CHRIS W. MILLER
With nearly 20 years in management and leadership roles, Chris’s journey from unemployed and broke at 25 to vice president of operations at 40 has been filled with a combination of planning, luck, and hard work. In his professional life, he focuses on culture, people, strategy, and execution while driving transformations, service innovations, highly engaged teams, and business results. In his personal life, he is a consummate reader, an author, consults for a start-up, and provides numerous people with professional and personal coaching. His love of sharing knowledge drove him to become a contributing author to the global Customer Experience Book of Knowledge V1, focusing on culture and employee engagement best practices.
After leading diverse teams across different industries, he found the same complaints from people feeling unsupported and with no development or guidance to advance. That was when he decided to package his more than 40,000 hours of experience from management to executive leadership and subject matter expertise from his 12 professional certifications to start focusing on filling that gap and providing the support so many people are missing. Chris has had the privilege of coaching an incredible and diverse group of men and women, from university students to other executive leaders and many have moved on into elevated roles or entirely new industries.
He recently founded The Leadership Movement organization and co-hosts The Leadership Gambit podcast. His mission is to help coach and guide others to be inspiring and caring leaders, empowering and trusted managers, and engaged and fulfilled team members the world will need to tackle our biggest challenges together.
DANE SMITH
Dane Smith is a versatile learning and department expert who uniquely blends his background in the arts with the leading in the business world. His formative years, shaped by a nomadic childhood due to his father’s career with IBM, instilled in him a passion for performance. This led him to study musical theater at the Boston Conservatory of Music and further acting studies in New York City. His career in theater, marked by diverse roles from working in popular restaurants and clubs in New York, equipped him with a wealth of life experiences to draw on.
Dane’s unexpected transition into the business world began with a chance encounter, and the next thing he knew, he was working for a venture capital-backed start-up, bringing new services to other countries. His resilience was severely tested on Sept 11th, 2001, when Dane found himself at ground zero for the World Trade Center attacks, living only a few blocks away. Dane's resilience was tested further when he found out he had cancer as a result of being at ground zero. As a 2-time cancer survivor, Dane brings positive energy and optimism to everything he does now.
Dane brings that energy to everything he does now, which includes joining an international software company. After trying multiple roles, he landed in learning and development (L&D) and found the perfect vehicle for combining his background in performance arts with business. Over the last few years, Dane has moved into team leadership and management and now leads a global team of L&D experts, providing services to thousands of customers.
In his personal time, Dane’s passion is bonsai, and he has been active in the national bonsai community for the past 11 years, where he’s won multiple awards, including Best in Show and Peoples Choice awards, and his trees have sold for thousands of dollars.