About Our Keynote Speakers

Lauren Patel

Head of Communications / AI Guru, AAIM Employers' Association

Lauren Patel is a workforce and growth strategist who helps organizations translate AI, leadership development, and communication strategy into measurable business performance. As a member of the leadership team at AAIM Employers’ Association, Lauren directs digital strategy, communications, AI integration and training initiatives across a multi-state employer community.

Lauren is the champion behind Aaime Hart, a ChatGPT-powered HR assistant designed to help employers solve real-world people challenges, and the creator of AI in HR Week, a hands-on program equipping leaders and HR professionals to use AI confidently and responsibly.

Her background in sales, training, leadership development, and marketing strategy gives her a rare cross-functional lens. She doesn’t separate brand from business results — or learning from performance. Known for her candid and practical delivery style, Lauren challenges leaders to move beyond complexity and build systems that scale.

Based in St. Louis, Missouri, she is driven by one principle: strategy only matters if it moves the business forward.

Dual Fluency: The Leadership Blueprint for the Human + AI Workforce

AI is reshaping how work gets done — but the future isn’t human or AI. It’s both. This session equips HR leaders with a clear, strategic framework for designing a blended workforce where human judgment, creativity, and adaptability work alongside AI-enabled speed, capacity, and support. Lauren introduces Dual Fluency as the core leadership capability needed to guide, question, interpret, and integrate AI — while elevating the human strengths that drive culture and performance. HR professionals will assess where their organizations sit today, learn how to introduce AI safely and strategically into HR workflows and beyond, and prepare their teams for the next evolution of AI-enabled execution — where real ROI emerges from alignment, not isolated tools. 

Participants will:

  • Understand Dual Fluency as a core HR leadership competency for the next era of work
  • Assess their organization’s position on the Leadership Readiness Ladder
  • Design AI-enabled HR workflows that bring clarity, consistency, and confidence to their teams

Prepare their organizations for emerging agentic AI capabilities — and understand what that means for how work, roles, and teams get structured

Amber Johnson

Founder, Bright Threads Leadership Group

Dr. Amber Johnson is the founder of Bright Threads Leadership Group. She is an executive advisor and leadership coach who works with organizations of all sizes to enhance collaboration, shape culture, improve communication, and drive results.

Previously, Amber spent 11 years with the Center for Values-Driven Leadership at Benedictine University, including six years as the Chief Communications Officer. She worked in marketing for World Vision, was a US Peace Corps volunteer in the Kingdom of Tonga, a public relations consultant, and a university editor.

Amber is a TEDx speaker and an author – you can find her work at Forbes.com, Psychology Today, Smartbrief, and in her newsletter, Better Than Fine. She holds a PhD in leadership, two degrees in communications, and (relevant to today’s group) is a Central Illinois native and a graduate of Warrensburg-Latham High School.

Beyond Incivility: Practical Communication Strategies that Work

This interactive keynote empowers HR professionals with practical communication strategies to address the $2.1 billion daily cost of workplace incivility. 

Through evidence-based frameworks and hands-on exercises, participants will grow their skills for coaching colleagues on transforming toxic interactions into productive dialogue. Attendees will leave better equipped to serve as internal consultants on communication challenges, with tools for addressing toxicity and building respectful communication practices.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Identify incivility patterns and communication challenges.
  2. Apply coaching frameworks to transform workplace complaints and conflicts into constructive conversations.
  3. Develop facilitation skills for guiding difficult conversations and teaching positive communication strategies.
  4. Learn useful tools for training people leaders to identify, disrupt, and repair after incivility.