Carole Rickard Hedden is president of The Write Stuff and Aviation Week’s Special Projects Editor. In this role she is responsible for Aviation Week’s annual Workforce Study research and editorial product, and she leads Aviation Week’s Program Management /Leadership initiative. In addition, she is the lead for Aviation Week’s Executive Roundtables and Summit.

The Aviation Week Program/Leadership initiative was launched in 2005 to develop bench strength across the industry in program leadership and skills. The initiative combines identification of programs that are performing, evaluating what the program teams and their leaders are doing to overcome issues and challenges, and then share these lessons learned across the industry through a multi-media effort. Carole is responsible for developing evaluation criteria, facilitating the Evaluation board comprised of industry and government program management executives, and development of the lessons learned strategy.

Nan Bouchard is vice president of Program Management for Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS). Named to this position in January 2010, her responsibilities include developing and promoting the use of program management best practices, providing training for program leaders, performing independent assessments of BDS programs, and participating in proposal reviews to ensure strong start-up plans for new programs.

Bouchard oversees the implementation of Lean+ continuous improvement activities in BDS, as well as program export compliance, process management, and performance measurement. Bouchard also serves as the Southern California regional executive for BDS, participating in California state and local government activities and providing leadership to Boeing's Global Corporate Citizenship efforts in the community.

Mike Adami-Sampson, vice president of product strategy for Aerospace and Defense solutions for Dassault Systemes influences the optimal performance of the company's global customer base by understanding their business strategies and aligning ENOVIA PLM solutions to those requirements.  Adami-Sampson was a founder of Adra Systems which became MatrixOne and acquired by Dassault Systemes in 2006. 

Adami-Sampson has over 20 years in the aerospace industry, working for Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford, Connecticut and BAE SYSTEMS in Warton, England.  His primary roles have been in structures design, composites R&D and PLM design and management. He brings his experience in aerospace engineering to Dassault Systems continuing his role of translating customer needs into product requirements.

Mike leads the development, production, and support of Predator and Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft and their associated systems.  He joined General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in 1999 as a technical program manager and has led multiple MQ-1 Predator and Ground Control Station upgrades, as well as the MQ-9 Reaper program from first prototype to current full-up production configuration.
 
Prior to joining General Atomics, Mike was an engineer with Boeing Military Aircraft, Sundstrand Pneumatics and Lockheed Skunk Works. He has worked on multiple aircraft programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter, B-2 Spirit, F-15, YF-22 and P-3 where he created and developed production-ready electromechanical systems for weapons delivery, landing gear, flight controls and avionics/environmental control.