Keynote Speaker

CMO

Project Management Institute

Menaka Gopinath

Menaka Gopinath is Chief Marketing Officer at the Project Management Institute, leading global brand, communications, and marketing strategy. With over two decades of experience with brands like Apple, Nike, Uber, and Coca-Cola, she brings deep expertise in growth marketing and consumer engagement. A former President and COO at Graf Lantz and senior leader at Ipsos, Menaka is passionate about purpose-driven leadership and advancing diversity and inclusion in business.

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Delivering M.O.R.E. – Why PDD Powers Human-Centric Leadership in an AI World

Keynote Speaker

Session Description

Project management is at an inflection point. As AI and emerging technologies reshape how we plan, deliver, and measure outcomes, PMI is reframing success and rallying the profession around a bold mandate: Deliver M.O.R.E. to maximize project success and elevate our world. In this opening keynote, PMI Chief Marketing Officer Menaka Gopinath will connect PMI’s Purpose and PMI:NEXT strategy to a practical, human-centered vision – showing why sustained professional development is now a strategic necessity for every PMI and PMI-LA member.

Menaka will unpack M.O.R.E. – Manage Perceptions, Own Project Success, Relentlessly Reassess, Expand Perspective – and demonstrate how career-long learning, community participation, and adoption of AI-enabled tools turn these pillars into real, measurable advantage. She will make a direct case for why attending and supporting PDD is essential: it’s where you update your skills against the frontier (PMIxAI, PMI Infinity), expand your network for faster problem-solving, and practice the human-centric leadership behaviors that drive perceived value and trust. You’ll leave with a clear line of sight from PMI’s global vision to your personal development plan – plus concrete ways to leverage PMI-LA’s ecosystem so your projects, your organization, and your career all deliver M.O.R.E.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

  1. Explain PMI’s purpose – “We maximize project success to elevate our world” – and how PMI:NEXT and the M.O.R.E. framework translate into individual capability-building priorities.
  2. Connect professional development to project outcomes:
    • Manage Perceptions: Use stakeholder empathy, communication, and influence skills to increase perceived value.
    • Own Project Success: Strengthen benefits realization, change leadership, and value storytelling through targeted learning.
    • Relentlessly Reassess: Build adaptive practices (agile metrics, risk sensing, governance) via courses and peer exchange.
    • Expand Perspective: Integrate strategy, customer impact, AI ethics, and sustainability into daily decision-making.
  3. Leverage PDD as a catalyst for growth: identify two sessions, one tool, and three new peer connections that directly improve a current project’s outcomes in the next 90 days.
  4. Map PMI resources to a personal learning plan: align certifications, PMIxAI courses, PMI Infinity, and community-generated knowledge to specific M.O.R.E. competencies.
  5. Draft a 90-day M.O.R.E. commitment with measurable indicators (e.g., stakeholder NPS, benefit tracking cadence, reassessment checkpoints) and an accountability partner from the PMI-LA community.
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