The 17th Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium brought together industry leaders, academics and students on May 17 for a full day of presentations, dialogue and networking. Hosted by the Naveen Jindal School of Management in collaboration with PM World Journal, the 2025 symposium balanced timeless leadership lessons with timely conversations about technology, risk and ethics.
“My favorite word in the world is teamwork,” said keynote speaker Pam Dukes, who connected her athletic background to core project management values. She emphasized that the skills she developed as a team athlete directly translated into her leadership approach in professional settings. “I’ve been doing all this since third grade. Then I did it in college, then I did it after college, and then when I retired from track, guess what? I was doing this.”
Dukes, a former Olympic shot-putter and longtime project management professional, shared her journey from New Jersey schoolgirl to Stanford scholar-athlete to White House guest. Along the way, she emphasized the connection between competitive athletics and core project management skills.
“I had to listen to my teammates, I had to communicate well with them…,” she said. “I had to have a self-awareness … I had to have social awareness of what was going on, how to treat the other people, empathy, all of it.”
Her experiences brought to life the PMI Talent Triangle — a professional development framework emphasizing balanced expertise in ways of working, power skills, and business acumen.
Another keynote speaker, Mohamed Charkas, executive vice president of infrastructure and development at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, focused on innovation and sustainability.
“When we talk about DFW, we are in the top three categories — passengers, operations and size,” Charkas said. “… We have the responsibility to decrease our carbon footprint and make sure whatever we build is not harmful to the environment and also long lasting for future generations to come.”
Charkas highlighted the airport’s use of digital twins — virtual replicas of a physical asset or system that uses real-time data to simulate, monitor and optimize performance — and the airport’s commitment to meeting zero-emission targets a full two decades ahead of global benchmarks.
“As of today, we are well underway to achieve that goal by 2030, and even ahead,” he said.
He also touched on the human side of infrastructure.
“We are investing in our human resources, our team members … all our members … will be certified through Project Management Institute or CMAA,” he said.
For attendee Karen Pina, quality assurance manager at DFW Airport, the event delivered both strategic insights and personal pride.
“I was stoked,” she said. “I did not realize our EVP, Charkas, was going to be here doing a presentation. There are some of the statistics and some of the things that we’ve achieved that I didn’t know the metrics behind it. So this presentation was very valuable to me because I’ll be able to help bring more quality to my team.”
Jeremy Busby, director of consultancy services for Gresham Smith, discussed the relational core of project success. He urged attendees to recognize the difference between complicated problems and complex ones.
“If you try to treat people, try to solve them like a process, you’ll just have an incomplete picture of what success really looks like on the project team,” he said. “And you’re probably going to have people work on your project team that’s going to have divergent goals and maybe even competing priorities … You’re not trying to solve people; you’re really trying to manage them.”
That focus on human factors extended into the symposium’s Ethics Panel, where panelists tackled questions drawn from real workplace dilemmas. David Pells, managing editor of PM World Journal; Brett Border, general manager of Epiroc Drilling Solutions; and Dr. Joe Carson, a project management office leader with experience across a broad spectrum of industries and a past president of the PMI Dallas chapter. Stephen Fierbaugh, North American project portfolio manager at Epiroc, was the moderator.
“I think it’s important to understand the whole concept of ethics is based off of the “feel good” and how are you treating others,” Carson said. “So if you want to be fair to people …you should give them the opportunity to do that.”
One prompt asked whether a struggling junior team member should be allowed to work alone on a weekend. The panel’s consensus was clear: no.
“Under no circumstances should he be there alone,” Pells said. “He’s already under stress… and that’s what you have to be wary of. As a leader of a group like that, you should see that ahead of time … But I think it’s critical that the leader of that team knows the effect that this project and the stress of that project is having on the team.”
Financial ethics were also discussed. When asked about a $250 million project tracked solely on QuickBooks and spreadsheets, Border responded by emphasizing that a project that large would never have one person handling that amount of finances.
“Now, if you’ve got a smaller project and somebody’s doing all the books and it’s pretty common maybe for a smaller company, then it’s also a very silly and unstable financial situation for the organization,” he said.
After the panel, Pells noted a shift in tone at the symposium this year.
“It’s compressed into one day… but perhaps higher-quality papers this year,” he said. “I attended two papers about artificial intelligence… and I’m learning a little bit about governance.”
Pells highlighted the growing ethical challenge of AI-generated content.
“Some AI results will be biased or will be based on incorrect data,” he said. “You can’t be making decisions based on bad information.”
As in years past, the symposium served as both a networking and learning opportunity.
“The conference was put together very well,” Pina added. “Lots of diverse opinions, but always back to the basic structure of project management.”
The final keynote of the day came from Dr. Suzette Plaisance Bryan, a lecturer in the Jindal School’s Executive Education programs who delivered an interactive and research-driven talk that ranged from the power of having a growth mindset to the unique challenges faced by project-management leaders.
“You have to be technically proficient, but you also have to have very good leadership skills,” she said, drawing connections to the PMI Talent Triangle — a fundamental set of skills recommended by the organization: diverse understanding of ways of working, power skills, which include empathy collaborative leadership and communication, and business acumen.
Bryan said leaders can shape organizational culture through their mindset and that it can create cascading effects for the entire team.
“You can actually create a team with growth mindset or you can create a team with fixed mindset because everybody is watching,” she said.
Anna Ladipo, an associate professor of practice in the Jindal School’s Executive Education programs and academic director of its Project Management Programs, said the UT Dallas Project Management Symposium is a powerful example of how the Jindal School blends academic rigor with industry relevance.
“By bringing together top professionals, faculty, and students for deep, real-time engagement on leadership, ethics, and innovation, we create a learning experience that’s both practical and transformative,” she said. “This symposium doesn’t just showcase thought leadership — it cultivates it, reinforcing our commitment to developing project managers who are strategic, ethical, and future-ready. That’s what sets our program apart from other business schools.”
Next up on the schedule for the Project Management Programs will be the UT Dallas PM Virtual Conference, also in collaboration with PM World Journal. Registration is open for the Oct. 24 event that will feature prominent experts in Project Management from around the world.
