Keynote Presentations

Connecting the Workplace and Life Through F.U.N.

Paul Long

Tuesday | 3:45 PM – 5:00 PM

Chairman’s Ballroom

What’s GOOD?! How do today’s best companies accelerate business results? By engaging their employees, celebrating all that’s GOOD and creating a culture of experience that empowers their workforce to create joy, FUN and fulfillment.

In this highly energetic and engaging keynote, Paul Long leverages his concept of "Fundamism" to empower you to make strides in improving your quality of life at home and work. When applied, these tactical behaviors are proven to create more joy, FUN and fulfillment in life while creating a culture of experience that improves customer experience and employee engagement, reduces attrition and inspires growth across nearly every performance metric.

Why does the work you have to be different than the you at home? It doesn’t! In this energetic, engaging and tactically focused keynote – from one of Informa’s 5 star keynote speakers – Paul J Long will spark your creativity by partnering together in finding ways to create more FUN at work!

About the Speaker

Paul Long is a speaker, author, podcaster and master of shenanigans – and as the former Director of Call Center Operations at Farmers Insurance he has walked in your shoes. He has developed a concept called Fundamism, simply defined as the FUNdamentals of a F.U.N. and optimistic lifestyle. When implemented, Paul’s philosophy has been proven to reduce attrition, attract great talent, improve customer experience and drive employee engagement. Paul is not only great in discussing operational growth theory, but in his corporate leadership experience he’s also seen success putting his FUNdamentals into practice.

The Best Story Wins in Business and Beyond!

Matthew Luhn

Wednesday | 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM

Chairman’s Ballroom

Storytelling is the #1 business skill necessary to connect, motivate, and lead people in today’s world. Stories compel us to engage in experiences, learn lessons, and define our values and ourselves within our organization. Matthew Luhn, former Pixar story veteran, brings his experience creating and developing 10 blockbuster films at Pixar, and provides practical strategies that teach and inspire leaders how to use the power of storytelling to get their projects and idea moving forward along with keeping their teams engaged.

In this keynote, Matthew will teach you how to:

• Communicate a unique and compelling story in one sentence to capture the attention of an audience.
• Master the five key elements of storytelling to bring facts and figures to life.
• Harness the "Universal Truths" that connect with all people.
• Pitch persuasively and inspire action.
• Keep and motivate your teams through authentic communication.

About the Speaker

Matthew Luhn is a film director, writer, and story branding consultant with over 30 years' experience creating stories and characters at Pixar Animation Studios, Netflix and beyond. Alongside his story work in Hollywood, Matthew also trains CEOs, marketing teams, directors and other professionals how to craft and tell stories for Fortune 500 companies, Academy Award winning movies and corporate brands. Matthew speaks to diverse audiences around the world within a variety of industries. His clients include Google, Adidas, Salesforce, AbbVie, and many more. Matthew’s story credits include Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, Monsters Inc., Monsters University, Finding Nemo, UP, Cars, Ratatouille and other films and TV shows currently in development.

How to Support a More Innovative, Creative and Diverse Mindset

Vital Germaine

Wednesday | 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM

Chairman’s Ballroom

In this keynote, you and your team will gain actionable tools that not only stimulate creativity and ideation but also inspire it. Vital Germaine’s PROMISE is to provide attendees with strategic yet practical takeaways that promote a more CREATIVE, expansive and diverse mindset. Through this evolved thinking, you will enhance your ability to generate novel ideas, conceive innovative concepts and embrace relevant new strategies. Vital’s approach is designed to optimize your collaboration and problem-solving skills and inspire more effective communication that leads to focused, efficient and driven teams. The end result: keeping your company relevant and competitive in today's faster-than-ever changing business climate.

About the Speaker

Vital Germaine is an international keynote speaker, consultant and corporate trainer specializing in leadership, culture and innovation. Vital was also a consultant for Cirque du Soleil’s Team Development Program called SPARK SESSIONS, and he performed in the company for over five years as an acrobat and team captain before starting several businesses. Vital inspires leaders and teams to REACH HIGHER. Each aspect of Vital’s journey as an entrepreneur, entertainer, creative director, team-building facilitator, keynote speaker and event producer, have focused on the magic of delivering memorable experiences that emotionally connect with audiences. They are designed to inspire and transform. As a a 6-time author and contributor to several publications, Vital’s presentations are dynamic, inspirational, fun, engaging and relevant. Get ready to incite action, transform, and grow from his inspiring message.

Optimizing Your Leadership Energy: Your Unmatched Advantage to Reshaping How You Lead and Succeed

Sara Ross

Thursday | 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM

Chairman’s Ballroom

We all want to put the last few years behind us, and yet, much of our world is still defined by uncertainty and change. While challenging, what is certain when looking towards the future is that the most powerful way to raise the bar of performance and get to the next level of success is to boost the collective potential of how people work together.

Based on the research and principles shared in her book, “Dear Work, something has to change,” Sara Ross, Chief Vitality Officer of the leadership research firm, BrainAmped, will leave you feeling recharged with a set of actionable strategies guaranteed to help you lead healthier, happier, high-performing teams—without burning yourself out along the way!

In this keynote, Sara will teach you how to:

• Shift leadership exhaustion to excellence by identifying and addressing the avoidable traps that are limiting your success and draining your energy.
• Embrace a stress-mindset of possibility to help you and your team work better under pressure while feeling fueled and fulfilled in the process.
• Use three game-changing leadership empowerment questions to bring the best out of others.

About the Speaker

Sara Ross is the Chief Vitality Officer at BrainAMPED, a research and strategy firm dedicated to redefining how we succeed at work and thrive in life by sharing brain-based, vitality-enhancing strategies to create healthier, happier, high performing leaders and workplaces. Before founding her company, Sara spent a decade with the Institute for Health and Human Potential, formerly serving as their Vice President and Global Head of Leadership Innovation. Balancing relevance and practicality with contagious energy, Sara integrates cutting-edge science with real-life stories of success and failures. Her approach is guaranteed to challenge the status quo, provide new insights and inspiration, and most importantly, leave audiences with a blueprint of actionable strategies.

Tomorrow’s IT - Driving ROI, Not Costs

Christopher Savio

Thursday, May 4 | 8:30 AM – 10:00 PM

Chairman’s Ballroom

IT organizations continue to grow and evolve from necessary cost centers to integral, strategic business partners, and with today’s economic uncertainty, being a strategic business partner frequently means finding ways to deliver greater ROI (or cost savings) for a business. As a cornerstone for many company initiatives, IT leaders are well positioned to answer this call. Join this session as we discuss tactics that IT leaders can take within their own teams and throughout the organization to help reduce overhead, streamline processes, drive productivity, and enhance employee satisfaction – resulting in positive impact across many company KPIs.

About the Speaker

With a diverse career background from consulting to product management, Chris helps shape product direction; and supports the development and implementation of the go-to-market plans for customers- and employee-facing engagement and support offerings. He’s passionate about using customer-centric research and insights to help push forward strategic decisions and product innovations. 

Build a Momentum Mindset®: How to Be More Adaptable, Resilient and Ready for What’s Next in a Rapidly Changing World

Kim Becking

Friday, May 5 | 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Chairman’s Ballroom

Change, uncertainty, and disruption are guaranteed – especially now. But growth and progress are not. Change will continue at a more accelerated pace than ever before. Are you ready? How you deal with this ever-changing uncertain world is completely up to you. You have a choice. Your people have a choice. Your organizations have a choice. You can stay stuck or develop a Momentum Mindset so that you can become more adaptable, resilient, connected, and ready for what’s next.

Kim shares her own stories of resilience in life and business with healthy doses of vulnerability, humor, and motivation and will empower you to redefine resilience and reframe change. It’s time to build a Momentum Mindset to push past limited thinking and use challenges, change, and uncertainty as the fuel needed to propel you forward – stronger and better than before.

Leave this program equipped with the tools you need to transform your mindset to think differently, conquer change and challenges, build more connections, and create the everyday resilience required in this rapidly changing complex world to build MOMENTUM no matter what.

About the Speaker

Kim Becking, J.D. is on a mission to empower leaders, teams, and organizations to build a Momentum Mindset® to be more adaptable, resilient, and ready for what’s next in this rapidly changing world. As a leading thought leader on thriving in the midst of change, you might have seen her on Good Morning America or read about her in Harvard Business Review, People magazine, or the New York Times. She is an engaging, high-energy, and impactful international keynote speaker, human behavior expert, best-selling author, consultant, cancer thriver, recovering attorney, and a proud Thin Mint girl scout addict. Her strategic insights and practical solutions to adapting to change and boosting resilience have been utilized by hundreds of happy clients – including Fortune 100 companies, national and statewide associations, healthcare organizations, governmental entities, and non-profit organizations. Kim provides practical tools and strategies for leaders and teams to effectively master change, be more adaptable, strengthen their resilience muscle and build MOMENTUM for what’s next. After hearing Kim, audiences leave ready to take her relatable lessons and practical solutions and put them into immediate action.