Let’s Talk About It - Getting Comfortable with Uncomfortable Conversations

Stephanie Garcia

This session is designed to equip leaders with tools and techniques to handle difficult conversations with empathy, clarity, and confidence. Through interactive activities and practical strategies, participants will learn how to navigate challenging discussions, build stronger relationships, and achieve better outcomes.

From Program to Product - Reinventing Talent Development with a Customer-First Mindset

Andrew Addington

• Explain the core principles of the product mindset and how they apply to modern talent development.
• Use Voice of Customer techniques to validate talent development needs and gather early feedback on solutions before launch.
• Design talent development initiatives using a product development approach.

Embedding AI Literacy As An Organization-Wide Must-Have Core Communication Skill

Terri Turner

This session reimagines AI literacy as a core communication skill that no longer stays siloed with your IT people. Instead, communicating with AI becomes a skill for every leader, trainer, and team member shaping how people connect and collaborate.

Participants will learn to engage with AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity using the same skills that drive effective human communication: clarity, self-awareness, and ethical intent.

We’ll introduce a practical five-part framework (RCRQQ) for prompt design, show how voice, tone, and outcome-thinking enhance human-bot interaction, and explore how to develop policy-aligned, people-centered approaches to AI use across teams.

Walk away ready to integrate AI literacy into communication training, equip others to do the same, and lead a culture of thoughtful, skillful AI engagement.

11:00 - Noon

Leading at the Pace of Rapid Change (Without Leaving Anyone Behind!)

Nathan Magnuson

A leader’s skill in leading change is the greatest factor in determining the outcome. Change is often challenging and complicated, even when positive. When leaders bring clarity, empathy and support to the change process, everyone wins. In this session, participants will learn the steps of effectively leading change, assess their ability to lead change and create a positive approach for communicating and reinforcing change.

A New Hope for L&D: Using Play to Build Your Rebel Alliance

Jeff Harry

The corporate Empire wasn’t built to prioritize Learning and development. It thrives on hierarchy, bureaucracy, and keeping training teams in the shadows. But every rebellion starts with a spark. In this high-energy, play-powered session, you’ll learn how to challenge the status quo, make leadership finally recognize your value, and build a coalition of allies who advocate for L&D. Through improvisation, strategic role-play, and rebellion-worthy persuasion techniques, you’ll transform your training sessions into recruitment grounds for your cause. No longer just trainers—you’ll be architects of a new learning movement where advocacy, engagement, and influence thrive. It’s time to stop waiting for permission and start rewriting the rules. Join the Rebellion and ignite change, one playful disruption at a time.

With DEI initiatives being cut, training budgets shrinking, and CEOs prioritizing "masculine" leadership over empathy and compassion, L&D teams are feeling the pressure. Once seen as essential, they now have to fight to justify their value. It’s time to stop waiting for validation and start advocating for ourselves. If we want real change, we need to be our own biggest champions.

An L&D Imperative: Normalizing Radical Inclusion & Belonging

Curtis Williams

• Shift from personal biases to effective, evidence-based practices by applying principles of instructional design and facilitation.
• Translate key concepts of inclusion and belonging into practical, actionable behaviors as a steward of learning and development.
• Evaluate and rethink tools, approaches, and learner engagement strategies to promote psychological safety across learning environments.

1:15 - 2:15

From First Impressions to Full Integration - Navigating the Human Side of Organizational Onboarding

Dr. Jordan Atkinson

• Understand the key phases of organizational socialization—anticipatory and encounter—and how communication shapes employee expectations, adaptation, and identity.
• Explore strategies organizations can use to reduce uncertainty and support meaningful membership negotiation during the onboarding process.
• Apply insights from structuration theory to recognize how new employees exercise agency within the structures of organizational life—and how talent professionals can empower that agency for successful assimilation.

From Scrappy to Strategic - Systematizing Your Small Business for Sustainable Growth

Jesse Favre

• Reflect on mindset shifts needed to transition from reactive problem-solving to intentional, strategic leadership.
• Evaluate areas of your business that rely on unsustainable work patterns.
• Collaboratively identify and prioritize improvement ideas to support sustainable business growth.