Organizational change, equity, and leadership expert

Vivian Elliott is a senior consultant with Learning Forward and with Elliott Service Systems Inc. She provides professional development and leadership coaching to teachers, school administrators, and managers in organizations throughout the United States. Dr. Elliott earned her doctorate at the University of Colorado Boulder, studying organizational change, equity, and leadership.

For more than thirty years, she has conducted educational research, designed and facilitated workshops, and published educational writings to promote cultural responsiveness and bias elimination. Her recent publication, The Principal Story Field Guide, commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and Learning Forward, is widely used in conjunction with the documentary, The Principal Story.

Vivian Elliott is known in school districts, universities, and nonprofit organizations for skillful facilitation, excellent team leadership, and quality project management. Dr. Elliott co-created the Colorado Coalition for Equity in Education and served in leadership roles for the National Coalition for Equity in Education and the Colorado Partnership for Educational Renewal.

Keynote speaker on authentic leadership

Mark Wilding is the executive director and a core faculty member of PassageWorks Institute. He is coauthor of The Five Dimensions of Engaged Teaching, a book for K–12 educators. In addition to his duties as a director, Mark teaches courses and workshops, facilitates conferences and dialogues, and presents keynotes and lectures. He works closely with PassageWorks faculty to develop and deliver programs that support educators to develop the intrapersonal and interpersonal capacities necessary to: sustain an authentic teaching practice; engage students; support social, emotional, and academic learning outcomes; and collaborate effectively with colleagues.

Mark is the former director of Naropa University’s center for business and economics, and he helped launch a graduate degree program at Naropa in 1995. Mark continues to teach graduate courses in authentic leadership and systems thinking at Naropa. He has held leadership roles in government, business, nonprofit, and academic organizations. In 1985, he helped found a public computer software company, and served on the board and in several roles until he left as president in 1993.