Drs. Rene Aernoudts heads the Dutch Lean Management Instituut in Zeist, The Netherlands, which he founded in February 2004. Before founding the institute Rene was one of the managing directors of a consulting firm for almost 8 years, specializing in Lean. After graduating at Erasmus University in Rotterdam he became a lecturer at two Business Schools. He then worked in Logistics at the Flower Auction before starting his consulting career.

Rene Aernoudts assisted over 120 companies in their Lean journey, both in manufacturing, process and service organizations, and together with his team at LMI he published books on Lean in Dutch and he runs Lean summits, workshops and projects for Dutch and international organizations all over the world. Rene is one of the four members of the Executive Committee of the Lean Global Network, European Regional leader and leads several international projects. He is the founder of http://www.planet-lean.com. Planet Lean is the official online publication of Lean Global Network, launched in February 2014 with the aim to share the knowledge on lean thinking and practice gained by LGN institutes around the world, their partners and customers.

Oriol Cuatrecasas heads the Instituto Lean Management (ILM) in Barcelona, Spain. ILM Spain spreads Lean Thinking throughout Spain and collaborates with organizations in Spanish speaking countries to promote Lean activities.

Electronic Engineer, was working for about 20 years, first as electronic designer, later as Manager in Manufacturing OEM Companies in Telecommunication and Automotive Sectors. He has some patents in telecommunication products.

Lean experience started in 2004 as Industrial Manager, transforming Production and Technical departments of a Tier One supplier of main Automotive producers.

From 2009 has been working as trainer and coach in several projects of Lean transformation.

Main kills in implementing Lean Transformation Framework, Hoshin Kanri, A3, Value Stream Mapping, in Manufacturing and Services environments.

Joshua Howell is president and executive team leader at the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI). Howell was an architect and implementer of a lean operating system for retail stores at Starbucks Coffee Company, where he also created a team of lean coaches who helped facilitate and sustain the transformation globally. The system enabled improved quality for products and experiences, increased product availability, and reduced waste (eg. brewed coffee). It was implemented by creating "problem-solving experiences" for managers at all levels, developing that critical capability enterprise-wide.

As senior coach, Howell supports co-learning partnerships across a variety of sectors, most notably retail, restaurants, and construction. He designs and facilitates hands-on learning experiences that develop capability for practices like work improvement, skill building, and A3-based problem solving.  Through direct involvement in lean transformation efforts, he conducts research into the implementation of lean business systems. Howell holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame.

Director - Lean Institute Brazil

Christopher Thompson has been disseminating and implementing lean thinking and practice for 14 years in Latin America as a member of the Lean Institute Brazil. He has supported more than 200 companies in their lean transformations covering sectors such as automotive, aeronautics, construction, metallurgical, food, pharmaceutical, technology, health, consumer, chemical and services. In recent years, it has been leading organizations through digital transformations using lean thinking. Has as a Master's Degree in Naval and Oceanic Engineering from the Polytechnic School of USP.

Denise is an experienced Lean Thinking practitioner and coach with deep experience in healthcare and service industries, particularly local government.

Denise worked as a nurse for more than 25 years, both as a midwife and nephrology nurse. She led services both within the public and private sector.

Her experience with Lean Thinking began in 2004, when she joined the CEO at Flinders Medical Centre to support their transformational effort to improve patient flow, using Lean Thinking. Their pioneering efforts were one of the first international examples of Lean Thinking in healthcare.

In 2008, as the ‘pull’ for lean thinking increased in healthcare across the globe, Denise went on to teach and support many healthcare organisations in their learning and application of the approach.

In 2009, her coaching role led her to City of Melbourne, where she was later employed as their internal Lean Thinking coach. Again, she translated the approach for the local government sector and closely supported the CEO to learn and lead a transformation effort to make things better, easier, faster and cheaper for customers. Denise integrated the continuous improvement work with organisational development and planning, bringing purpose, people and process together in one strong and influential team. Through a structured and university accredited training course, dozens of staff were upskilled to lead improvement in their own areas.

In 2015, Denise returned to healthcare as the internal Lean Sensei at Stanford Children’s’ Health (SCH). Six years into their improvement journey, SCH has a strong lean daily management system, providing a great foundation for problem solving, progressing towards goals and learning. After two years of coaching and learning, Denise returned to Australia and continues to support SCH on an external but regular basis, providing executive coaching in continuous improvement and supporting the ongoing progression of their management system and patient flow improvement work.

Denise has supported the work of Lean Enterprise Australia for many years. She was a founding member of the Australasian Lean Healthcare Network (ALHN) a subsidiary of LEA. Her passion for networking and sharing improvement work is evidenced by her leadership in convening annual summits, for both LEA and ALHN. In 2016 she co-convened the inaugural Lean Healthcare Academic Conference at Stanford and due to its success she will co-convene again in 2017. On returning to Australia in May 2017, she committed to supporting the growth of Lean Thinking in Australia and neighbouring countries in a diverse collection of industries through her coaching work.

Denise holds an MBA from University of South Australia, a Lean Certificate in Healthcare from University of Michigan and a Level 1 Coaching Certificate. Her passions include visual practice, developing people, improving flow and supporting the design and deployment of daily management systems.