Expanded 3-Day Schedule

This year our core program of research presentations, workshops, discussions, panels and plenaries will span a full 3 days, 9am Wed-3pm Fri.

PLUS: Join us Tuesday night for a social Meet & Greet at the hotel and Wednesday night for the Followership Farmer's Market and Community Dinner, included with registration.

Plenary Guest Panels

Furthering our commitment to connect research and practice, we are coordinating two plenary guest panels for the 2025 conference. 

The first brings together ground-breaking followership scholars: Melissa Carsten, Kevin Lowe, and Mary Uhl-Bien, hosted by Conference Co-chair Ron Riggio.

The second highlights innovative followership trainers: Wendy M. Edmonds, Samantha Hurwitz, and Ruth Sims, hosted by Conference Co-chair Sharna Fabiano.

Ira Chaleff
UNITED STATES

Recently the keynote speaker for the British Army’s annual leadership conference, Ira is renowned for his landmark book, The Courageous Follower.

Ira will guide a discussion on the practice of engaged political followership, as well as offer a 3-hour Deep Dive train-the-trainer session on his Courageous Followership curriculum.

Dr. Marc Hurwitz & Samantha Hurwitz
CANADA

Exemplifying a Generative Partnership (they co-created The Generative Partnership Model!), Marc and Sam are known for their engaging, “pracademic” sessions.

Having taught followership with leadership for nearly two decades, Marc and Samantha will share insights from the latest research along with many practical takeaways for both personal and organizational effectiveness.

Robert Kelley
UNITED STATES

Dr. Kelley pioneered the concept of "Followership" in his best-selling book The Power of Followership and his Harvard Business Review article "In Praise of Followers.”

At this year’s conference, he links his past work with his thinking on the current era: the trends, the issues, and the responsibilities of those acting as followers every day and of those working in the followership field itself.

Dr. Maike Kugler
GERMANY

A passionate people and team developer in both higher education and applied contexts, Maike incorporates followership in her research and work as a lecturer and business coach.

Maike will foster thoughts around the informal role of followership, highlighting the outcomes of follower behavior for individuals and organizations, as well as its significance.

Eric McDermott
UNITED STATES

By day, Eric is an equity partner at a financial services firm with more than 60,000 clients. But behind the suit, he has amassed more than half-a-million social media followers educating on team coordination and career success. With his unique brand of visual story-telling, Eric transforms complex ideas into easy-to-understand frameworks – including leadership and followership. 

Eric was named "Best Business Influencer of the Year" winning two “Stevies” (Oscars of the business world) for his social media channels. He is also a best-selling author (USA Today and Amazon), speaker, and has numerous published Forbes articles.

Liz Monroe-Cook
UNITED STATES

Consulting psychologist, graduate of Polarity Thinking™ Mastery Program; Past Chair, Creative Education Foundation Board; facilitation and training mastery; author of articles and book chapter about Polarity Thinking applications.

This approach avoids the narrow view of the world caused by false-choice, either-or thinking, and instead gives individuals, teams, and organizations the mindset and toolset for utilization of multiple viewpoints, including those of both leadership and followership.’

Dr. Thomas Sy
UNITED STATES

Tom is an award-winning scholar and professor at UC Riverside, specializing in leadership and teams. His research appears in top journals like Journal of Applied Psychology and Leadership Quarterly, and he has consulted for organizations like Google, General Motors, and the U.S. Army. 

Tom will share findings from a series of studies exploring the impact of leaders' positive conceptions of followers as well as a novel, gamified mobile intervention. This research not only deepens our theoretical understanding of followership development but also introduces scalable, evidence-based strategies to improve organizational effectiveness. 

Tim Hurson
CANADA

In third grade, Tim spread pasted sheets of paper, sticky-side up, on his classroom floor. He was thrilled with the results. Not much has changed, though he now focuses on more productive activities as an innovation consultant and facilitator for businesses and social purpose start-ups. Tim has taught productive thinking, Polarity Thinking™ and creative problem solving on six continents and keynoted in 30+ countries. His book, Think Better, is published in 12 languages.

He is a past Trustee of the Creative Education Foundation, where he was honored with its Distinguished Leader Award in 2015. He co-founder Mindcamp Canada and Mindcamp Chile and continues to serve as a director for several start-ups and incubators.