RMI Connect 2026 Agenda

Engaging the Profession. Engaging the Intelligence. Advancing the Impact.

Held across two dynamic sessions on Tuesday, September 22nd and Thursday, September 24th, RMI Connect 2026 explores what it means to fully engage with the profession, with the work, and with the intelligence shaping its future. Day one focuses on building and advancing Resource Management through two critical dimensions: strengthening the discipline and advancing the profession. With a clear emphasis on positioning Resource Management as a strategic capability, sessions will explore its role in driving business performance, enabling better decision-making, and shaping how organizations plan, prioritize, and deliver work, while also highlighting how organizations are formalizing practices, increasing consistency, and driving greater operational impact.

Day two turns toward exploring the intelligence that is advancing Resource and Workforce Management. As data, analytics, and emerging technologies continue to evolve, organizations have new opportunities to engage more effectively with insight, moving beyond reactive decisions toward more proactive, predictive, and strategic approaches.

Participants will hear from leaders across a wide range of project-based service delivery organizations, including those serving external customers (e.g. Professional/Consulting Services, Marketing and Creative Agencies, Accounting, Audit, Tax and Advisory Firms, and Law Firms) and those serving internal customers (Enterprise/IT, Product Development, and Engineering)—all sharing how they’re using process, technology, and strategic focus to advance resource and workforce management.  The event will also feature leading PSA, PPM, and RPM technology providers sharing their perspective on how to enable more effective resource, workforce, and project management—critical enablers as teams move from foundational practices to high-impact results.

Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Opening Keynote: 11:00 AM ET – 11:45 AM ET

DESCRIPTION: Resource Management stands at a defining moment. As organizations navigate growing complexity, rising expectations, and the emergence of AI-driven capabilities, the future of RM will be shaped by those who deepen the discipline, expand the influence of the profession, and embrace new forms of intelligence. This opening keynote will explore the opportunities, challenges, and responsibilities that accompany this evolution and set the stage for two days of learning, discussion, and discovery. Attendees will gain a clear vision for where Resource Management is heading and how they can help shape its future.

SPEAKER: Ryan Childers, Managing Director, Resource Management Institute

RMI Member-Led Breakout Sessions: 12:00 PM ET – 12:45 PM ET

DESCRIPTION: In a large global matrix organization, improving Resource Management requires more than better tools or processes. This session shares Siemens Digital Industries Software’s journey from reactive staffing toward a more strategic Resource Management capability, enabled by stronger visibility, operating discipline, professional role development, and data-driven decision-making. Attendees will learn how trusted demand and capacity insights helped change leadership conversations, improve business outcomes, and create the foundation for AI-assisted Resource Management.

SPEAKER: Mattias Neborg, Global Lead, Resource Management Community of Practice, Siemens Digital Industries Software

DESCRIPTION: Adopting a modern resource and engagement management platform is rarely a technology problem; it’s a readiness problem. In this session, a senior resource management leader shares the real story behind a global RM technology implementation across the US and India, deployed to approximately 9,000 users across Audit, Tax, and Advisory. You’ll hear about the business case that justified the investment, and how existing resource management structure, data, and processes accelerated go-live. More candidly, you’ll hear which processes and data across the quote-to-cash lifecycle were missing or poorly defined and how surfacing those gaps before go-live kept them from becoming operational failures.  Attendees will leave with a practical readiness checklist for aligning resource management to the full quote-to-cash lifecycle before activating a new system.

SPEAKER: Amanda Marshall, Capacity & Resource Management Sr Director, Grant Thornton Advisors LLC

DESCRIPTION: Resource management is often treated as a scheduling function, but when you connect it directly to revenue goals, it becomes a strategic lever leaders can’t ignore. In this session, I’ll share how our firm reframed resource management as a driver of growth, profitability, and long-term strategy—and how that shift led us to make a deliberate, strategic hire dedicated to owning it. You’ll walk away with a practical approach for building the business case to your own leadership and turning resource strategy into a competitive advantage.

SPEAKERS: Sarah Steele, Director of Audit Operations and Megan Monaco, Audit Resource Strategy Senior Manager, KSM (Katz, Sapper, & Miller)

DESCRIPTION: Back by popular demand from RMGS, this session explores a simple truth: the most successful Resource Managers are often distinguished not by what they do, but by how they do it. From communication and relationship building to influence and adaptability, learn the soft skills that can increase your impact, strengthen stakeholder partnerships, and help you stand out as a trusted professional. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for building a stronger soft skills toolkit and achieving greater success in their careers.

SPEAKER: Eric Mannweiler, Senior Resource Manager, Docusign

Resource Management Myth Busters: 1:00 PM ET – 1:45 PM ET

DESCRIPTION: Join your peers for an interactive Resource Management Myth Busters session designed specifically for leaders and practitioners in professional services, consulting, and marketing agencies. Together, we’ll challenge some of the most common assumptions, persistent challenges, and debated practices that influence how firms balance client demand, consultant utilization, workforce planning, and business growth.

This facilitated discussion will explore the myths, realities, and emerging trends shaping resource management in project-based services organizations. Participants will share experiences, challenge conventional thinking, and exchange practical insights on some of the most pressing resource management challenges.

Whether you’re navigating fluctuating client demand, striving to improve forecast accuracy, balancing profitability with employee engagement, or exploring new ways to optimize talent deployment, this session will provide valuable peer insights and actionable ideas you can apply within your organization.

HOSTS: Julie Grove, Senior Manager of Professional Services, Ellucian and Martha Arias-Webster, Resource Management Leader

DESCRIPTION: Join peers from accounting, audit, tax, and advisory organizations for an interactive Resource Management Myth Busters session focused on the unique workforce planning and deployment challenges facing professional firms today. Together, we’ll examine long-standing assumptions, seasonal planning practices, and emerging approaches that are reshaping how firms manage capacity, talent, and client service delivery.

Through facilitated discussion and peer exchange, participants will explore the myths, realities, and evolving trends impacting resource management across the profession. Whether you’re looking to improve visibility into future demand, better manage capacity constraints, create more sustainable workloads, or learn how other firms are tackling similar challenges, this session will offer practical insights and real-world perspectives that can be applied immediately within your firm.

HOST: Beth Hunter, Resource Experience Management (REM) Leader, Rehmann

DESCRIPTION: Join fellow leaders and practitioners from internal enterprise teams for an interactive Resource Management Myth Busters session focused on the challenges of planning, prioritizing, and deploying talent in complex organizational environments. Together, we’ll examine common assumptions, competing priorities, and evolving practices that impact how organizations manage technology, product, and engineering resources.

This facilitated discussion will explore the myths, realities, and emerging trends shaping resource management across internal delivery functions. Participants will share experiences, challenge conventional thinking, and discuss practical approaches to some of the most pressing resource management challenges.

Whether you’re working to improve resource visibility, balance project and operational work, align staffing decisions with strategic priorities, or gain insights into how other organizations are approaching similar challenges, this session will provide a valuable forum for peer learning and actionable takeaways.

HOST: Justin Beavers, IT Resource Manager, The Cincinnati Insurance Companies

Thursday, September 24, 2026

Day Two Keynote: 11:00 AM ET – 11:45 AM ET

DESCRIPTION: What happens when resource management becomes intelligence-driven? Organizations gain the ability to anticipate change, make better decisions, and unlock new levels of performance. This keynote examines the future of resource management through the lens of intelligence and the opportunities it presents for the profession.

SPEAKER: Greg Hensley, Director, Resource Management Institute

“AI in Action” Sessions: 12:00 PM ET – 12:45 PM ET

Explore our new “AI in Action” sessions featuring leading PSA, PPM, and Resource Management solution providers, including Beeye, Dayshape, Kantata, and Teamwork. These sessions go beyond discussion to showcase real-world AI capabilities in action, demonstrating how emerging technologies are helping organizations improve forecasting, optimize resource planning, enhance decision-making, increase visibility, and drive greater operational efficiency.

DESCRIPTION: A few years ago, automated scheduling based on matching logic and problem-solving algorithms counted as AI. Today the accepted bar for an intelligent system is one that learns, and much of what resource management software calls AI hasn’t moved with it. This session takes an honest look at where that bar sits now, where it’s going next, and where to raise your expectations – because the best results come when technology intersects the judgement and firm context that only a resource manager holds.

Beeye will show that thinking live in the product: including Beeye Resolve finding and resolving scheduling and profitability issues, and Beeye MCP bringing answers, dashboards and repeatable tasks into the AI assistant your firm already uses.

SPEAKERS: André Makram, Chief Technology Officer and Mathieu Albert, Head of Sales Engineering, Beeye

DESCRIPTION: At RMGS this year, we shared our vision for how AI is reshaping the future of resource management. Now it’s time to see what that future looks like in practice.

Join Dayshape Co-founder and VP Product Andrew Bone alongside an experienced resource management professional as they demonstrate how AI solves real-world staffing challenges. Through a live walkthrough of the platform, you’ll see Dayshape’s squad of AI agents at work, generating valuable insights that used to eat up hours of manual work.

No matter if you’re managing day-to-day resourcing pressures or planning for longer-term business objectives, you’ll gain practical insight into how AI will help resource teams work faster, make better decisions, and increase your strategic impact through a live look at the technology itself.

SPEAKER: Andrew Bone, Co-founder & VP Product, Dayshape

DESCRIPTION: Yes, agents are making it easier to instantly assemble the ideal team. But even AI can’t help you put the right people with the right skills on a project if you never hired them.

In many ways, AI is actually making something that was already hard – building the case for hiring ahead of demand – much harder. Because that case now also has to account for the big question on any executives mind: “Wait, aren’t agents making it possible to do more with the same people?”

In this session, Kantata’s Melissa Korzun (VP, Industry Solutions) will show what’s possible when you use agentic BI to turn natural-language conversation into the dashboards, scenario modeling, and deep research needed to build the business case for where your workforce goes next. You will see how AI-powered pipeline forecasting makes demand easier to anticipate, how a knowledge graph reveals what your people can actually do based on their experience, and how agent usage, quality, and outcomes become part of the capacity equation.

Join to see the workforce intelligence you would have loved to have five years ago, when making these decisions was already extraordinarily complex – and that will become essential as the variables multiply. Because planning where your workforce goes next now means understanding not just the work that’s coming and the people you have, but the skills hidden across your organization, how much additional capacity AI can really create, and where investment in human talent still needs to happen.

SPEAKER: Melissa Korzun, Vice President, Industry Solutions, Kantata

Interactive Round Table Discussions: 1:00 PM ET – 1:45 PM ET

DESCRIPTION: In the spirit of bringing RMI Connect to life, join us for an interactive virtual roundtable experience designed to spark meaningful conversations and actionable ideas. In this facilitated session, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with peers who share your interests and challenges around a specific resource management topic. Whether you’re navigating capacity planning, optimizing resource forecasting, enhancing governance, or driving greater organizational alignment, you’ll have the opportunity to engage in dynamic discussions focused on practical strategies and real-world solutions. Come ready to share your experiences, learn from others, and leave with fresh perspectives you can apply immediately.