experience in business (information systems & technology) and project management for small businesses in the US and Canada. She is the founder and Editor in Chief of PMWorld 360 Magazine, a digital project management and leadership magazine that provides business key decision makers with a 360-degree view of the management world. She is also the founder of Your Brand of Beauty and Lead-Her-Ship Group. As well as running various businesses, Moira is a serial author of various books including Lead or Lag: Linking Strategic Project Management & Thought Leadership.

Roman Pichler

65. Roman Pichler

Roman is a product management expert who specializes in lean and agile practices. He has more than 15 years experience training product managers and product owners. Roman is the author of Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age and Agile Product Management with Scrum.

Luis Goncalves

66. Luis Gonçalves

Luis is a management consultant and the founder of Evolution4All. Much of his career was spent as a software developer and agile coach. He is the co-author of Getting Value Out of Agile Retrospective which currently has 25,000 copies in distribution.

Jeff Patton

67. Jeff Patton

Jeff makes use of over 20 years of product design and development experience to help companies create great products. Today Jeff teaches and coaches a contemporary blend of practice that incorporates lean startup and design thinking. Jeff’s a certified scrum trainer and winner of the Agile Alliance’s 2007 Gordon Pask Award for contributions to agile development. Jeff is the author of the bestselling O’Reilly book User Story Mapping.

Photo Of Dick Billows

68. Dick Billows

Dick has 25 years of experience as a project & program manager and as a portfolio executive. He is the CEO of 4PM.com, a training program for project managers. He is also the author of 14 books and over 300 articles. He has also written & directed 136 “Project Manager in Action” videos for training PMs on how to handle different situations with sponsors, clients, team members, and stakeholders.

Photo Of Dmitriy Nizhebetskiy

69. Dmitriy Nizhebetskiy

Dmitriy is a software development project manager. He is a certified scrum master and a mentor who helps non-project managers and novice project managers to fill in the gaps to grow into professional project managers. He is the author of Project Management Quick Guide, and “How to Manage Stakeholders Engagement in a Strategic Way”.

Photo Of James Shore

70. James Shore

James is the agile guy. He is a consultant and practitioner, co-author of The Art of Agile Development, host of Let’s Code: Test-Driven JavaScript. James is a thought leader in the agile software development community. He is a recipient of the Agile Alliance’s 2005 Gordon Pask Award for contributions to agile practice and is the co-author of The Art of Agile Development. He co-created the Agile Fluency™ Model with Diana Larsen and has been named one of the “most influential people in Agile” by InfoQ.

Photo Of Gina Abudi

71. Gina Abudi

Gina has 25+ years’ experience working with organizations of all sizes providing expertise around projects, processes, and people. Gina keynotes and speaks at conferences, forums, and corporate and industry events on a variety of topics. Gina is leading author of Best Practices for Managing BPI Projects: Six Steps to Success, and author of Implementing Positive Organizational Change: A Strategic Project Management Approach.

Gojko Adzic

72. Gojko Adzic

Gojko is a partner at Neuri Consulting LLP, author of Humans vs Computers, Impact Mapping, and Specification by Example. He is also one of the authors of MindMup and Claudia.js. Gojko won the 2016 European Software Testing Outstanding Achievement Award, and the 2011 Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Award. Gojko’s book Specification by Example won the Jolt Award for the best book of 2012, and his blog won the UK Agile Award for the best online publication in 2010.

Photo Of Michael Bolton

73. Michael Bolton

Michael is a consultant and trainer in testing and quality for companies, teams, and individuals. He specializes in rapid software testing, a skill-set and mindset focused on high-value testing that is fast, inexpensive, credible and accountable.

Photo Of Ben Linders

74. Ben Linders

Ben is an independent consultant in agile, lean, quality, and continuous improvement. He is the author of Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives, Waardevolle Agile Retrospectives, What Drives Quality, The Agile Self-Assessment Game, and Continuous Improvement. He is an advisor, coach, and trainer who helps organizations with deploying effective software development and management practices.

Photo Of Kane Mar

75. Kane Mar

Kane Mar is the founder of the Agile Federation, and an agile trainer and coach at Scrumology. He has nearly 30 years’ experience as a software developer: 19 years as an agile specialist and 13 years as a professional Scrum coach and trainer. He speaks on scrum and agile all around the world and has trained and coached countless organizations in the use of scrum to deliver high-quality products, predictably, and repeatedly.

Lisa Crispin

76. Lisa Crispin

Lisa has been a tester on agile teams using extreme programming and scrum since 2000. She is the co-author of More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team and Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams. In 2012, she was voted by her peers as the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person.

Zuzi Soch

77. Zuzi Sochova

Zuzi is a certified scrum trainer, certified scrum professional, and certified LeSS practitioner. She is the author of The Great ScrumMaster: #ScrumMasterWay. She is an organizer of the annual Agile Prague Conference, founder of the agile community group Agile Association, and organizes regular events for the Czech agile & scrum community (Agile Open Cafe).

Henny Portman

78. Henny Portman

Henny is a partner at HWP Consulting where he offers practical assistance in the professionalization of project-programme and portfolio management. He is an author, reviewer, international speaker, coach, and trainer of more traditional project management (MoP, MSP, PRINCE2, P3O) as well as agile approaches like AgilePM, PRINCE2 Agile, and SAFe.

Barry Hodge

79. Barry Hodge

Barry is an IT project manager with over 15 years experience in delivering projects in different industries including retail, distribution, pharmaceuticals, housing, telecommunications and defense. Successful projects delivered include new housing management systems (Civica Cx, Capita Open Housing) for Alliance Homes and Knightstone and the distribution of two new cancer drugs for Celesio pharmaceuticals.

James Grenning

80. James Grenning

James, founder of Wingman Software, trains, coaches, and consults worldwide. He is the author of Test-Driven Development for Embedded C which has been translated into Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. He is one of the original authors of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. He has also written articles for IEEE software, IEEE Test and Measurement, and C++ Report.

elizabeth harrin photo

81. Elizabeth Harrin

Elizabeth is Director of Otobos Consultants Ltd, a project communications consultancy specializing in copywriting for project management firms. She has over fifteen years’ experience in projects, and is currently a senior project manager with Nuffield Health. Elizabeth is the author of Communicating Change, Shortcuts to Success: Project Management in the Real World, Collaboration Tools for Project Managers, and Customer-Centric Project Management. She also writes the award-winning blog, A Rebel’s Guide to Project Management.

Photo Of Michael Kaplan

82. Michael Kaplan

Michael is a Program, Project, and PMO Technology Leader who engages and influences employees, stakeholders, and vendors to deliver large-scale programs and projects. He delivered 27 projects over ten months, generating $2.8 million in revenue, and $980,000 in profit while maintaining chargeable utilization of 85%. He also authored SoftPMO PMBOK® Guide-aligned methodology and evolved it into a collaborative solution for delivering projects using SharePoint and Project Server.

Who’s Missing From The List?

Know someone who’s influencing the project management field, but isn’t on this list? I’d love to add them to the list—drop their name into the comment section below. You can find more expert advice in these project management podcasts and project management books as well.

PS: Also wondering what’s trending in the world of project management software and project management tools. Find out here!

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By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 20 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony. I'm a Certified Scrum Master, PRINCE2 Practitioner and productivity nut!