Meet our Emcee
Nina Sossamon-Pogue is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, bestselling author, and former Emmy-winning television news anchor who brings clarity, energy, and credibility to every stage she steps on. With a career spanning elite athletics, broadcast journalism, and corporate leadership, Nina knows how to engage audiences, manage complex programs, and keep events moving with confidence and warmth. Known for her emotional intelligence and ability to read a room in real time, she adapts seamlessly to audience energy, timing, and tone. Blending her signature science-backed resilience framework with decades of live TV experience, she creates connection, elevates speakers, and keeps audiences fully engaged. Whether delivering a keynote or emceeing an event, Nina brings professionalism and authenticity so that every moment feels purposeful and is memorable.
Meet our Speakers
The Unexpected Power of Boundaries
We’ve been told that innovation requires “thinking outside the box” but what if that mindset is actually holding us back? In this energizing keynote, bestselling author and innovation strategist Sheri Jacobs challenges conventional wisdom by showing why innovation thrives not in unlimited freedom, but within clear boundaries.
Learning objectives
Reframe boundaries as strategic tools that enable creativity, innovation, and smarter risk-taking.
Evaluate their team’s risk tolerance and identify the conditions needed to support meaningful experimentation.
Apply practical strategies to build a culture where clear constraints fuel progress rather than limit possibility.
The Presence Formula
In today’s influence-driven environment, leadership presence is one of the most powerful—and most overlooked—tools leaders have. In this compelling keynote, Michelle delivers a clear, actionable framework for strengthening presence through authenticity, confidence, and purpose. Blending storytelling, humor, and research-backed insights, she shows leaders how presence—not position—builds trust, deepens connection, and drives meaningful impact across teams, members, and stakeholders.
Learning objectives
Strengthen leadership presence by applying the core elements of authenticity, confidence, and purpose.
Build trust, engagement, and connection with members, teams, and stakeholders through intentional presence.
Lead with greater influence by communicating and modeling purpose-driven leadership at every level.
Humans + AI: Unlocking Collective Genius
AI isn’t just changing how we work, it’s exposing which organizations are actually evolving and which are falling behind. In this high-impact session, Frankie Russo challenges the biggest misconception about AI: that it’s about efficiency. It’s not. AI is a multiplier. Unfortunately, in many organizations, it’s amplifying misalignment instead of the collective genius.
The breakthroughs from AI aren’t missing, they’re just happening in silos. The winners won’t have better tech. They’ll be the ones who align their people and multiply their collective genius into real advantage.
Learning objectives
Identify What Your Organization Is Multiplying - See where AI is amplifying misalignment, and where it can be harnessed to multiply collective genius instead.
Unlock the Collective Genius of Your Team - Surface and align the thinking and experimentation already happening across your organization.
Turn Momentum Into Scalable Growth - Use a simple framework to move from isolated AI breakthroughs to coordinated execution.
The Presence Formula
Success doesn’t make things easier. It raises the stakes. Each new level brings opportunity, along with doubt, pressure, and fear.
In this keynote, inspired by her Wall Street Journal bestseller Wonderhell and viral TED talk, Laura Gassner Otting challenges the myth that growth should feel comfortable. It doesn’t. Every new level brings a new devil.
After interviewing more than 100 high achievers, Laura reveals a powerful insight: the emotions we feel at moments of growth aren’t warnings to stop. They’re invitations to move forward.
The people who thrive aren’t the ones who avoid discomfort. They’re the ones who use it as fuel for what’s next.
Learning Objectives
Reframe Growth Signals
See fear and doubt as indicators of progress, not barriers.Move Through Discomfort
Learn how top performers navigate high-pressure moments without stalling.Turn Pressure into Progress
Apply simple strategies to keep growing instead of holding back.
The Relationship Advantage
In a time when people are more selective, teams and volunteers are stretched thin, and loyalty can’t be assumed, the real advantage isn’t more programs or better pitches. It’s stronger relationships.
Learning Objectives:
Understand why relationships are the single greatest driver of influence, revenue, retention, and renewal, and why leadership and sales both rise or fall based on the strength of those relationships.
Identify where they are assuming trust, loyalty, or engagement instead of intentionally building it, and learn how to strengthen relationships with members, boards, teams, and volunteers before performance, culture, or retention suffers.
Apply a relationship-first approach to leadership and sales, using authenticity and intentional connection to create buy-in, long-term loyalty, and momentum without relying on pressure, scripts, or constant persuasion.
Push with Purpose
Push with Purpose reminds us that failing is a part of the growth process. It reminds us that when you know your why, you can endure the grind, lead under pressure, and keep pushing forward no matter the obstacle.
Learning Objectives:
Identify the relationship between purpose, and sustained performance under pressure.
Apply practical strategies to align daily decisions and behaviors with a clearly defined purpose in high-stress or challenging environments.
Evaluate how intentional effort and disciplined action can improve resilience, accountability, and leadership effectiveness.
Framing the Future
We live in an era of relentless change, where technologies, markets, and expectations are shifting faster than most strategic plans can accommodate. In our new world of work, organizations won’t fail because leaders lack vision. They will fail because they get stuck managing today's urgency while losing sight of tomorrow's opportunity. The leaders who thrive won’t be the ones who react fastest; they will be the ones who frame the future most clearly.
Learning Objectives:
Build a human-plus-machine leadership model that leverages the unique strengths of both, creating organizations that are faster, smarter, and more adaptable.
Recognize the power of small-t transformations, the incremental, often overlooked shifts that compound over time and signal where the biggest changes are actually headed.
Develop the capacity to work across competing time horizons simultaneously, balancing near-term execution with long-range strategic positioning.
Make It Matter
Leaders are asking how to get more out of people, when the better question is how to help people feel like they truly matter. When people feel valued and essential, wellbeing improves, engagement deepens, and performance follows. People don’t give their best because they’re managed, they give their best because they know they matter.
Learning Objectives:
Illuminate what’s at stake for individuals when people no longer feel seen or valued at work and how this directly impacts engagement, culture, and performance.
Strengthen how people relate to one another, by recognizing the moments that build trust, empathy, and connection on teams.
Shape the future of culture and values, applying The Mattering Mindset™ to create organizations where people feel valued, aligned, and motivated to contribute their best together.