At this year’s Annual Celebration, happening June 11-13th in Provo, we’re excited to welcome a slate of amazing guests for our special keynote panel. Here’s who you can expect to see at AC 2026:
- Rev. Elder Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey is an ordained minister, dynamic public educator, and pioneering advocate for marginalized communities. She made history as the first transgender person of color to serve in a leadership role at the Human Rights Campaign. With a background in public health and education, she advances equity through national policy, public speaking, and faith-based activism. Ordained through The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries (TFAM), she is a Privilege-of-Call candidate with the Southeast Conference of the UCC and now serves as Minister for Congregational Leadership with the Faith INFO team of the UCC’s National Ministries. A proud mother and grandmother, her work embodies justice, inclusion, and compassionate leadership.
- Margaret (Meg) Wheatley, Ed. D began caring about the world’s peoples in 1966, as a Peace Corps volunteer in post-war Korea. In many different roles–speaker, teacher, consultant, advisor, formal leader—she acts from the unshakable conviction that leaders must learn how to invoke people’s inherent generosity, creativity and need for community. As this world tears us apart, sane leadership on behalf of the human spirit is the only way forward. Since 1973, Meg has taught, consulted, and advised an unusually broad variety of organizations on all continents (except Antarctica). Her clients and audiences range from the head of the U.S. Army to twelve-year-old Girl Scouts, from CEOs and government ministers to small town ministers, from large universities to rural aboriginal villages. Meg received her doctorate in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University, her Masters in Media Ecology with Neil Postman from N.Y.U. , and her Bachelor’s from the University of Rochester (with a year’s study at University College London). She has been honored for her ground-breaking work by many professional associations, universities, and organizations. She has authored thirteen books, from the classic Leadership and the New Science (1992, 1n 21 languages) to Who Do We Choose To Be: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity (2017, 2023) and Restoring Sanity: Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity, and Kindness in Ourselves and Our Organizations (2024). Her most creative work (2020 with Jerry Granelli) is an audio and book, The Warrior’s Songline, a Journey into Warriorship Guided by Voice And Sound. Since 2015, she has been training leaders and activists from more than 35 countries as Warriors for the Human Spirit, an in-depth training program and path of service supported by a robust global community.
- Dr. Astrid S. Tuminez (pronounced too-MEE-nez) was appointed the seventh president of Utah Valley University in 2018. Born in a farming village in the Philippine province of Iloilo, she moved with her parents and siblings to the slums of Iloilo City when she was 2 years old, her parents seeking better educational opportunities for their children. Her pursuit of education eventually took her to the United States, where she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and Russian literature from Brigham Young University (1986). She later earned a master’s degree from Harvard University in Soviet Studies (1988) and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in political science (1996). Before UVU, President Tuminez was an executive at Microsoft, where she led corporate, external, and legal affairs in Southeast Asia. She also served as vice dean of research at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She has worked in philanthropy and venture capital in New York City and is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of Russian Nationalism Since 1856: Ideology and the Making of Foreign Policy and many other publications. She and her husband, Jeffrey S. Tolk, have three children. In her spare time, she enjoys running, dancing, and traveling.
Again, please register for Annual Celebration by June 4th. Want to be a helper at the event? Check out this list of volunteer needs. Looking for important docs for the Business Meeting? Find all of them here.
