Keynotes · Workshops · Panels · Podcasts
SkillSpout's leadership team speaks from inside live AI rollouts, not from the sidelines. A technologist who has built AI for nearly 30 years, an operator who runs the company on it, and an implementation lead who sits with teams while it lands. Pick the voice your room needs.
Co-founder & CEO.
Technical. What agentic AI actually is, how to build it safely, and what a post-agentic organization looks like from the inside.
Best for: executive keynotes, technical workshops, CIO and founder audiences.
See Mel's talks
Co-founder & COO.
Operational. What changes in roles, accountability and the operating model when AI takes the predictable half of the work.
Best for: operators, HR and people leaders, business owner groups, women-in-business programs.
See Sarah's talks
Head of Implementation.
Human. Why adoption stalls after training, and how leaders bring real people through the change.
Best for: managers and team leads, implementation teams, nonprofit and civic audiences, hands-on workshops.
See JP's talksRecognition and press
Co-founder & CEO · Keynote speaker & AI strategist · The technical angle
Melanie McGee has spent nearly 30 years at the crossroads of software engineering, AI, and workforce innovation. Long before AI entered the boardroom conversation, she was building it, developing early conversational AI agents named "Zoe" and "Skeletor" and wearable computing systems featured in Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs and Curt Harler's Beyond the Browser. She has applied that technical depth inside organizations like Tyco International and DeLorean Motor Company, and in the classroom as a former adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management.
As Founder and CEO of We Can Code IT, she helped more than 1,500 people launch careers in tech, with 90% from underrepresented groups. As Co-founder and CEO of SkillSpout, she now leads AI adoption strategy for small and mid-sized businesses, combining deep technical fluency with a Gestalt-facilitation background that keeps people at the center of every implementation. She also founded Overthink, Inc., the holding company for her AI inventions including Exocognition, her human-first agentic AI system, and serves as Chief Technology Officer of the Korda Institute for Teaching.
Named to the 2026 Cleveland 500, honored on the OhioX AI/25 list, and featured on the cover of Cleveland Magazine's Community Leader, Mel helps audiences walk away with clarity, a concrete path forward, and the confidence to lead.
What separates a real AI-powered organization from the hype, from someone who runs one.
Keynote / WorkshopA stage-based roadmap from AI curiosity to operational discipline, with people at the center.
Keynote / WorkshopLasting AI success comes from strengthening human agency, not driving adoption.
Signature keynoteWhat agentic AI means for operations, how to build secure AI infrastructure, and why this is the new literacy.
Hands-on workshopHow small and mid-sized businesses access AI strategically, secure funding, and implement with structure.
Keynote / PanelModerator, Main Stage fireside "AI and the Future of the Workforce," and co-lead of the AI for Business Leaders workshop
Guest
Panelist, "Beyond Founder-Led Sales: Building a Real Growth Engine"
Workshop, "AI on the Org Chart"
Television feature
"Ask Me Anything" webinar
"Taming AI Sprawl: From Shadow AI to Strategy"
Keynote "Agency Over Adoption," with Tri-C's CIO
Earlier talks: getWITit WitCon, Cleveland and Cincinnati 2025 · EO Cleveland "Practical AI for Business," 2024–2025 · Columbus AI Week 2024, four sessions · AI Rising 2024 · NEO Women in Tech 2024 · Columbus WITCon 2023 · Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses · Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing 2019 · getWITit IWD AI Panel 2025 · Innovate New Albany 2025 · U.S. State Department IVLP 2026 · NASA Space Apps judge 2024 · Women in Agile Columbus 2024 · Google CreateHer Fest · AITP Panel · Women Who Code Cleveland 2017
Also speaks on: Workforce Transformation for the AI Era · Navigating Career Transitions in the Age of AI · Alexa, When Will Robots Take Over the World?
Press and podcasts: GCP "Big Ideas. Bold Ventures." · FIT Technologies "What the Tech" · Ohio Tech News · Yahoo News on Innovate New Albany
Writing and teaching: The No-Hype AI Brief, LinkedIn newsletter · LinkedIn Learning, NoSQL Essential Training
Earlier honors: OhioX Trailblazer 2023 · Crain's Notable Woman in Tech 2018 · Taft Support Her Endeavors 2018 · Plain Dealer Top 10 Tech Evangelist 2017 · JumpStart Startup Scaleup 2015 · Crain's Women of Note 2014
Co-founder & COO · Operations leader & AI strategist · The operational angle
Sarah Slavik is Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of SkillSpout, where she turns an ambitious vision into an operating company: the AI systems, the team, the financial infrastructure and the client delivery model that let mid-market organizations adopt AI as a human capability rather than a technology project. She runs SkillSpout on the same agentic tooling the company teaches, which is why her sessions are about what actually changes on the org chart, in the job description and in the performance review when AI arrives.
Sarah brought two decades of operations leadership into SkillSpout, built in sectors where the stakes are high and resources are scarce, and a career pattern of moving toward harder problems at every stage. Under her direction SkillSpout has grown into the leading AI strategy and training provider in Northeast Ohio, with clients including Tri-C, ERC, the Greater Cleveland Partnership and BBB Cleveland.
Smart Business named Sarah a 2026 Smart Women Progressive Woman honoree.
AI took the predictable half of someone's job and left the hard half. Leaders pick one real person, write down what left, what stayed and what is newly required, and leave with a one-sentence accountability statement.
Workshop, 30–60 minThe skills that stay critical in an AI-powered workplace, and practical ways to build them.
Keynote / BreakoutHow people leaders move a workforce from anxiety to use, with live polling.
Webinar / PanelA plain-language foundation for frontline and member audiences, built for union, nonprofit and association rooms.
Workshop, 60 minFinance, sales ops, hiring and delivery with agents in the loop, and where the humans stay.
Keynote / FiresideMain Stage fireside "AI and the Future of the Workforce," and the AI for Business Leaders workshop
"Future Skills for Future Leaders: The Human Skills Technology Can't Replace"
Guest
"Whose Job Is It Now? The Hollowed Role Audit"
"HR's Role in AI"
"Foundations of AI for Union Women"
Panel with the Community Innovation Partnership on how cities adopt AI and write adoption policies
Head of Implementation · Facilitator · The human angle
JP Graulty is Head of Implementation at SkillSpout, where he facilitates human-first AI adoption and transformation for small and mid-sized organizations. JP is the author of Two Journeys, One Team, a framework distinguishing skills development from change navigation that is now embedded across SkillSpout's organizational adoption methodology. He facilitates AI Transformation Teams from frontline staff through presidents and CEOs at civic, nonprofit and for-profit clients across Northeast Ohio, and leads SkillSpout's team of Implementation Specialists.
JP brings extensive experience supporting nonprofit and mission-driven organizations in strengths-based approaches to organizational and community change. Case Western Reserve University honored him with its Young Alumni Award in 2019. Previously he served as Program Manager for the Community Innovation Network at Case Western Reserve University, leading a 16-project portfolio spanning asset-based community development, appreciative inquiry, civic engagement and community-engaged research. Earlier, he developed strategic community partnerships at John Carroll University and co-founded the university's first Staff of Color Employee Resource Group. He is co-author of "Toward authentic university–community engagement" (2021) in the Journal of Community Practice.
Every person in an AI rollout is on two journeys. The Skills Journey is loud and coachable. The Change Journey is quiet and doesn't respond to more training.
Keynote / WorkshopBring a laptop and one workflow you own; leave with a finished artifact and the human checkpoint written into it. Vendor-neutral, no coding.
Workshop, 2 hrsWhy the first AI cohort should cut across departments, and what the institution learns about itself when it does.
Conference sessionThe practical path from first pilot to everyday use.
KeynoteWhat stays human as the work changes, for emerging and mid-career professionals.
Keynote / PanelOpening keynote, "Implementing AI in Your Workplace"
"Human-Centered AI in a Changing World"
Two-hour workshop, "Bring One Workflow: Designing Where the Human Belongs"
"Start Wide, Not Deep"
"Beyond the Training"
A sales leader handling four times the volume. Same person, same week. The difference is what she stopped doing by hand.
Fifteen to twenty repeat questions a day, down to about ten minutes. A membership director built an assistant to do the lookup. What used to take her morning now takes ten minutes.
Eight hours a week back from meeting notes alone. One team automated the write-up and never went back.
“Learning about sustainable and actionable ways to use AI has been a game-changer for BBB Cleveland.”
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