The Guideleaders Difference:
Guideleaders is an Authorized, MIT-Professional Education Corporate Partner that Supports Small Groups to Succeed in AI Mastery through Small Group Cohorts.
MIT-Professional Education 8-Week Course in Agentic AI for Organizational Transformation Provides World-Class Instruction, Weekly Office Hours/Lectures, and Requires 8-10 Hours a Weekly Study. Learners Should Expect to Maintain Their Synchronous (live) On-Line Coursework/Assignments in Pace with 1,000+ Other Online-Students, as Well as Completion of a Personal "Capstone Project" and Presentation Upload. MIT-Professional Education will then Issue You an Agentic AI Course Certificate -- Itself a Valuable Demonstration of AI Mastery.
But without a Campus, Classroom of Students, and Instructional Projector/Tools, Learning Alone Can Be Hard -- Especially for an MIT-Level Course in AI.
As a Social Impact Company, Guideleaders was Founded to Connect Remote Learners with Local Coaches and Colleagues (Like a Coached Learning Circle).
Guideleaders Curates a Group Experience Through Workshops, Break-Out Sessions, and Capstone Project Discussions Designed for Each Person to Succeed.
Meet Your Guideleaders Coach
Julie Nikolaieff
Join Julie Nikolaieff (Being Ready AI) — transformation leader and certified MindStudio AI Agent Builder — for a practical, hands-on weekly Guideleaders workshops to accompany the MIT-Professional Education Course "Applied Agentic AI for Organizational Transformation" in person- and hybrid-cohort starting in synch with the MIT course starting January 27th through March 26.
Julie's practical, hand-on approach seeks to enhance the MIT-Professional Education course with activities that include:
✨ Live demos that show what an AI Agent can really do
🧩 Employing the People Champion AI Toolkit; a starter set of Agents that support change, communication, learning, and adoption
🚀 Support your MIT Agentic AI MIT Course Project with no code required
💡 Experience Julie's confident systems change career approach to organizational transformation. She brings our Cohort the know-how and real-life tools to help each Guideleaders learner build AI momentum across your team or organization.
Come curious. Leave capable. Lead change with AI.
Julie's Profile: "My background spans enterprise‑scale change, performance management, incentive compensation, Total Rewards readiness, HR and Workday transformations, and regulatory governance. At Wells Fargo, I led initiatives impacting 100,000+ employees, including a regulatory‑driven incentive plan acknowledgment tool with 92%+ first‑year adoption. I create playbooks, guides, communications, and training that make complex policies understandable, actionable, and consistent across large organizations. Today, my focus is using that same program and change discipline to design and deploy AI‑enabled workflows, training, and communities in regulated environments.
I bring modern AI expertise as a Certified MindStudio Level 3 AI Agent Builder, designing CustomGPTs, AI agents, and workflow enhancements that streamline decision‑making and elevate the enablement experience. I’ve completed Section’s ProfAI, AI Builder, and CustomGPT programs and am recognized by Microsoft as a Co‑Learning Champion in their AI Community Learning Program, reflecting a sustained focus on practical, applied AI enablement rather than hype.
🧠 Key Expertise
* AI Transformation & Change Leadership
* AI Agent Builder & Agentic Workflows
* AI Training & Enablement Design (Workshops, Toolkits, Playbooks)
* Total Rewards / Compensation Enablement & Readiness
* Enterprise Adoption Strategy & Communication
* Program & Project Management (Agile/Waterfall)
* Human Capital Strategy & Governance
* Stakeholder Engagement & Influence without Authority
* MindStudio Ambassador & AI Agent Builder
* AI‑Focused Online Academy & Course Architect
Julie's practical, hand-on approach seeks to enhance the MIT-Professional Education course with activities that include:
✨ Live demos that show what an AI Agent can really do
🧩 Employing the People Champion AI Toolkit; a starter set of Agents that support change, communication, learning, and adoption
🚀 Support your MIT Agentic AI MIT Course Project with no code required
💡 Experience Julie's confident systems change career approach to organizational transformation. She brings our Cohort the know-how and real-life tools to help each Guideleaders learner build AI momentum across your team or organization.
Come curious. Leave capable. Lead change with AI.
Julie's Profile: "My background spans enterprise‑scale change, performance management, incentive compensation, Total Rewards readiness, HR and Workday transformations, and regulatory governance. At Wells Fargo, I led initiatives impacting 100,000+ employees, including a regulatory‑driven incentive plan acknowledgment tool with 92%+ first‑year adoption. I create playbooks, guides, communications, and training that make complex policies understandable, actionable, and consistent across large organizations. Today, my focus is using that same program and change discipline to design and deploy AI‑enabled workflows, training, and communities in regulated environments.
I bring modern AI expertise as a Certified MindStudio Level 3 AI Agent Builder, designing CustomGPTs, AI agents, and workflow enhancements that streamline decision‑making and elevate the enablement experience. I’ve completed Section’s ProfAI, AI Builder, and CustomGPT programs and am recognized by Microsoft as a Co‑Learning Champion in their AI Community Learning Program, reflecting a sustained focus on practical, applied AI enablement rather than hype.
🧠 Key Expertise
* AI Transformation & Change Leadership
* AI Agent Builder & Agentic Workflows
* AI Training & Enablement Design (Workshops, Toolkits, Playbooks)
* Total Rewards / Compensation Enablement & Readiness
* Enterprise Adoption Strategy & Communication
* Program & Project Management (Agile/Waterfall)
* Human Capital Strategy & Governance
* Stakeholder Engagement & Influence without Authority
* MindStudio Ambassador & AI Agent Builder
* AI‑Focused Online Academy & Course Architect
Meet Guideleaders Founder/Coach
Mike Smiles
Mike Smiles has been a career nonprofit community builder and social impact leader helping to advance outcome through education, hands-on programming, exhibitions, and cultural arts. Mike is pictured with community leaders of the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya in 2024, where he supported its 400,000 Instagram followers and 11,000 donors as Chief Development Officer. In 2025, Mike has returned to Vermont-based entrepreneurship where he has recently been supporting teams of Champlain College students complete their Capstone Courses aligned with their careers, life choices, and creativity.
As a life-long learner, Mike received his MBA credentials free-of-charge from employe benefit programs at Mystic Seaport Museum and Union College. With the arrival of MOOC (massively online open coursework) at Harvard and MIT, Mike established Guideleaders in 2018 to support learning teams seeking local cohorts to conduct projects and build independent learning goals. With Generative AI and Agentic AI breakthroughs, Mike sees Guideleaders as a low-cost, high-impact learning accelerator to reduce college/post-graduate tuition while empowering small cohorts to embrace AI for personal creativity, entrepreneurship, and organizational transformation.
His welcoming personality, artistic approach, and ability to take special interest in each person has left a lasting impression on organizational staff, donors, leaders, and students. Mike is currently working on social impact projects through SmilesStudio.Net and designing experiences through Guideleaders, LLC, he founded in 2018 to advance outcomes for remote learners.
J. Michael Smiles, MBA
MBA, Non-Profit Leadership, University of New Haven
B.A., Inaugural Recipient, Blue Skies Award, Beloit College
Areas of expertise: Non-Profit Strategic Planning, Personal Growth, Arts Instruction, and Hand-On Learning Education Programs.
As a life-long learner, Mike received his MBA credentials free-of-charge from employe benefit programs at Mystic Seaport Museum and Union College. With the arrival of MOOC (massively online open coursework) at Harvard and MIT, Mike established Guideleaders in 2018 to support learning teams seeking local cohorts to conduct projects and build independent learning goals. With Generative AI and Agentic AI breakthroughs, Mike sees Guideleaders as a low-cost, high-impact learning accelerator to reduce college/post-graduate tuition while empowering small cohorts to embrace AI for personal creativity, entrepreneurship, and organizational transformation.
His welcoming personality, artistic approach, and ability to take special interest in each person has left a lasting impression on organizational staff, donors, leaders, and students. Mike is currently working on social impact projects through SmilesStudio.Net and designing experiences through Guideleaders, LLC, he founded in 2018 to advance outcomes for remote learners.
J. Michael Smiles, MBA
MBA, Non-Profit Leadership, University of New Haven
B.A., Inaugural Recipient, Blue Skies Award, Beloit College
Areas of expertise: Non-Profit Strategic Planning, Personal Growth, Arts Instruction, and Hand-On Learning Education Programs.