Keynote Speakers

Opening Keynote  Monday Luncheon Keynote  Tuesday Morning Keynotes  Closing Keynote  

Monday, March 31 Opening Keynote Speaker

Tucker Bryant

Poet and Innovation Keynote Speaker

The Poet’s Keys: a Guide to Unlocking Innovation
Monday, March 31  |  8:30 am  |  #BaldrigeQuest

Tucker Bryant is an entrepreneur, innovation strategist, and nationally renowned poet. After nurturing his craft at Stanford University, Tucker went on to become a lead Product Marketing Manager at Google where he discovered the potential of the creative tools poets have relied on for millennia to drive innovative leadership in the corporate world. 

After a decade in Silicon Valley, Tucker left Google to challenge leaders to unlock creativity, collaboration and competitive advantage using The Poet's Keys™. His performances, which have garnered millions of views online, have been featured at TEDx, The New York Times, and dozens of other organizations across the globe. He has had the privilege of sharing on stages alongside Mark Cuban, Bill Belichick, Gary Vaynerchuk, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and Mel Robbins as well as governors and executives from scores of Fortune 500 companies.

What Tucker Bryant learned during a decade spent between Stanford and Google surprised him: even people on the cutting edge of innovation often struggle to take risks. The truth is that we all want to step out of our comfort zones, but we also have comforts so deep-seated that we aren’t aware they even exist. And our instinct to protect that unconscious comfort suffocates our creativity, disengages us from our work, and stunts our ability to lead.
 

Monday, March 31 Luncheon Keynote Speaker

José Pires

Global Excellence & Innovation – Founder & CEO

Go for Extraordinary: Unleashing the Power of Great Enduring Leaders and Organizations
Monday, March 31  |  12:45 pm  |  #BaldrigeQuest

José Pires serves as Excellence & Innovation (E&I) executive leader and advisor for companies ranging from startups to Fortune 50, overseeing the global identification, prioritization, and execution of high-value improvements and innovations for the companies, business partners, and customers in multiple markets.

Pires has held Excellence & Innovation leadership positions in leading global companies in the electronics (Sony), semiconductor (Cymer-ASML), food/retail (Nestlé), energy/water/telecommunications infrastructure (Black & Veatch), and oil & gas/energy/retail (Andeavor-Marathon Petroleum) industries.

Throughout his career, Pires developed and refined E&I as an award-winning program to accelerate innovation, collaborative leadership development, strategy execution, and value creation globally. Pires is an advisory board leader and global TED keynote speaker for organizations and conferences on innovation, business, operational and process excellence, collaborative leadership development, strategy execution, culture, business and digital transformation, exponential technologies, and growth acceleration.

He is an executive Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt who holds a Bachelor in Engineering Physics from the University of Kansas and a Master in Business Administration focused in Investment Banking and Entrepreneurship from the University of San Diego.
 

Tuesday, April 1 Morning Keynote Speaker

Ron Norris

Director of Innovation, Georgia-Pacific, LLC.

Tuesday, April 1  |  8:00 am  |  #BaldrigeQuest

Ron helps transform the way work happens. A frequently requested speaker at forums worldwide, he has vast experience leading high-performance cross-functional teams and driving organizational transformation. Renowned for his leadership strength and opportunity-focused innovation, Ron excels at translating complex concepts into easy-to-understand frameworks.

With a proven track record in innovation, technology (AI, ML, MT), change management, and developing new products and organizational processes for some of the largest corporations in the USA, he emphasizes, “We’re not changing the work. Instead, we’re changing how we participate in getting the work done.”
 

Tuesday, April 1 Morning Keynote Speaker

Michael Koralewski

Chief Supply Chain Officer, First Solar

Tuesday, April 1  |  8:00 am  |  #BaldrigeQuest

Michael Koralewski was appointed Chief Supply Chain Officer in November 2022 and is accountable for maintaining executive oversight of First Solar’s strategic global supply chain. He previously served as First Solar’s Chief Manufacturing Operations Officer and provides over 25 years of global operational experience to the executive leadership team. Mr. Koralewski joined First Solar in 2006, serving in several senior roles in operations and quality management, including Senior Vice President, Global Manufacturing since 2015; Vice President, Global Site Operations and Plant Manager since 2011; and Vice President, Global Quality since 2009. 

In all of these roles Mr. Koralewski has been significantly involved since the beginning of First Solar’s manufacturing scaling and expansion from site selection through sustaining operations and supply chain development. Prior to joining First Solar, Mr. Koralewski worked at Dana Incorporated where he held several positions with global responsibility in operations and quality management. He earned a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and a Master of Business Administration from Bowling Green State University.
 

Wednesday, April 2 Closing Keynote Speaker

Rami Goldratt

CEO, Goldratt Group

Leveraging Theory of Constraints to Maximize Flow and Long-Term Success
Wednesday, April 2  |  8:15 am  |  #BaldrigeQuest

Rami Goldratt currently serves as CEO of Goldratt Group, the leading organization in Theory Of Constraints (TOC) implementations. Over the years, Rami has been involved in consulting engagements with manufacturers, engineering, retail, automotive, textile, chemical, and service industries all around the world. Rami is highly regarded for developing the TOC applications to Sales and Marketing. His ground-breaking implementations in this area have become the standard of TOC in sales.