SAFe® Leadership Retreat

Luke has been involved with Applied Frameworks since its founding in 2003. He later went on to start Conteneo, a collaboration software company which was acquired by Scaled Agile in 2019. While at Scaled Agile, Luke served as a SAFe® Framework Contributor and Principal Consultant, with significant contributions to the SAFe Agile Product Management (APM) and Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) competencies and the SAFe POPM, APM, and LPM courses.

He is the author of four books and is cited as an inventor on more than a dozen patents. His books include Software Profit Streams (co-written with Jason Tanner) (2023), Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products through Collaborative Play (2006), Beyond Software Architecture (2003) and Journey of the Software Professional (1996).

Luke co-organized the first Agile conference in 2003, has served on the Board of the Agile Alliance, and, in partnership with the Scrum Alliance, produced the “Collaboration at Scale” webinar series, the world’s largest monthly webinar devoted to helping organizations with 10 or more Scrum teams in 2 or more locations scale agility.

Luke is a highly sought after speaker has as keynoted such conferences as the Agile Alliance conference, Agile Australia, Lean-Agile Scotland, Agile New Zealand, the Austrian Innovation Forum, the CXPA and multiple SAFe Summits.

Luke is the co-founder of Every Voice Engaged Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit that helps citizens, governments and nonprofit organizations collaboratively solve problems that are unsolvable without civic engagement. EVEF has been a leader in the Participatory Budgeting movement, helping citizens prioritize hundreds of millions of dollars through Budget Games. In partnership with The Kettering Foundation, Conteneo created Common Ground for Action, the first scalable platform for deliberative decision-making, which is now owned and managed by EVEF.

Luke graduated magna cum laude with a BSE in computer engineering and an MSE in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan. In addition to data structures and artificial intelligence, he studied cognitive psychology and organizational behavior.

Simon Chesney has a distinguished career in product and systems development, as a software engineering leader and cultural change agent, often working to facilitate effective collaboration in the cross-functional space. In order to enable greater business agility at the product portfolio level Simon has developed and introduced economic models to enable product and portfolio trade-off & delay-cost analysis and decision-support.

Background & Credentials
Prior to moving to Silicon Valley in the late 1990’s, Simon spent a decade as Managing Director of a boutique UK-based software & project management consulting firm. During the 2000’s he led File System Development at NetApp, also facilitating the company’s Whole Product Transformation and inventing the patented “Whole Product Gap Analysis” toolset & process to maintain portfolio coherence. At Zynga Simon led System Engineering in the development of infrastructure to support 240M monthly active users playing the world’s largest on-line games. At Western Digital Corporation Simon introduced and led the Agile transformation, becoming certified as the company’s internal SPCT. Simon maintains professional & coaching certifications in SAFe, Agile, PMP & Transactional Competence and has presented his insights into culture change, portfolio management and delay-cost analysis at international conferences.

Simon is currently an SPCT-candidate, having been until recently one of the world's few Internal Scaled Agile Program Consultant Trainers - an SPCT certification tied to a specific enterprise. Additionally Simon is certified as a SAFe6 SPC & RTE, Certified Scrum Professional & Scrum Master, AMP-CCA (Certified Agile Change Agent), PMP and IUC (Influential U Consultant in Transactional Competence).

Thorsten Janning, born in 1962, is a seasoned mathematician who has been immersed in the IT industry since 1990. With a diverse professional background, he has served as an architect, project manager, and college professor, honing his expertise in consulting, training, and organizational development. Co-founding KEGON AG in 2002, he led as CEO until 2017, driving the company's success and establishing himself as a prominent figure in the field.

Janning's career has been defined by a relentless focus on lean and agile methodologies, particularly in transforming organizations to thrive in the digital age. As Germany's first SAFe Practice Consultant Trainer and SAFe Fellow, he has been instrumental in guiding C-level executives through the complexities of agile transformations. With a portfolio spanning diverse industries including robotics, automotive, telecommunications, and finance, Janning's contributions in strategy development, portfolio management, and agile transformation have left an indelible mark on the landscape of modern business. His commitment to innovation and excellence continues to shape the future of agile practices worldwide.

Felix Rüssel has gained vast experience in applying Lean & Agile methods since 2004 and leading huge Lean-Agile transformations. Since 2014 he is working as a Management Consultant for KEGON AG, until 2022 in the role of a Managing Partner for the KEGON Academy where he is responsible for the strategic development of our training business.

Felix was one of the first in Germany to apply the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and since 2013 supported several large enterprises implementing SAFe. He was the first Scaled Agile Framework Practice Consultant (SPC) and the first SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE) in Germany. He is also one of the first SAFe® Practice Consultant Trainers (SPCT) in Germany. He has a degree in Computer Science and a degree in Economic Engineering.

Felix is focusing on the optimization of product development processes and strategic portfolio planning according to lean & agile principles. He strives to improve the communication between business departments and product development units.

Florian Beck is our SPCT candidate and a true expert in Lean Portfolio Management. Florian's heart beats for the seamless connection between strategy and implementation. His professional focus is on strategy development, lean portfolio management and product development. Florian is particularly happy when these three aspects work together in short cycles, characterised by mutual respect and a strong focus on customer value and business success.

Since 2012, Florian has been accompanying organisations on their journey towards business agility. His passion for continuous learning drives him to constantly discover new things and support his clients in developing their capabilities.

Niko Kaintantzis holds a degree in computer science engineering from the ETH and is a certified systemic coach and organisational consultant. He is also a SAFe Practice Consultant Trusted Advisor (SPCT) and a Certified Profit Streams™ Trainer (CPS-T).

During and after his studies he worked with international teams on the development and design of business-critical Java Enterprise applications. He made a name for himself as a UI technology expert. He trained course participants in requirements engineering and usability techniques. He is author and co-author of two teaching materials for computer science trainees. And is certified by the Swiss Association for Adult Education (SVEB) to conduct events with adults.

In 2006 he was in charge of Scrum and Kanban implementations for Swiss customers. Due to his many years of experience in the conception and development of complex software solutions with several distributed teams, he dealt with the scaling issue early on and was one of the first SAFe experts and LeSS executives in Switzerland. Since 2019 he is additionally SPCT and trains other SAFe trainers.

In January 2018, he received the certificate as a systemic coach and has been conducting coaching sessions since then, especially leadership coaching. He deepened his training and graduated in January 2020 as a systemic coach and organizational consultant with a diploma recognized by the Swiss Professional Association for Supervision and Organizational Consulting (BSO).