ATD Greater Philadelphia and the Villanova College of Professional Studies are pleased to announce our first ever Learning Conference to be held on September 15th, 2026 (this will be an all-day event) at the Inn at Villanova University.
LIBERATE YOUR LEARNING
Two hundred fifty years ago, Philadelphia became the birthplace of a revolution that changed the world.
Visionaries challenged convention, questioned the status quo, and embraced bold new ideas that shaped the future.
Today, we face a different kind of revolution. The way we learn, lead, innovate, and work is evolving faster than ever before.
The question is not whether change is coming.
The question is whether you'll lead it.
Join us as we Liberate Your Learning and discover the ideas, strategies, and breakthroughs shaping the workplace of tomorrow.
Explore the speakers. Discover the sessions. Lead the revolution.
Join us for an all-day conference, September 15th, 2026, at the Inn at Villanova University. The following speakers have committed with more to come!
From Vanity Metrics to Performance Intelligence: The New Kirkpatrick Model
Vanessa Milara Alzate
Talent development teams are under pressure to deliver insight that drives performance, not just report on participation. This session reframes evaluation as a leadership capability, walking through the 2026 Kirkpatrick Model updates and how to apply them in real-world performance systems. Participants will leave with the mindset and tools to shift from proving training to improving business outcomes.
Why Attend?
You’ll learn how to apply the new Kirkpatrick Model as a strategic framework for organizational performance, not just training evaluation. You will also learn how to identify common misuses of the model and strengthen executive partnerships by demonstrating value in ways that resonate with business leaders.
About The Speaker
Vanessa Milara Alzate is the Owner and CEO of Kirkpatrick Partners and Founder of Anchored Training. With more than fifteen years of experience, she has guided organizations across industries including life sciences, federal government, and the Department of Defense, and she is the author of Building a Culture of Evaluation and the steward of the globally recognized Kirkpatrick Model.
Identify and Overcome Your Bottleneck Behavior Type
Emily Morgan
Every leader has a Bottleneck Behavior Type that can stunt growth, weaken a culture of delegation, and keep them from making their most impactful contribution. In this session, you will identify your bottleneck type and discover how defensive habits that may have once been protective can hinder business growth and leadership potential. You will also learn how to recognize limiting behaviors and apply practical strategies that support personal growth and organizational success.
Why Attend?
You will gain insight into how your leadership style may be creating bottlenecks and to recognize behaviors that can stunt organizational progress. You will gain frameworks you can apply immediately to strengthen collaboration, delegation, and leadership effectiveness.
About the Speaker
Emily Morgan is a delegation and productivity expert, Founder and CEO of Delegate Solutions, a fractional executive assistant firm, and Verve, a leadership training company that provides workshops, coaching, and certification on delegation. She is a UPenn alum and author of Let It Go!, published by ATD, and has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, The New York Times, and Inc.
Scaling Through AI Starts With Leadership
Alec McChesney
AI can do the work of many, but only a leadership team and leaders can build the team that earns the return. This session walks through five themes that separate leaders who scale from those who stall.
Why Attend?
In this session, we will explore how AI fluency, team design, leadership readiness, the B2 Formula, and coaching forward can help leaders prepare teams to scale through AI.
About the Speaker
As Vice President of Revenue at Velocity Advisory Group, Alec McChesney works with organizations that want to develop stronger leaders, align their culture, and create real momentum for their teams. Velocity is an experienced advisory firm focused on helping leaders and organizations activate greatness through leadership development, executive coaching, cultural alignment, strategic planning, and data-driven insights.
Designing Learning That Sticks: Evidence-based Strategies for Retention and Transfer
Brian Gall
Many learning experiences are designed to deliver information efficiently, yet far fewer are designed to help learners retain and apply what they have learned over time. This session explores evidence-based strategies that strengthen long-term retention and transfer in workplace learning, including retrieval practice, spaced learning, worked examples, interleaving, and authentic application activities. The session also addresses common design pitfalls, including cognitive overload, passive content delivery, and assessments that measure recall but not performance.
Why Attend?
You will learn how to shift from content transmission to learning experiences that support durable understanding and on-the-job performance. You will leave with actionable ideas for redesigning existing programs and building new learning experiences that are more effective, efficient, and aligned with real-world performance goals.
About the Speaker
Brian Gall received his Master of Science in Education with a specialization in Instructional Systems from Penn State University and his Bachelor of Science in Business Education from Shippensburg University. His professional experience includes roles as a high school teacher, director of technology, IT program director, corporate and higher education instructional designer, director of online programs, and Director of Learning Experience Design at Villanova University.
From Executive Vision to Team Execution: Leadership Patterns That Scale Performance
Dan Gallagher
Organizations struggle when executive vision fails to translate into execution across teams. This session explores how leaders build scalable systems that activate middle managers and accelerate business performance through healthier leadership patterns.
Why Attend?
In this session, you’ll gain the ability to pinpoint the leadership patterns that accelerate or slow execution through meetings, communication, and decision-making rhythms. You will learn how to shift from an escalation culture to a proposal-driven culture and apply a practical framework for distributing leadership closer to execution.
About the Speaker
Dan Gallagher is the author of The Self-Aware Leader, published by ATD Press. He advises leaders and teams on how to activate stronger cross-functional performance through self-awareness, operating rhythm, and leadership reinvention, with a focus on helping executive teams and middle managers create scalable patterns that accelerate profitable growth.
Shine a Light How to Listen So Others Feel Heard
Christine Miles
Listening is a strategic leadership lever: people from individual contributors to the C-suite can benefit from closing the listening gap, the space between what’s said and what’s understood, helping people feel heard, trusted, and aligned. In this session, you’ll gain a concrete framework and tools you can use immediately in high-stakes meetings, one-on-ones, and decision-making moments. Through an interactive, story-driven approach, participants will see how small shifts in how they ask, respond, and check understanding can improve trust, clarity, and execution.
Why Attend?
Even skilled listeners can fail to understand others accurately and to recognize the cognitive and emotional obstacles that affect listening. You will learn two practical listening tools that can reduce misunderstandings and improve connection in everyday conversations.
About the Speaker
Christine Miles is a global pioneer in listening intelligence, host of the Shine a Light podcast, TEDx and keynote speaker, award-winning author, and founder of The Listening Path®. Her work is used by Fortune 100 companies and in classrooms across three countries, and she helps leaders, educators, students, and changemakers turn listening into a strategic advantage.
Designing Successful Change
Cassie Solomon
Between 50-75% of change initiatives fail. This session shows how to be an architect of successful change in your organization or in your life. The talk is based on the Wharton book Leading Successful Change, co-authored by Cassie Solomon.
Why Attend?
You will learn how to engage stakeholders in designing change and understand the behaviors that will make up your vision for the future. You will leave with a personal roadmap for a change you want to design.
About the Speaker
Cassie A. Solomon is an organizational development consultant and executive coach, and the founder and president of The New Group Consulting, a firm dedicated to helping leaders design and implement successful change. She is trained as a futurist, holds an MBA in Operations from the Wharton School of Business and a degree in Organizational Behavior from Yale University, and teaches at the Wharton School's Aresty Institute for Executive Education.
Safe Enough to Stay Quiet
Jessica Toledo, MHRM, SHRM-CP
Most leaders think no news is good news. This session shows HR and leadership why silence is usually a signal and how to respond to it without making it worse.
Why Attend?
You will learn how to recognize workplace signals that indicate draining psychological safety on a team and apply the Signal Scan diagnostic tool to assess a team, manager, or individual. You will learn how to reframe disengagement as a response to the environment and use trauma-informed language techniques to open higher-quality leadership conversations.
About the Speaker
Jessica Toledo is the Founder and CEO of ALMA HRM™ and a fractional HR strategist with over a decade of leadership experience across corporate, union, education, and startup environments. She holds a Master's in Human Resource Management and SHRM-CP certification, and her proprietary A.L.M.A.™ Framework helps organizations reduce turnover, strengthen leadership, and build healthier cultures.
Liberating Learning Through Reverse Mentoring
Dr. Sanghamitra (Sonai) Chaudhuri, Associate Professor, Temple University
Dr. Armando X. Estrada, Professor, Temple University
Jawaria Ashraf, Doctoral Candidate, Temple University
What if your next great teacher is the newest hire in the room? Reverse mentoring challenges traditional hierarchies by positioning junior employees as mentors to senior leaders, unlocking hidden expertise and fresh perspectives.
Why Attend?
This interactive session explores how reverse mentoring drives inclusion, innovation, and leadership growth while strengthening organizational learning cultures.
Participants will leave with a practical framework and a ready-to-launch 90-day pilot to implement in their own organizations.
About the Speakers
Dr. Sanghamitra (Sonai) Chaudhuri is an Associate Professor of Training and Organizational Development at Temple University's College of Education and Human Development and earned her PhD in Human Resource Development from the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on reverse mentoring, intergenerational workforces, work-life balance, and the leadership of immigrant and Asian women in academia. With over 15 years of training and consulting experience, she serves as an Associate Editor of Human Resource Development Quarterly, is a board member of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and is a global speaker and consultant whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Forbes, Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Armando X. Estrada is a Professor of Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies at Temple University's College of Education and Human Development. His research focuses on factors influencing cohesion, resilience, readiness and effectiveness, as well as on factors influencing prejudice, harassment, and discrimination in academic and work organizations in the United States, Sweden, and Mexico. He served as President of the Society for Military Psychology in 2011 and as Editor-in-Chief of Military Psychology 2005-2020.
Jawaria Ashraf Abbasi is a PhD student in Policy, Organizational & Leadership Studies. She specializes in women’s workplace experiences, human resource development, and mentoring. She has presented her research at AERA and AHRD international conferences and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education. Her work examines gender, mentoring, and equity in professional settings.
What Does Your Presence Make Possible?
Jennifer Eason, Learning Architect, Judge Learning Solutions
Jill Pearson, MA, CPTD, Director of Custom Solutions, Judge Learning Solutions
Leadership presence is often described as the ability to command a room. The most effective leaders do something more powerful: they create space for others to grow, contribute, learn, and succeed.
Why Attend?
You will learn how your leadership presence influences the confidence, engagement, and performance of others. You will gain practical strategies to strengthen your gravitas, voice, and personal brand while creating more inclusive and collaborative environments where people feel empowered to share ideas, contribute, and take action.
In this highly interactive session, you will explore how their presence influences the confidence, engagement, and performance of those around them. Through self-reflection, discussion, and practical activities, you will discover how to build trust, communicate with intention, and lead with greater emotional intelligence and authenticity. Drawing on principles that support personal, professional, and organizational effectiveness, this session explores how a leader’s unique “It Factor” shapes the experience others have when they interact with them and how elevating leadership presence can unlock the potential of individuals and teams.
About the Speakers
Jennifer Eason is a Learning Architect with Judge Learning Solutions who has spent more than 25 years helping people learn, grow, and perform at their best. She believes that effective leadership is rooted in authentic human connection and enjoys designing experiences that help leaders strengthen communication, build credibility, and increase their influence. Jennifer's work focuses on making learning practical, relevant, and immediately applicable to everyday workplace challenges.
Jill Pearson, MA, CPTD, is the Director of Custom Solutions for Judge Learning Solutions. Her career began in the classroom and then transitioned into adult workplace learning over 20 years ago. Jill’s L&D focus is supporting her team to make innovative learning, leadership, and performance improvement experiences that truly change behaviors.
Everboarding: The Talent Strategy that is No Longer a Nice-to-Have
Amber Watts
What if the most powerful retention, performance, and culture strategy your organization could implement isn’t another platform, program, or one-time training event, but a fundamental shift in how you develop people after day one?
Why attend?
This session challenges L&D and HR professionals to move beyond onboarding as a time-bound event and embrace everboarding: a continuous, three-phase talent development strategy that supports employees across the full arc of their workplace journey. Drawing from her ATD Press book, From Onboarding to Everboarding, real-world case studies, and more than a decade of talent development leadership, Amber introduces attendees to the three legs of the everboarding relay: Training-Led Onboarding, Manager-Led Development, and Employee-Led Refinement. Through practical frameworks, interactive reflection, and a memorable Live Human Relay, attendees will see where traditional employee development breaks down and how to build strategies that actually stick. Participants will leave with a clear framework, a Monday-morning action, and the conviction that everboarding is not the flavor of the month. It is the future of talent strategy.
About the Speaker
Amber Watts is the founder of Radical GrowthWorks, and a Global Performance Consultant at LinkedIn. A former Chief Revenue Officer, she brings 15+ years of experience in talent development, sales enablement, and leadership growth. She created the Everboarding framework, which extends employee development well beyond onboarding. Amber has served as President of ATD Nebraska, advises ATD chapters nationwide, and speaks regularly at industry events.
ATD Greater Philadelphia Chapter programs are pre-approved by the ATD Certification Institute for continuing education credits. These credits are based on the ATD Capability Model and may be applied towards initial eligibility and recertification for Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD) and Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD) credentials.
ATD Certification Credits for this program: 6
