The Autonomous Project Manager: A New Era of Leadership

Project management is accelerating toward a new frontier. By 2030, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs), AI, and smart cities will create ecosystems where everything talks to everything—fully automated, interconnected, and fast-moving. What kind of project leadership will thrive in this space? Certainly not the methods of yesterday.

Enter the Autonomous Project Manager: not a robot, but a visionary leader who blends human judgment, influence, and AI-enabled workflows to deliver with speed and confidence. This keynote equips participants with practical tools to lead in today’s complexity while preparing for tomorrow’s autonomous future. Attendees gain a five-lever playbook—clarity, cadence, constraints, co-creative innovation, and coaching—plus strategies for risk sensing, stakeholder mapping, and meeting compression. Don’t just witness the future; grab the wheel and steer it.

Take-a-ways:

Identify essential skills for the "Autonomous Project Manager":

• Master the "triple threat" role: teacher-fixer-orchestrator of CAV and smart city projects.
• Technological expertise - CAVs, AI, and smart city infrastructure.
• Problem-solving and critical thinking.
• Strong communication and leadership.
• Discuss strategies for navigating project complexities:
• Collaborating effectively with autonomous teams.
• Integrating AI tools and automation.
• Addressing ethical considerations and potential biases in AI.

Learning objectives:

1. Apply a 5-lever autonomy model to reduce decision latency.
2. Use AI ethically to improve planning, risk sensing, and communication.
3. De-escalate “difficult people” scenarios with influence scripts.
4. Anticipate how fully autonomous ecosystems (CAVs, smart cities, AI systems) will redefine project leadership.

 

Benjamin C. Anyacho, MBA, PMP, DMin — DSL Candidate (2027)

Benjamin C. Anyacho is an award-winning, consummate project portfolio strategist, innovator, knowledge management (KM) evangelist, and curiosity-activator whose career spans over two decades of results-driven leadership, with a mission to mentor one million leaders. Currently serving as a Senior Strategic Management Analyst with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), he has architected enterprise programs that reshape how organizations learn, innovate, and lead.

At TxDOT, Benjamin pioneered the enterprise Project Management Development Program, mentoring hundreds of professionals and certifying over 100 Project Management Professionals (PMPs). His design and leadership of the Innovation Academy have equipped more than 170 innovators, while the Elite Innovation Academy drives ideas from concept through prototyping to scalable enterprise solutions. His enterprise Knowledge Management Program—lauded nationally and adopted by AASHTO and TRB—transformed collaborative learning into a recognized institutional strength.

In 2018, Benjamin served as the charismatic President of the PMI Austin Chapter, guiding a board of 60+ leaders to elevate membership by 400, double offerings, and drive the chapter’s Net Promoter Score from 6.5 to 8.7, with 97% customer satisfaction. His dynamic leadership positioned the chapter as a model of excellence, earning global recognition.

As a member of the Board of Trustees at Juliana King University (Houston), Benjamin helped engineer a 300% increase in doctoral program enrollment and was later honored with an Honorary Doctorate in Organizational Leadership. His influence extends globally through his teaching, mentoring, and thought leadership, as well as his acclaimed books, The Knowledge Café and Knowledge Ethics. A PMP®-certified professional with an MBA in Global Business and a Doctor of Strategic Leadership (DSL, 2027 in progress), Benjamin combines academic depth with pragmatic execution. His intellectual energy, servant-leadership ethos, and gift for mobilizing people and ideas make him a trusted architect of transformation in government, nonprofits, academia, and industry. He lives in Austin with his wife, Dr. Precious, and their two teenage children, Ben and Amara.

 

Buffet Dinner, Water, Coffee, Tea Alcoholic drinks and soda available for purchase (cash only).