Neil Holmes is an AEC Market Lead for HSO | Proserv, a Microsoft consultancy focused on helping A/E/C firms optimize their performance through the implementation of aec360 and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Over the last 35+ years, Neil has helped over 1,000 AEC firms evaluate ERP software. Prior to joining HSO | Proserv, Neil held various sales, marketing and corporate management roles at Harper and Shuman/Deltek and BST.

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• Honing your message to become the centerpiece of your pitch
• Creating dynamic presentations that grab and hold your audience’s attention
• Delivering your pitch with authority and confidence. 

As a smart business owner, you've probably got a a succession plan for your planned retirement. Within your company you found younger, successful professionals who display the aptitude and the willingness to take on the challenges of becoming a business owner. Being on the “ownership track” these young leaders are highly engaged, and you can begin to see your long-anticipated retirement plans coming together. It really is going to happen! With the succession plan in place, the transition to retirement should be easier, right? Hopefully - but probably not. The transition will take time, and it will be an adjustment for all the company leaders, including yourself. As a senior leader, engineering and architecture is often the easy stuff. The people part is where we are often most challenged. Providing a coach to your leadership team can be a way for you to more quickly and more effectively navigate through the changes. Join us for this session to hear a soon-to-be retiring CEO and a next-generation principal share how working with an executive coach has helped them personally and their engineering company.

• How to prepare up and coming business partners to deal with the people they will be leading.
• How a coach can help retiring leaders be more effective at engaging the next generation
• How to find a coach that fits "you".
• Areas where even long-term executives can continuously improve our ability to lead others.

Leadership in A/E wants clear and reliable visibility into project status, and Earned Value has proven to be the gold standard to provide that clarity. Firms are often intimidated into making changes to their project metrics and undergoing the transformation required to utilize earned value. Planifi’s two A/E/C project management experts have put together an Earned Value Playbook that outlines the simple steps to adopt Earned Value at your firm. We believe this will provide your firm with clear visibility into project status and transform your firm into a more forward-looking PM practice. This session will cover:

• How long it will take to adopt earned value
• How to choose your earned value metrics
• How to train your Project Managers on Earned value
• Start Capturing Earned Value and Reviewing status with PM’s
• How to use more forward-looking metrics

Tired of so-called experts trying to sell consulting engagements that seldom deliver on promises? Ever wonder how peer A/E/C executives are solving the same pesky headaches you’ve never found time to address? Does your big and audacious strategic plan ever get hung up on problems you think should be easier to solve? In this lively and interactive session, veteran A/E/C firm leader Tim Griffin facilitates a frank and open discussion of what PSMJ Circle of Excellence firms do to achieve breakthrough profit margins every year. He’ll challenge you, engage you, and open you up to new ways of thinking about core management tasks that, with a few simple tweaks, yield outsized financial returns. You’ll come out with 10-15 “we gotta try that” ideas for improving PM training, marketing and BD, delegation, culture, recruiting, retention, incentives, communication, and more. This isn’t a typical breakout session – it’s a candid and honest open executive roundtable (but facilitated and moderated) format that taps our collective expertise and insights to make A/E/C firm strategic plan implementation WORK.

Don't leave money on the table. Find out if your firm is missing out on A&E Specialty tax incentives such as the R&D credit, 179D deduction and Employee Retention Credits. See some tips and tricks for optimizing your financial picture. As CIO of Souder, Miller & Associates (SMA), Sonja Jamilla applies her experience as a geospatial data analyst and applied technology project manager to coordinate strategic marketing, technology, and special projects initiatives to support internal teams and clients to be more effective and efficient in how they achieve their business mission. One such initiative was working with the CFO to explore R&D tax incentives. BRAYN Consulting collaborated with SMA to assess if the organization conducted R&D tax credit qualifying activities and prepared the documentation that resulted in SMA seeing R&D tax credits of more than $500k.

How can your brand, your silent ambassador, combine with it's promise and purpose help drive customer loyalty and repeat business? What happens when you align your firm's core competencies with identifying your ideal customer? Learn how to not only retain customers but win new business by driving the right messaging and focus.

• Understanding How People Buy & Your Brands Personality: Make the crucial BD shift to sell the way your most attractive prospects buy when you know what your brand means at a fundamental level
• Brand Purpose, Promise, and Core Competencies: What are your firms core competencies? Do they align with the customer you want?
• How can you leverage customer loyalty? The answer lies in the concept of brand champions
• What's Your Ideal Customer: Don't overlook developing a true Buyer Persona and rely on just relationships
• Understanding Your Selling Style: How you sell helps bring everything together.

A/E/C workforce engagement scores have been not improving for years, with a troubling percentage of associates neutral or not engaged. In this engaging workshop, you get practical tools and approaches to assess your organization on pre-requisite employee relations fundamentals, select the right candidates, nurture real engagement, and develop and retain talent that creates competitive advantage.

• Learn about timeless 10 Keys to Organizational Effectiveness and Baseline Systems – The foundation you must have to build engagement and retention.
• Understand people don’t leave organizations they leave managers – The leadership development imperative.
• Understand the training development needed when navigating key career crossroads.
• How to select the right person for the right job more often which is the key to improved employee engagement.
• Engagement requires understanding people uniquely, dialogue, and recognition that engagement is a shared responsibility.
• Learn about Talent Management as an essential business process.