igniteEX Conference

Experience the region’s largest, most powerful conference focused on continuous improvement and organizational excellence!

About igniteEX

You don’t want to miss this conference, focused on the best and emerging practices that facilitate excellence in people, organizations, and communities! Explore excellence in leadership, customer focus, workforce engagement, operations, innovation, resilience, and other drivers of performance! Discussions will focus on tools, methods, insights, and proven practices that help you improve your processes and results. And this conference will offer unique and powerful ways to network, connect, and EXcel together.

Conference Details

April 19, 8am-2:30pm CDT (“soft start” reception & celebration April 18 3pm-7:30pm CDT)
Optional pre-conference workshops: April 18, 9am – 4pm CDT
Mystic Lake Conference Center, Prior Lake, MN (hotel room block ends March 27 but space still available — call 800-262-7799 and ask for “PENworks 2024” rate!
Also streaming worldwide!!
Conference rates start at $400.
Group & Member discounts available.

Schedule

PENworks is now igniteEX:

Same powerful content; Same powerful networking; New name! Read more about why we made the change, and what it means:

3 reasons to attend igniteEX:

High Value

It’s an affordable, high value professional development event, packed with insights, tools, best practices to help you navigate today’s challenges and to begin to position for improvement, innovation, and future growth.

Hybrid Flexibility

It’s a hybrid event, offering the networking & energy in an in-person option or the convenience, efficiency & accessibility of an online option. Either way, the same great content, same great energy.

Recordings

It’s being recorded, so you’ll have access to all proceedings after the conference: you can view ALL sessions, not just the one you pick to see live. Or watch one a few times to catch more insights. Now igniteEX has a shelf-life!

Keynote Speakers

Two powerful voices who will help us ignite our spark:

Phyllis Braxton

Change is Inevitable; Progress is Optional — Facilitating Cultural Change

Leaders today know the importance of recognizing human differences and creating cultures that value and foster workforce engagement, safety, diversity, and inclusion. But facilitating culture change requires to develop five intercultural skills – withing themselves and their teams: 1) cultural self-awareness, 2) empathy, 3) tolerance for ambiguity, 4) authentic curiosity, and 5) cognitive flexibility. Drawing on over 25 years of international experience, Phyllis Braxton will introduce you to proven frameworks for greater effectiveness in leading across cultural differences and creating cultures that enable high performance.

Anne Bonney

Ignite Your Shift: Thriving Through the Chaos of Change

Change is hard. It’s all around us & it isn’t going away. In fact, it’s accelerating. So having the tools to navigate change will improve your effectiveness and resilience – as leaders, as professionals, as human beings! Anne Bonney will spark your courage and ignite some action, sharing ground-breaking concepts from her red-hot book Get Over It!

Learn how to better navigate change with more confidence, courage, and resilience. Reduce the burden of stress that constant change causes. Explore how to turn change into a unifying factor that motivates, inspires, and improves productivity & other results!

Also featuring:

Danger Boat Productions

igniteEX Unscripted

EXperience a fun, hilarious, and impactful end to igniteEX 2024 with Danger Boat Productions, a comedy improv group that will summarize insights from the day in a series of improv sketches that will have you laughing as you leave!

Breakout Speakers

We are EXcited to announce a powerful lineup of nearly 20 local, regional, and national speakers, each sharing insights, tools, and best practices to improve organizational & community outcomes!

This year’s sessions will focus on topics such as:

Managing change
Navigating staffing challenges
Artificial intelligence
Organizational & community resilience
Diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI)
Customer engagement
And many more!

Schedule

Pre-conference Workshops

Thursday, April 18, 2024

9:00am – 12:00pm

Edwin Boon

The LEGO Game: Reducing Waste & Increasing Productivity

Mary Rapaport

The Strategic Playground: Cultivating and Sustaining a Strategic Mindset

Jan Lehman

Create a Culture of Productivity, Starting at the Top!

Michael Garner

Excellence is About People!

We are grateful for organizations and individuals who support PEN’s mission and the igniteEX conference as sponsors or exhibitors.

EXcitement (Gold):

EXchange (Silver):

EXperience (Bronze):

EXhibitors:

If you are interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at igniteEX 2024, please email
brian.lassiter@performanceexcellencnetwork.org

Location

The igniteEX conference will be hosted at Mystic Lake Conference Center – the largest casino in Minnesota – as well as streaming live online.

Note: Hotel room block available at Mystic Lake Casino! Room block expires March 27 but space still available — call 800-262-7799 and ask for “PENworks 2024” rate.

2400 Mystic Lake Blvd, Prior Lake MN 55372