130 Top Project Management Influencers of 2020

Here’s a list of the brightest minds and influential thinkers who are shaping the project management industry today.

If you want to stay 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 2020.

130 Top Project Management Influencers Of 2020

1. Bob Sutton

Robert Sutton is 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.

2. Susanne Madsen

Susanne Madsen has been building a successful career for the past 17 years leading large change programmes of up to $30 million for organisations 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 organisations and at conferences.

3. Michael Kaplan

Michael Kaplan is a Program/Project/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.

4. Lindsay Scott

Lindsay Scott is the Director of PMO Learning, a training organization within the PMO field. She is also a PMO Mob Collector for PMO Flashmob which is a learning and social meetup group for PMO professionals. As well as this, she is 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.

5. Hala Saleh

Hala Saleh is the Director of Strategy and Business Development at Expedia. 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; 27 Sprints.

6. Carlos J. Pampliega

Carlos J. Pampliega is the founder of Castilla Leon Leadership and Salinero Pampliega. He has combined his love for project management and architecture to enhance his communication skills, leadership and team development. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Project Management Institute of Spain.

7. Falk Schmidt

Falk Schmidt is the CEO of FS/CS GmbH, an organization that guides businesses through the strategic and organizational change process in digitization. He is also a lecturer in data protection in 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.

8. Cornelius Fichtner

Since starting his career in 1990, Cornelius Fichtner 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.

9. Brad Egeland

Brad Egeland 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 and Gaming and Hospitality. With over 25 years of experience in the field, he has published over 6,000 project management articles, eBook and white papers. He was also named “#1 Provider of Project Management Content in the World”.

10. Bill Dow

Bill Dow has been working in IT for the past 26 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 principals of PMI. He is the co-author of the Project Management Communication 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.

11. Kiron Bondale

Kiron Bondale 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.

12. Jennifer Bridges

Jennifer Bridges is the director of ProjectManager.com, the Founder of PDUs2Go.com, and CEO of Optimo Inc, an Atlanta-based Project Management consulting and training firm. She is an active member of professional organizations such as the Project Management Institute (PMI), Women In Technology (WIT), and the National Alliance for Autism Research. She authored the book “Optimize Your Thinking” and featured in a variety of publications including PMNetwork and Project Management Leadership Magazines.

13. Suze Haworth

Suze Haworth 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 realising 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.

14. Maik Stettner

Maik Stetter has over 10 years of experience managing cross-functional teams as a Project Manager. His diverse background in project management has allowed him to gain valuable insights, delivering projects across a variety of digital platforms including websites, mobile apps, healthcare, video game platforms, and software solutions. With international experience, Maik previously led the full project lifecycle for major global clients such as Volkswagen, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.

15. Robyn Reynolds

Robyn Reynolds is a Digital Project Manager based in Portland OR. 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 TheDigitalProjectManager.com

16. Patrice Embry

Patrice Embry 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 Exxon Mobile, Merck, Granite Construction, Edwards Lifesciences, GS1 Global and many more. She has worked on large scale websites, mobile apps, CRM and CMS systems, and event print. As well as this, Patrice is passionate about project management philosophy and is a member of the DPM Expert Team at TheDigitalProjectManager.com.

17. 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 Founder of TheDigitalProjectManager.com. Ben has worked across verticals including transit, utilities, FMCG, consumer electronics, eCommerce, automotive, financial services, public sector, and retail brands.

18. Samad Aidane

Samad Aidane is the Director of Research and Development at NeuroFrontier, a boutique leadership development consultancy bringing together the latest neuroscience research to help organizations build inclusive leadership cultures that fully engage an increasingly diverse array of stakeholders. He is also a University Instructor at Oregon State University College of Business where he developed 2 courses in “Communication and Emotional Intelligence” and “Leading with Cultural Intelligence”.

19. Soma Bhattacharya

Soma Bhattacharya is an agile enthusiast working at ADP as a Senior Consultant in Agile Methodologies. She is specialized in team building, thinking outside the box, agile coaching and introducing and implementing transformation to various teams. She is also the Founder of SteppingIntoPM.com where she writes on topics such as agile, project management product reviews and book reviews.

20. Bruce McGraw

Bruce McGraw is a 1-part executive, 1-part entrepreneur, 1-part program manager, and 1-part geek. He is the Director of Operations and Programs at JSToogood LLC where he assists in managing and tracking innovation projects on the Air Force AETC AFWERX program. He has a forte in integrating strategic thinking with operational and technological expertise to implement successful, long-term programs and solutions.

21. Margaret Meloni

Margaret Meloni 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.

22. Mike Griffiths

Mike Griffiths is an agile consultant, author and trainer in Alberta. He helped create DSDM in 1994 and since then, he 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.

23. Ron Rosenhead

Ron Rosenhead is a seasoned project management consultant and an expert in project management training, speaking and coaching. He is the Chief Executive of Project Agency, a company dedicated to providing high quality and practical project management training. His focus is professionally qualified; the person who has risen through the ranks and find themselves involved in a project despite not having been trained in this area.

24. Jurgen Appelo

Jurgen Appelo is the Founder/CEO of Agility Scales. He is a serial founder, successful entrepreneur, author, speaker and pioneering management to help creative organizations survive and thrive in the 21^st century. INC.com has called him a Top 50 Leadership Expert and a Top 100 Great Leadership Speaker. He is the Founder of a popular blog at NOOP.NL where he offers ideas on the creative economy, agile management, organizational change and personal development. He is the author of the book “Management 3.0”, “How to Change the World” and “Managing Happiness”.

25. Mike Clayton

Mike Clayton is an author, speaker, a facilitator, a trusted advisor with a background of integrating complex change in major national and multi-national organizations. He authored 13 Project Management books and offers keynotes and seminars for conferences, events and in-house workshops. He is the founder of OnlinePMCOurses which offer high-quality video-based Project Management training.

26. Bart Vermijlen

Bart Vermijlen 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.

27. Daniel Echeverria

Daniel Echeverria is a Partner-Director of CDPSchool that markets a PMP Project Management course and a PSM-Scrum course. He also manages and teaches in the Specialized Course in Project Management of ESIC Business and Marketing School and in several professional associations of engineers and companies. Through his websites danielecheverria.com and preparadoragile.com, he helps other professionals obtain the PMP (R), CAPM (R) and ACP-PMI certifications.

28. Steve McConnell

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

29. Johanna Rothman

With over 30 years’ experience in the industry, Johanna Rothman 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.

30. Bill Mabry

Billy Mabry is an industry-recognized PMO leader and Program Manager. He leads the CSG Digital Transformation PMO at Salesforce where he drives complex innovation and transformation programs across the CSG business. He specializes in areas such as transformation strategy, change management and efficient program execution through business benefits driven program management leadership.

31. Laura Fraser

With over 14 years’ experience in project management, strategic initiatives, operations and business management, Laura Fraser is an authentic business leader. She is focused on providing the knowledge and expertise to effectively facilitate innovation, change management and business transformation. She currently works as a business initiatives consultant managing Canada and Latin America risk initiatives and project portfolio.

32. Jim Highsmith

James Highsmith 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.

33. Anne Gabrillagues

Anne Gabrillagues is an Agile coach at Ippon Technologies. 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.

34. Jon Terry

Jon Terry is an IT Executive with success in conceptualizing, developing and implementing information technology solutions through traditional and Lean/Agile project management. Jon gained through education in international business and project management and has wide experience at executive positions in various companies.

35. Bert Heymans

Bert Heymans is as much as 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.

36. Donnie MacNicol

Donnie MacNicol is an expert programme and organisational 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 3^rd Edition as well as a contributor to multiple other books.

37. Deanne Earle

Deanne Earle 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 delivery, among others.

38. Mario H. Trentim

Mario H Trentim has more than 15 years of experience in project, program and portfolio management. She founded Trentim and Associates, a consulting company with clients in Brazil and abroad. She mentored more than 20 start-ups and a member of Angel Investors. She is the author of “Linking Systems Engineering and Project Management” in 2016.

39. Helen Rittersporn

Helen Rittersporn is a Project Manager who blogs daily for the past 3 at AnchoredScraps.com. She is a certified Project Management Professional and has technical experience with systems analysis and data analysis/mapping. She was involved in the WordCamp Wilmington 2018, 2017, 2016 as a presenter and organizer.

40. Lew Sauder

Lew Sauder is a Senior Leader with 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.

41. Dawn Reid

Dawn Reid 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 ScrumMaster (CSM). She’s proven successful in coaching geographically disbursed teams and motivating them to fulfil their highest potential.

42. Oliver F. Lehmann

Oliver F. Lehmann 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 (4^th to 6^th Edition).

43. Glen Alleman

Glen B. Alleman is the VP of Program Planning and Controls at Niwot Ridge LLC. He has over 30 years of experience as a program manager and performance management consultant in the aerospace, defence, and enterprise information technology fields. He is the author of the project management blog, Herding Cats and the book “Performance-Based Project Management: Increasing the Probability of Project Success”.

44. Gerald J. Leonard

Gerald J. Leonard 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 multi-national corporations. He is also the author of “Culture is the Bass: 7 Principles for Developing a Culture that Works”.

45. Tania Melnyczuk

Tania Melnyczuk is experienced in guiding organisational 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, medium-sized companies as well as governments and multi-national organisations.

46. Dan Chuparkoff

Dan Chuparkoff is a hands-on product manager helping the world’s most innovative teams to 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. In his spare time, he is currently writing a book on DisruptiveProducts and #InnovativeTeams and often speaks at conferences on Product Innovation, Data Science, and Software Delivery.

47. Drew Davison

Drew Davison has leveraged his passion for proven best practices, culled from broad industry experience and proven results, to help organizations deliver real strategic, portfolio, program, project and organizational successes. He is the author of “Project Pre-Check” as well as a number of articles for magazines and newsletters including Projects@Work. He is currently writing a monthly bog for Project Times called “From the Sponsor’s Deck”.

48. Bob Galen

Bob Galen 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 Lean and Kanban practices.

49. Rich Larson

Since 1992, Richard Larson has been co-leading Watermark Learning which offers business analysis and project management training and certification preparation that turns the complexity of industry standards into practical application. Richard has worked in the industry for 30+ years as an operational systems analyst, programmer/analyst, business analyst, and project manager. He has co-written 3 books “The Influencing Formula, CBAP Certification Study Guide, and Practitioners’ Guide to Requirements Management.”

50. Elizabeth Larson

Elizabeth Larson is the Co-Principal and CEO of Watermark Learning with over 30 years of experience in project management, business analysis, and influencing skills. 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 and the BABOK® Guide 2.0.

51. George Pitagorsky

George Pitagorsky 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 and as director of product development for an international training organization as well as principal in two technology start-ups.

52. Alfonso Enrique Nunez Nieto

Alfonso Enrique Nunez Nieto is a project director with PMP certification, PRINCE2, green project management GPM-b and lean project management. He is a mechanical engineer who specializes in production and quality management. He’s worked in project management across different sectors and has gained knowledge that he’s now sharing with students as a university instructor.

53. Michael Wood

Michael Wood has made his career in the Business and Technology Consulting (Systems Integration) field, primarily delivering SAP solutions in New Zealand, Australia, USA and Canada. He has done everything from coding, designing and configuring SAP solutions over my [20-year+] career, these days he is a successful Program and Project Manager. He has owned and operated two small businesses: Simply Merino Clothing Co. and the Vancouver franchise, “Velofix”.

54. Jesse Fewell

Jesse Fewell is a writer, coach, and trainer in innovation and agile methods. In addition to speaking for 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).

55. Eileen Roden

With a degree in business studies and applied project management, Eileen Roden 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 API and PMI, as well as a conference speaker.

56. Jeff Sutherland

Jeff Sutherland is the investor and co-creator is 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.

57. Ken Schwaber

Ken Schwaber co-developed the Scrum framework with Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990s to help organizations struggling with complex development projects. One of the signatories to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, he subsequently founded the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. He founded Scrum.org in 2009 in order to execute on his mission of improving the profession of software development. A 30-year veteran of the software development industry (from bottle washer to boss), he has written four books about Scrum: Agile Software Development with Scrum, Agile Project Management with Scrum, The Enterprise and Scrum, and Software in 30 Days. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.

58. Dux Raymond Sy

Dux Raymond Sy is the CMO of AvePoint with over 20 years’ experience in sales, marketing and technology innovation. He is the author of “SharePoint for Project Management”. He is the Project Management Professional (PMP), a Microsoft Regional Director (RD) and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and have authored whitepapers, industry articles and delivered interactive presentations to over 10,000 people in major industry events worldwide.

59. Gayle McDowell

Gayle McDowell is the founder/CEO of CareerCup.com and the author of Cracking the *interview books. Her background is in software development, with a BSE/MSE in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and prior experience as a software engineer at Google, Microsoft, and Apple. In addition to running the CareerCup website/forum and writing books, she consults with start-ups to help them through acquisition interviews.

60. Dustin Maherg

Dustin Maherg has displayed his leadership and emotional intelligence aptitudes by leading and managing teams of 150 to 550 employees on multiple sites to produce winning results.

61. Kurt Schmidt

As President of Foundry, a digital product design agency, Kurt helps to grow and transform companies into digital leaders. He has written articles in nationally recognized publications, spoken at international conferences, and led and developed workshops on Project Management, User Experience, and Product Development. He is currently writing a book on strategic delivery and is the host of The Schmidt List, a weekly podcast created to inform leaders who manage projects, build digital products and coach teams in design and technology.

62. Cliff Gilley

For over 10 years, Cliff Gulley has spent the vast majority of my career working with companies who were focused on solving complex problems through the application of technology to traditionally human-based objectives. Cliff now shares his knowledge and experience on his blog “The Clever PM” to help others become better and more clever product managers.

63. Julia Wester

Julia Wester is the Co-Founder & Principal Consultant at Lagom Solution and also Co-Founder of 5 Monkeys LLC. She is a certified Kanban Coaching Professional and writes a blog about Kanban, Lean, Agile and Management called Everyday Kanban.

64. Harry Hall

Harry Hall served as the Director of Enterprise Risk Management for the Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company for five years. More than 15 years of experience in managing projects and implementing PMOs. He is the author is The Project Risk Coach consultancy, where, as a principal trainer and consultant, he supports project managers from around the world to lead projects in an effective and successful way.

65. Adrian Turner

Adrian Turner has over 15 years’ experience as a Project Manager with many years of experience in manufacturing businesses, currently 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.

66. Nicole Reilly

With over 25 years’ experience across industry sectors and a background in business analysis, Nicole Reilly is an independent PMO. She currently leads Project Portfolio Management functions that facilitate executive decision-making about strategic investments in change. She has professional memberships with CMI, PMI, Agile Business Consortium and a regular attendee at PMO Flashmob.

67. Mustafa Aziz Khalifa

Mustafa Aziz Khalifa is an experienced project manager holding an MBA in project management. He’s responsible for using best practice PMO methodology to create project plans that are suitable for clients and deliver desired outcomes. He’s an expert in strategic planning and project management, a successful leader and team builder.

68. Bernardo Tirado

Bernardo Tirado 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.

69. Guillaume Laforge

At Google, Guillaume Laforge is Developer Advocate for the Google Cloud Platform, where he spread the word about the rich set of products and services offered for developers wishing to take advantage of the cloud. Before joining Google, at Restlet, Guillaume was taking care of the Product Leadership around the APISpark API management platform, the Restlet Studio for crafting Web APIs and the Restlet Framework for authoring restful applications. He initiated the creation of the Grails web application framework and founded the Gaelyk project, a lightweight toolkit for developing applications in Groovy for Google App Engine. He co-authored “Groovy”.

70. Ed Laccohee

Ed Laccohee is the Director at Controlled Projects Ltd, a company that has helped management improves business practices through project assistance and framework improvement.

71. Luis Seabra Coelho

With over 20 years’ experience as a project manager, Luis Seabra Coelho has been responsible for projects across industries with a particular focus on the business benefits provided by the projects’ outputs. He is a certified project management professional, scrum master and a trainer and a worldwide speaker.

72. Neil Walker

With over 20 years’ experience, Neil Walker has led, troubleshooted and delivered business change, technology-enabled and Agile transformation initiatives. He is now a senior project manager and Agile coach at Royal Mail where he developed new ways of working across functional business areas, successfully introducing Agile adoption. He is also a coach, trainer and a passionate leader and mentor.

73. Michael B. Flint

Michael B. Flint project management professional with over 30 years’ experience to draw upon. He is recognized as a project management authority in the industry, having had many opportunities to speak internationally on the topic and has published works on the subject. He is a volunteer leader with the Project Management Institute (PMI) for over 17 years, and volunteer as a Director on the Board and the Treasurer for the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS).

74. Jason Fried

Jason Fried is the co-founder and president of 37signals, a Chicago-based company that builds web-based productivity tools. 37signals has produced project management tools such as Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, Campfire and Writeboard. He is also the co-author of the book “Rework” and “It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy at Work.” Jason has also spoken at TEDxMidwest where he spoke about his popular rework ideas.

75. 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 the author of 7 books including No More Excuses, No Matter What and Non-Negotiable.

76. Steve Gutzler

With over 26 years of experience, Steve Gutzler is a keynote speaker who has a passion for leadership. He is the founder and president of Leadership Quest, a leadership development company where he coaches and trains CEOs, presidents, professional athletes and world-class organizations. He was voted #1 by the readership of Huffington Post as the Most Inspirational Leader on Social Media (he has 145,000 followers!).

77. Thomas Kennedy

Thomas Kennedy is a PMP certified project manager who has worked in several senior management roles. He is the founder of the blog PMcoach.com where posts project management articles, tips and tricks to help others learn, grow and improve as project managers.

78. Barry Moltz

For over 20 years, Barry Moltz has founded and ran small businesses with both success and failure. As a result, Barry is now a small business expert who has discovered the formula to get stuck business owners unstuck and marching forward. He has published 6 books with “Small Business Hacks: 100 Shortcuts to Your Success” being his latest release. Barry is also a recognized speaker, a member of the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame and a radio host.

79. Peter B. Taylor

Peter Taylor 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’.

80. Pawel Brodzinski

Pawel Brodzinski is the CEO of Lunar Logic, a web development company. He is also a speaker, trainer and coach where he covers building teams, change leadership, Kanban and portfolio management. He is a co-organizer of TEDx in Poland and runs a blog called Brodzinki.com where he blogs about Lean, Kanban, Agile and understanding and organizing work on different levels.

81. Kevin Ciccotti

Kevin Ciccotti 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.

82. Andy Jordan

Andy Jordan PMP is the founder and president of Roffensian Consulting where he is focused on strategic and business transformation initiatives, PMOs, 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”.

83. Luis Alberto Caceres Villota

With over 15 years of managing cross-functional projects and international PMOs, Luis Alberto Caceres Villota is a seasoned project manager. He has handled more than $6 million in mergers and acquisitions. He is the author of the book “Murphy on Projects: Causes of Failure in Projects and How to Prevent Them”. Luis’ webinars have reached more than 50,000 attendees and his articles have more than 100,000 readers.

84. Mark Price Perry

Mark Price Perry is a pioneer for the concept of the Business Driven PMP and is now recognized as a thought leader in the project management industry. Mark is the author of the Business Driven PMO book series and the creator and host of the PMO Podcast. He is also a sought after public speaker known as a “boat-rocker” for his alternative approach to PMO setup and management.

85. Jason Westland

With over 20 years’ experience managing large projects including a $1b project for British Rail, Jason Westland is a successful entrepreneur and subject matter expert in project management. He is the founder and CEO of ProjectManager.com as well as the founder of Method123 and MPMM.com. Jason is also the author of the best-selling book “The Project Management Lifecycle” and other publications such as “Building High-Performance Teams” and “Step-by-Step Project Planning”.

86. Robin Kwong

Robin Kwong is the head of digital delivery at the Financial Times where he leads a team of creative producers looking for new ways to tell stories. Robin pushes the boundaries of digital storytelling by combing project management and design thinking. He runs a blog called robinkwong.com where he shares his ideas on how people can organize themselves to create meaningful work at the intersection of journalism and technology.

87. Mike Cohn

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

88. Steve Denning

Steve Denning is the Warren Buffet of business communication. He is the author of four books including “The Agile of Agile” and “The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management”. Steve also writes a column on Forbes.com about agile management, leadership, innovation and narrative. He is the former program director of knowledge management at the World Bank and is currently the director of SD Learning Consortium.

89. Esther Derby

Esther Derby is the founder of 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”.

90. Adriana Girdler

Adriana Girdler is the president and chief efficiency officer at Cornerstone Dynamics, a business productivity consulting firm. She is a productivity specialist, entrepreneur, professional speaker, facilitator, visioning wizard and author. She is the author of several publications 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.

91. John Goodpasture

John Goodpasture is a certified PMP Project Manager. He is the Managing Principal at Square Peg Consulting. He is an expert practitioner, coach, author and consulting manager for technology projects. He is the author of several books such as “Maximizing Project Value: A Project Manager’s Guide” and “Quantitative Methods in Project Management”. John also runs his own blog, johngoodpasture.com where he shares his insights on project management.

92. Moira Alexander

Moira Alexander has over 25 years of experience in business (IS&T) and project management for small businesses in the US and Canada. She is the founder and Editor and 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 publications including “LEAD or LAG: Linking Strategic Project Management & Thought Leadership.

93. Ken Norton

Ken is a senior operating partner at GV (formerly Google Ventures) where he provides product and engineering support to more than 300 portfolio companies including Uber, Nest, Slack, Foundation Medicine, and Flatiron Health. Prior to joining GV, Ken was a group product manager at Google. In his years as a PM at Google, Ken led product initiatives for Docs, Calendar, and Google Mobile Maps. He also runs his own blog at kennorton.com.

94. Scott Sehlhorst

Scott Sehlhorst is a product management and strategy consultant with over 25 years’ experience in the industry. He works with clients to create products and define strategies to align business requirements. He writes about different aspects of strategic product management and agility on his blog: https://tynerblain.com/blog/.

95. Stever Robbins

Stever Robbins is a serial entrepreneur, top-10 iTunes podcaster, and productivity expert. He co-founded the early internet success story FTP Software, served as COO of Building Blocks Interactive, CEO of JobTacToe.com, and has been an initial team member of ten start-ups, including four IPOs and three acquisitions. He currently runs Get-it-Done Groups™, which has been downloaded more than 36 million times and #1 in the iTunes business category.

96. Roman Pichler

Roman Pichler is a product management expert who specialises 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”. He writes a popular blog at romanpichler.com/blog for product people.

97. Luis Goncalves

Luis Gonçalves 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. He also runs his own blog at luis-goncalves.com.

98. Jonathan Rasmusson

Jonathan Rasmusson is an experienced programmer who is fascinated with software and the human side of its delivery. He is the author of two books, “The Agile Samurai” and “The Way of the Web Tester”. When not cycling to work in the throes of winter you can find him developing software and coaching teams at Spotify. He also runs his own blog agilewarrior.wordpress.com.

99. 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 and 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”. You can check out his writings at jpattonassociates.com.

100. John Hunter

John Hunter has over 15 years of experience in two primary focuses: management improvement and information technology program management. He is the author of “Managing Matters and runs his own blog “Curious Cat”. When not cycling to work in the throes of winter you can find him developing software and coaching teams at Spotify.

101. Dick Billows

Dick Billows 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 PM’s how to handle different situations with sponsors, clients, team members and stakeholders.

102. Dmitriy Nizhebetskiy

Dmitriy Nizhebetskiy is a software development project manager. He is a certified scrum master 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”. He runs his own blog and training at pmbasics101.com.

103. Marcus Hammarberg

For 15 years Marcus Hammarberg has been doing agile and lean software development and helping others do it. Marcus is a keynote speaker and co-author of Kanban In Action, which has been translated into 5 languages across the globe. He has blogged since 2006 at www.marcusoft.net and spend his spare time playing euphonium in the Salvation Army band at Vasakåren, Stockholm.

104. James Shore

James Shore is the agile guy. He is a consultant, practitioner, coauthor of The Art of Agile Development, host of Let’s Code: Test-Driven JavaScript, co-creator of Agile Fluency™ Model. James Shore 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 (O’Reilly, 2007). He co-created the Agile Fluency™ Model with Diana Larsen and has been named one of the “most influential people in Agile” by InfoQ.

105. Gina Abudi

Gina Abudi, MBA 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, J Ross Publishing, 2015 and author of Implementing Positive Organizational Change: A Strategic Project Management Approach, J Ross Publishing, 2017.

106. Gojko Adzic

Gojko Adzic 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.

107. Michael Bolton

Michael Bolton 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. He writes extensively on this topic on his blog developsense.com.

108. Ben Linders

Ben Linders 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.

109. Gunther Verheyen

Gunther Verheyen is a Scrum practitioner with over 17 years’ experience. After a standing career as a consultant, he became a partner to Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum, and Director of the Professional Scrum series at Scrum.org (2013-2016). Gunther nowadays engages with people and organizations as an independent Scrum Caretaker. He is the author of “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” and a blogger on his website guntherverheyen.com.

110. Kane Mar

Kane Mar is the co-founder and principal consultant 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 organisations in the use of Scrum to deliver high-quality products, predictably and repeatedly.

111. Leigh Espy

Leigh Espy is a Project Advisor at FedEx Services where she is responsible for delivering global, large scale solutions. She is the author of “Bad Meetings Happen to Good People: How to Run Meetings that are Effective, Focused and Produce Results”. She is a Project Management Professional, Certified Scrum Master and a SAFe Program Consultant. She runs her own blog at Projectbliss.net.

120. Jeremy Jarrell

Jeremy Jarrell is an agile coach and author who helps teams get better at doing what they love. He is heavily involved in the technology community, both as a highly rated speaker throughout the United States and as a syndicated author whose articles and videos have appeared on sites such as InfoQ.com, StickyMinds.com, Pluralsight.com, FrontRowAgile.com, Simple-Talk.com, and ScrumAlliance.org.

121. Lisa Crispin

Lisa Crispin is 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. She runs her own blog and training at lisacrispon.com.

122. Zuzi Sochova

Zuzi Sochova is a Certified Scrum Trainer, Certified Scrum Professional and Certified LeSS Practitioner. She is the author of “The Great ScrumMaster: #ScrumMaterWay”. 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). She runs her own blog, training and coaching at agile-scrum.com.

123. Jeff Lash

Jeff Lash is the VP and Group Director for the Go-to-Market Group and Service Director at SiriusDecisions. He previously ran the blog “Ask a Good Product Manager which offered real answers to your real product management questions. He now runs the“How to Be a Good Product Manager” blog provides resources and tips on good product management practices.

124. Corinna Baldauf

Corinna is an ex-developer, ex UX designer, ex Scrum master, ex product owner and ex agile coach from Germany. She works at Sipgate. She spends most of her time thinking and writing about agile, lean and related stuff. Sometimes she talks about it at conferences. She’s best known as the creator of Retromat and would like to also be known for Wall-Skills and 24 Work Hacks.

125. Henny Portman

Henny Portman is a partner of HWP Consulting where he offers practical assistance in the professionalization of project-programme and portfolio management. He is an author, reviewer (www.managementboek.nl), 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. He runs his own blog at hennyportman.wordpress.com.

126. Barry Hodge

Barry Hodge is an IT project manager with over 15 years’ experience in delivering projects in different industries including Retail, Distribution, Pharmaceuticals, Housing, Telecommunications and Defence. 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. He runs his own blog at projectnewstoday.com.

127. Steve Tendon

Steve Tendon is a senior executive management consultant, adviser, speaker and author. Steve’s research and consulting focuses on the use of emerging technologies improve business performance. In 2018 he was acclaimed in the “Lattice80 Blockchain 100” list of global Blockchain influencers. He founded the “My Blockchain Island Club” (https://my.blockchainisland.club), an online community dedicated to Blockchain business.

128. James Grenning

James Grenning, 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.

129. Elizabeth Harrin

Elizabeth Harrin is Director of Otobos Consultants Ltd, a project communications consultancy specialising in copywriting for project management firms. She has over fifteen years’ experience in projects. 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 Girl’s Guide to Project Management.

130. Alexa Alfonso

Alexa Alfonso is a former digital project manager at Crema, a product development agency based out of Kansas City that builds web and mobile apps for industry leaders. She now leads their growth team – helping to manage and organize marketing and sales efforts. When she’s not working remotely in Phoenix, she can be found at the gym working on getting stronger, in the kitchen whipping up something delicious, or drumming up plans for upcoming travel.

Who’s Missing From The List?

Know someone who’s influencing the project management field, but isn’t on this list? We’d love to add them to the list—drop their name into the comment section below.

Our friend and supporter

The PM tool for teams in 2021. Definitely customizable, surprisingly intuitive.

Try for free

14 Comments

Scott D Freauf says:

29/06/2019 at 10:27 am

William (Bill) Duncan — the “father” of the PMBOK Guide — should be included near the top of any list of key influencers and thought leaders in project management.

Andy Kaufman says:

29/06/2019 at 6:31 pm

That’s a great list! I have personally benefited from many of those on the list. Well done!

Samba Gueye says:

30/06/2019 at 9:18 am

Claude Emond, Owner of Quali-Scope INC.

DEBORAH ZAVISTANAVICIUS ZAPATA says:

30/06/2019 at 10:59 am

I’d like to nominate André Vidal, author of two great books AgileThink Canvas and Gestao Agil de Produtos, both printed in Brazil with a high audience and helping companies to follow theis way to Lean, most of all building an ecosystem of learning and practicing methods to the community.

Douglas says:

30/06/2019 at 2:27 pm

Pay special attention to number 52: Alfonso López. Is amazing the way he teachs about PM. Great teacher, great person.

Jedi PMP says:

30/06/2019 at 6:10 pm

Americo Pinto, Ricardo Vargas, Valdery Moura Junior, Margareth Carneiro

Jennifer Graham says:

02/07/2019 at 9:52 am

Jennifer Graham, HBA, MBA, MCPM, PMP, PRINCE2, ISO 27002, ITIL Expert and OCM Guru

ALFONSO E. NÚÑEZ N. says:

02/07/2019 at 3:53 pm

Congrats for your article! Thanks for including me on the list. If you need something, please let me know!

Alfonso Núñez – (#52 on your list.)

Eric Uyttewaal says:

04/07/2019 at 7:55 am

Ben, I am not sure what criteria you are using for accumulating this list, but I think there should be many more people I know on this list.

Chantal says:

05/07/2019 at 9:51 am

What about Peter Storm in the Netherlands?

moperto says:

05/07/2019 at 10:42 pm

Thank you for this fantastic list of people to follow in the Agile and PM world. I modestly blog in French Language at DantotsuPM.com.

Gerald Leonard says:

10/07/2019 at 5:53 am

Thanks for including me on the list. #44

Stephanie Jaeger says:

10/07/2019 at 10:37 am

I would add Thomas Walenta and Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez. I know both have not just influenced me, but many others as well

Daniel Echeverria says:

30/07/2019 at 5:37 am

Thanks for the list. I am happy and honoured to share this list. I will take it into account to followed and learned from other colleagues. If possible… the link to my web site (when you click on my name it goes to could be changeg to: https://www.danielecheverria.com/ ? Now it goes to https://www.danielecheverria.com/pmpv3/ which only shows a very small part of my web contents..