2026 KEYNOTES
Start the day Future Ready. Leave ready to build the Future of Work.
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OPENING KEYNOTE
Future Ready: Learning That Impacts
Before learning can happen, connection must be in place.
In this dynamic 45-minute keynote, you'll embark on an accelerated learning journey designed to shift how you think about readiness in a rapidly changing world. Through a series of carefully crafted experiential activities, you'll challenge your assumptions, surface fresh insights, and discover what it truly means to design learning that creates lasting impact for individuals and for the teams they serve.
As L&D professionals, you don't just build programs. You build people. This session is designed with that responsibility in mind.
What You'll Walk Away With
Clarity about what "future ready" actually means for your learners and your organization
A toolkit of insights and practices you can immediately apply to your learning design
A renewed sense of possibility — and the confidence to act on it
The understanding that high-impact learning isn't about delivering more content. It's about shifting perspective to shift behavior, building connection, and putting the right people around the right questions
The future of learning isn't something that happens to your organization. It's something you build together.
About Richard Kuepper
Founder and President, L.E.A.D. U.S.A., L.L.C.
Richard Kuepper is the Founder and President of L.E.A.D. U.S.A., L.L.C., a Connecticut-based corporate learning and development company. He has spent 28 years delivering dynamic programs to organizations in North America, Asia, and Europe.
Rich's ability to design high-impact, customized programs has made him a highly sought-after consultant, speaker, and coach in leadership and team development, optimal performance, growth mindset, and well-being.
Rich produces immediate results through his unique combination of dynamic presentation skills, expertise, contagious energy, and an interactive approach.
Some of L.E.A.D.'s clients include Citibank, PayPal, M&T Bank, LinkedIn, DHL, eBay, Pfizer, Merck, Bigelow Tea, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gartner, Fidelity Investments, STIHL, Citizens Bank, Yale University, Yale New Haven Hospital, G.E., Agilent Technologies, BIC Corporation, DocuWare, Verisign, Liquidnet, AT&T, Regeneron, Seipe, and United Way of Silicon Valley.
Before founding L.E.A.D., Rich worked globally as a Master Trainer and Coach for Anthony Robbins in personal learning and development forums and has an extensive engineering and sales background with Philips, Pitney Bowes, and IBM.
Committed to professional development and volunteer leadership, Rich is an active member of ATD Southern Connecticut, ATD National, SHRM Southern Connecticut, the National Speakers Association, Bay Area Executive Development Network, and the Connecticut Experiential Education Association's Challenge Course Professionals.
CLOSING KEYNOTE
Building the Future of Work: The Human Performance Imperative in the Age of Human-Technology Collaboration
Every generation faces a moment when the nature of work transforms so fundamentally that the old playbook stops working. We are living in ours.
Artificial intelligence, automation, and human-technology workflows are rewriting the rules of performance — and our curricula haven't caught up. The future of work is arriving faster than most organizations can adapt, and the gap between what their people can do and what the new economy demands is widening every day.
The question is: Who closes that gap?
Amol Mandalaywala has spent his career at the intersection of history, human performance, and organizational change. In this closing keynote, the EY-Parthenon Deals L&D Leader makes a compelling argument: L&D professionals are not support functions or order-takers. They are architects of the future of work — and this moment demands that they start acting like it.
Drawing on lessons from the Industrial Revolution, frontline experience building capability for one of the most demanding workforces in professional services, and a rigorous human performance improvement framework, Amol will challenge you to evaluate your practice, redesign your approach, and lead transformation from the inside.
You will leave with a clear framework for the four shifts that define the modern L&D leader — and a renewed sense of purpose for the work ahead.
About Amol Mandalaywala
Human Performance Strategist and Workforce Transformation Leader, EY-Parthenon
Amol Mandalaywala builds the human capability that powers EY-Parthenon's execution engine: a workforce that transforms companies through mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures.
He operates at the frontier of the future of work, where human judgment and technological capability must perform together to deliver client outcomes.
As a human performance strategist and workforce transformation leader, Amol's work begins where most L&D functions stop: not with what people need to learn, but with what they need to become.
At the core of his philosophy is the belief that learning must focus on both process and purpose. It must be anchored in how work actually gets done and connected to why it matters. Learning disconnected from process produces knowledge that never transfers. Learning disconnected from purpose produces compliance without commitment.
A professionally trained cultural historian, Amol holds ATD certifications in Change Management and Human Performance Improvement, as well as a Wharton certificate in HR Management and People Analytics. He brings a rare combination of historical perspective, analytical rigor, and frontline organizational experience to one of the most pressing challenges in business today: building people who are ready for the world that is becoming, not the world that was.
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