Rising Voices: New Stories of Impact brings together a dynamic group of changemakers who are putting Appreciative Inquiry into action in bold and inspiring ways. Moderated by Dr. Nicole Bossard, this conversation will feature Michael Emmart, Dan Hodgkiss and Kayleigh Barnett, Paul Nyausaru and Chiedza Kadare, and Susanne Clarke as they share fresh stories of impact from around the world. Through their diverse experiences, you’ll hear how AI continues to evolve, spark new possibilities, and create meaningful change across communities, organizations, and systems. Get ready to be inspired by the rising voices shaping the next chapter of Appreciative Inquiry.

Dr. Nicole Bossard helps organizations tap into their shared knowledge, discover, uncover, and recover their unique strengths, and collaboratively achieve outcomes that inspire pride. Her guiding principle: Together, we turn challenges into powerful opportunities for growth!

Dr. Michael Emmart is the Executive Director of the Institute for Just Outcomes through Conversation (IJOC) and will join Keuka College this fall as Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Social Work. He is a seasoned leader in child welfare, a passionate advocate for nonviolence, and advances Appreciative Inquiry and positive organizational science to support communities and systems. He resides in the Finger Lakes region of New York where he and his bride have raised six amazing children.

Paul Nyausaru is a seasoned HR practitioner and Certified Organization & Leadership Development Consultant in Zimbabwe with over 15 years of experience in strengths-based change. As Executive President of the Talent Exchange Group, he leads innovative development programs and co-facilitates the Appreciative Inquiry Certification Program. Paul is also a published writer and speaker on Appreciative Inquiry, known for his work in applying the 5-D Model to leadership and organizational growth.

Chiedza Kadare is an experienced HR practitioner and Organizational Development Consultant in Zimbabwe with a strong track record in performance management, employee engagement, and HR strategy. She has been a key member of the Talent Exchange Board since its inception and currently serves as Board Secretary. Chiedza holds degrees in Psychology and Business, along with professional certifications in HR and leadership development.

Kayleigh Barnett is the Head of Continuous Improvement at a busy acute hospital in Greater Manchester, England and has over 20 years of experience in the NHS. She is also a Published Appreciative Inquiry Author, Proud Podcast Host, and Passionate Improver.

Daniel Hodgkiss is the Patient Safety Programme Manager at Health Innovation West Midlands and a national co-lead for the Managing Deterioration and Martha’s Rule Programme. He champions positive safety cultures through Quality Improvement and Appreciative Inquiry, co-authored Appreciating Health and Care, and regularly shares best practices across the UK.

Susanne Clarke is the Head of Culture at Bournemouth University in the UK, where she leads initiatives in organizational development, culture change, and inclusive, values-led leadership. With experience in both the private and higher education sectors, she blends Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Organizational Scholarship, and continuous improvement to create people-centered change. A qualified coach and mentor, she specializes in strategy, staff development, and fostering wellbeing, and is currently completing doctoral research on using Appreciative Inquiry to cultivate kind, compassionate leadership.

This session will showcase how the health sciences campus of a university came together and used Appreciative Inquiry to create a Flourishing Collaborative to address employee engagement and retention.

This session focuses on an intentional process to enhance campus engagement to build positive culture. Coming at this work from an Appreciative Inquiry perspective and continuing our work using an appreciative framework is impacting change in an exciting way. 

This session presents the application of Appreciative Inquiry in the formulation of the Institutional Development Plan of the National Cancer Institute (INC) in Colombia. The research, developed within the framework of the Transformative Missions Program for Comprehensive Cancer Control, focused on mobilizing key stakeholders towards a shared vision of innovation and institutional transformation. Through a structured process based on the phases of Appreciative Inquiry, successful practices, organizational capabilities, and opportunities for improvement were identified, enabling the co-creation of a strategic plan grounded in strengths and previous achievements.

This session will provide an interactive discussion on how Appreciative Inquiry facilitated a paradigm shift in strategic planning within a public health institution, inspiring attendees to explore its potential application in their own organizations.

This roundtable session will appreciate the voices of historically marginalized students who are looking to enter the field of leadership and organization development. Participants will have the opportunity to share and discuss their experiences as, or with, marginalized scholars, colleagues, and professionals. The discussion will also utilize a recent appreciative inquiry, phenomenological study that involved 18 participants from marginalized groups. Six of the study participants identified as women, four identified as LGBTQ+, three identified as BIPOC, three identified as neurodivergent, and two identified as formerly incarcerated. This study provided students the opportunity to respond to the question, what would you want the most in a leadership and organization development program designed for marginalized groups? This collective conversation will include three mini-discussions connecting findings of the study to participant experiences. Together, we can discover the most meaningful aspects of our experiences as, or with, marginalized people. We can dream of what we want our educational, training, and development programs to become, with the intent to collaborate with, empower, and cultivate belonging for marginalized students and individuals.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is the notion of working together using positive strategies to gain maximum results.  So by focusing on what is already working, one can create lasting and measurable change.  So, with this in mind, why isn't everyone using AI? 

This topic questions the reality that with an alternative method of problem solving, increasing innovation and investing in future success, why is Appreciative Inquiry not the norm in today's business?   The presentation will provide arguments for the benefits that AI provides for future growth potential for organizations, teams, and individuals. 

As forever friends and lifelong partners in AI innovations, Ada Jo Mann, Sallie Lee and Jennie Silbert have reunited to shine the light on what we have noticed as offshoots of Appreciative Inquiry emerging around the world which are presented in the May 2025 issue of the AI Practitioner.

One of the strengths of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is that David Cooperrider and other early AI thought leaders were committed to keeping AI open source and available to all.  As the Appreciative Inquiry community enters the age of the Earthshot, where ever more creative ways of seeing and using the AI principles are contributing to new solutions, we are increasingly aware of the bounty of AI offshoots and innovations that are happening around the world. By offshoot or innovation we mean strength-based approaches that align with and go beyond the core AI principles and practices to touch almost every aspect of human interaction. 

We believe there are practitioners doing spectacular AI work around the world, many of whom people have not heard about or are not connected to. With the May AIP shining the light on several of these offshoots and innovations, our hope is that the issue has planted the seeds for more offshoots to be revealed. In this session, we will highlight a few of these offshoots and hear from Jam participants about how their own AI origin stories and experiences have led them to apply the principles in ever expanding ways, uncovering even more AI offshoots and innovations from around the globe.

Ada Jo Mann began her career in international development as a Peace Corps Volunteer. While designing a leadership program for international NGOs, Jane Watkins encouraged her to meet David Cooperrider and a partnership developed that resulted in the GEM Initiative which for seven years spread Appreciative Inquiry to all regions of the world. In her retirement she has become a poet and recently published Words Create Worlds available on Amazon.

Sallie Lee, thinking partner for a global client base,  was certified in AI through the Global Excellence in Management (GEM) Program in 1997 and never looked back.  Having trained several thousand people in AI, Sallie and GEM director Ada Jo Mann initiated the AI Jam in 2017, partnering with the Cooperrider Center for the first gatherings in Burlington, VT.  

Dr Claudia Gross is a soulful business humanist, consultant and trainer. She facilitates transformations in organisations, teams and individuals in Germany, the Middle East and African countries. Claudia publishes the Life at Work // Weekly newsletter and originated speakGreen.

Sherri Sutton is an Appreciative Inquiry practitioner certified through AIFT and Champlain College. She co-led the 600-person Connect & Propel Tampa 2019 summit and integrates AI into all aspects of her work—especially SOAR planning—seeing it not just as a tool, but a way of life.

This session focuses on the DREAM portion of our 4-D Cycle. Expect to envision bold futures for Appreciative Inquiry in conversation with a small group of other Jam participants.

These dynamic and interactive sessions invite our global community to dive into a complete 4D Appreciative Inquiry process, examining the past, present, and future of this transformative approach to positive change.

• Discover: We'll unearth the stories and strengths that have shaped Appreciative Inquiry worldwide.

• Dream: We'll envision bold futures for this methodology across organizations, communities, and systems.

• Design: We'll start crafting pathways to turn these dreams into reality, guided by our collective values and aspirations.

These sessions offer a meaningful opportunity to connect with fellow Appreciative Inquiry practitioners, amplify successful practices, and co-create a shared vision for the future of AI. Whether you’re new to Appreciative Inquiry or a seasoned practitioner, your perspective is vital in shaping the journey ahead

The future of leadership is being shaped right now, and at its core are three guiding mindsets:

• Purpose-Driven – Aligning leadership with mission and impact

• People-First – Centering human flourishing in organizational change

• Regenerative Growth – Creating systems that sustain businesses, communities, and the planet

At the ROI of Why Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska, we facilitated an AI Mini Summit designed to move beyond conversations about change into actively co-creating the future of leadership and business. This session will build on that experience, offering key insights, real-world examples, and an interactive AI Jam demonstrating how Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI²) together can unlock new leadership, movement-building, and systemic transformation possibilities.

Participants Will Explore:

🔹 How AI (Appreciative Inquiry) enables organizations to engage values, navigate complexity, and harness collective intelligence

 🔹 How AI² (Artificial Intelligence) is accelerating collaborative leadership, inclusive decision-making, and system-wide innovation

 🔹 A hands-on AI Jam that invites participants to engage in generative dialogue, co-create new insights, and apply an appreciative lens to emerging leadership challenges

A Living Example: The Do More Good Movement Learning Journey

Developed by Mercedes Martin & Company, the Do More Good Movement Learning Journey is a real-world case study on how Appreciative Inquiry has been a catalyst for leadership transformation, while AI² can scale these efforts for greater impact.

Key Takeaways for Participants:

• A Practical Roadmap for Using AI and AI² to Shape purpose-driven Leadership

• Strategies to integrate AI-based leadership tools with business and social impact frameworks

•  A deeper understanding of how to apply Appreciative Inquiry to large-scale movement-building and regenerative leadership

Countries across the globe face a variety of challenges in the ongoing process of nation building today. As citizens, how can we be constructively engaged in this process and activate others towards a shared desired future? 

In this session, we draw inspiration from an appreciative approach to nation-building in Cambodia as it transitions into a new era with the renewal of leadership and commitment to resilient, sustainable, equitable growth and shared prosperity for all. We conceptualised and organised a two-day Leadership for Good Summit, bringing together relevant stakeholders in the Public, Private and People sectors to co-articulate our collective aspirations for Cambodia. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) provides the backbone for the summit engagement, building shared commitment towards realising the future we desire together. The movement and conversations initiated in the summit have led to the creation of an ongoing InnoLab for trisector collaborations that can address complex challenges in the country and beyond.

AI has a legacy of bringing people together across sector boundaries to focus on common aspirations and shared assets. This coming together continues to be important and may even become more so when we look towards the future. The emerging challenges of managing diversity, fostering inclusion, strengthening governance and institution, addressing security threats, climate change and environmental challenges – all point to the need for active citizens who are able to use the power of appreciative conversations for collective flourishing

Leadership isn’t just about intellect—it’s also about heart-centered presence. This session explores the physiological and energetic impact of leading from a place of love, coherence, and compassion, with practical tools to integrate heart-centered decision-making.