Latest Round of Lean Startup Speakers Announced

Lean Startup Conference speakers are experts at telling stories. They condense years’ worth of experience into powerful talks that leave audiences with useful, applicable tips for bringing products to market faster.

This doesn’t happen on accident. It’s the byproduct of a 9-month vetting, planning, and training process: Every Lean Startup speaker goes through multiple rounds of interviews, training sessions, feedback rounds with peers, and two or more practice rounds of their final talks. This entire process is to create the best experience and learning environment for you, our attendee.

We’ve just onboarded our next batch of speakers for the 2015 Conference and want you to get to know them. We’re including their Twitter handles so you can let them know what you’d like to hear from them (they’re all ears!) or to tweet them with a high-five. Here they are, in no particular order:

1 – Harper Reed

CTO at Obama for President and Threadless

Harper Reed’s blog states that he’s “probably one of the coolest guys ever” — and, we agree. He’s done some remarkable work on the Obama for President campaign and the super hot e-commerce community organization Threadless (just to name a few things). He’ll join us at the conference to talk about what went into developing those businesses, and the importance of building a great team. You can read about his journey to becoming Obama’s CTO in this Medium post.

“[email protected] – Can’t wait to hear about building Lean Startup teams at @Threadless and Obama for President at #LeanStartup Conf” – Click to Tweet

2 – Poornima Vijayashanker

Founder at Femgineer and Venture Partner at 500 Startups

Poornima’s passion for what she does is incredibly contagious, and that’s just one of the reasons we can’t wait for her to be in the front of the room at the conference. Through her education startup Femgineer, Poornima empowers engineers, founders, and product leads to transform their ideas into tangible, high-impact products. In November, she’ll share that expertise with the Lean Startup audience.

“[email protected] – your idea-to-prototype workshop at the 2015 #LeanStartup Conf is going to rock!” – Click to Tweet

3 –  Aditya Agarwal

VP of Engineering at Dropbox

For many startups, growth is a Bermuda Triangle, presenting fatal but hard-to-spot challenges on the path from traction to success. That’s why we invited Aditya Agarwal to speak at the conference. Aditya has led teams at Facebook and Dropbox through critical growth phases, and will talk about how to prepare for success while building for the reality of the present.

“@adityaag – Excited for your talk on @dropbox’s growth at the 2015 #LeanStartup Conf” – Click to Tweet

4 – Tomer Sharon

Sr. User Experience Researcher at Google

Tomer has authored multiple books about the topic of user research and is a known leader in the space. He established The Israeli Chapter of the User Experience Professionals’ Association and is a mentor at Google’s LaunchPad program, a bootcamp for early-stage startups around the world. At the conference, Tomer will run a live experiment that demonstrates how Google gets critical customer information. It will be a can’t miss session.

“[email protected] – Can’t wait to see your live experiment at the 2015 #LeanStartup Conference” – Click to Tweet

5 – Christina Wodtke

Principal at Wodtke Consulting

With deep roots in Silicon Valley, Christina has helped grow companies like LinkedIn, Yahoo, Zynga, The New York Times—and a ton of startups. She speaks worldwide and shares her thoughts at eleganthack.com. On Monday, November 16, Christina will run a workshop for platinum and gold badge holders on customer development and how to adapt for product-market fit.

“[email protected] – Look forward to your customer development workshop at the 2015 #LeanStartup Conference” – Click to Tweet

6 – Devon McConnell

Managing Director, Head of Digital at Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC

We’re excited to have Devon share her story about building a digital presence in a highly regulated industry. With just one year under her belt at Wells Fargo, she’s been able to successfully implement Lean Startup with her team, to improve Wells Fargo’s digital strategy and enhance customer experiences.

“[email protected] – Excited to learn about @WellsFargo‘s digital transformation at the 2015 #LeanStartup Conference” – Click to Tweet

7 – Chris Dixon

General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz

Chris Dixon has a rich history with building businesses. He was co-founder and former CEO of Hunch, which was acquired by eBay in 2011 and SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee in 2007. He is currently a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz, and he has invested in companies like Kickstarter, Warby Parker, Foursquare, and more.

At our conference, Chris will join Eric Ries on stage to discuss building a modern Lean Startup company, attaining operational excellence, and how the Lean Startup community of entrepreneurs and executives can create a roadmap that moves them in the right direction.

“[email protected] – Excited to see your conversation with @ericries at the 2015 #LeanStartup Conference” – Click to Tweet

Have a question, or want to recommend a talk idea? Give us a shout @LeanStartup. We want to hear your thoughts!

Interested in hearing these talks? You’ll make a great addition to the 2015 Lean Startup Conference community. Join us on November 16-19 at Fort Mason. Come away with new Lean Startup contacts and actionable takeaways that you can immediately apply at your company. Click here for all the details and to register now.