Marketing Leadership Summit

Morning Sweatworking

5K NOLA Run

Breakfast

General Session

Summit Opener

Joy is Your Operating System

Senior leaders are carrying more than most people can see. Pressure, uncertainty, expectations and the quiet belief that they are supposed to have all the answers can slowly pull them away from themselves. In this interactive conversation, Sheryl Raphael Whitaker challenges the idea that joy is soft, optional or reserved for easier seasons. Instead, she explores joy as an operating system and leadership infrastructure- an internal foundation that allows leaders to operate with greater clarity, courage, humanity and connection under pressure. Through reflection, conversation and Sheryl’s unexpected approach to the inner critic, participants will examine what may be running their leadership beneath the surface, reconnect with the person behind the title, and consider what changes when fear no longer gets to drive.

Say It Out Loud

Ask a room of senior marketers what's next and you get a dozen honest answers: a side business, a passion project, a new chapter, or a better version of the job they already have. Erin shares how she built her Martha's Vineyard event in her off hours, financial leap included. Then the room goes town hall: name what you're building, what you're dreaming about, and what's holding you back, and let peers help you take the first step.

Six Months Ago I Was Scared Too

Everyone in this room has been told AI will transform their work, and most have been handed a locked-down tool and a deadline instead. So the fear is reasonable: that everyone else has figured something out, that you're already behind, that the gap is too wide to close. John Gelb built his way out of that in half a year, and his marketing team now ships more working code than many engineers do. He'll walk through what they actually built, what it freed up, and what the first one felt like before it worked. Come with your questions. The point isn't the demo, it's what happens to your week when the grind comes off it.

Lunch

Workshops Round 1

Building the Brand Again

Most of you have the performance machine well tuned, yet every click gets pricier because nothing upstream is filling the funnel. Building brand equity has never been harder, with fragmented media, mass reach that barely exists outside sports, and a next generation of customers who have never heard of you. Trade how peers are building brand with the audiences they haven't won yet, and how they are getting incremental brand dollars funded.

Building the Job That Isn't on the Org Chart

You are amazing at your current role, but the next step up is either just an excuse for a raise / promotion, not actually career growth or a role that just doesn’t interest you. Real growth means claiming scope that currently belongs to someone else, taking on work you have spent years being glad you didn't own, and leading experts in things you will never be the expert in. This session trades how people have built the role they wanted inside a company where they already have the credibility to survive getting it wrong: what they asked for, how they took territory without turning peers into rivals, and what they negotiated before saying yes. The honest version of this conversation, including the part where growing your scope costs somebody else theirs.

From One Person's Trick to the Team's Tool

The first automation you build yourself is the one that changes how you see the job. The second problem is everything after: fifteen people quietly building fifteen versions of the same thing, nothing shared, nothing that survives the person who made it, and a security team that shuts the door right as it gets interesting. This is a working session on both. What to build first and how to get past the blank page, then how to turn scattered individual wins into something the whole team can pick up and use. Bring what you've made, what broke, and the approval you're still waiting on.

Getting Known for More

You got good at something, so they gave you more of it, and now that's the story people tell about you. The opportunity is that reputations are movable, and the people who move them do it on purpose. This session is about deliberately widening what you're known for. What people took on to show range, how they got credit for work outside their lane, who they needed in their corner saying it out loud, and how long it actually takes for a room to update. Bring the label you've outgrown and the one you want next.

Talking to the People Who Fund Your Ideas

The people you have to bring along in your marketing plans do not always work in marketing. They work in finance, in operations, in supply chain, and they are motivated by things nobody taught you in this job. The marketers getting their work funded right now are the ones who went and learned that language: product economics, the P&L, what a fulfillment decision actually costs, why the ops team pushes back on the thing that seems obvious to you. This workshop is a practical trade on how to get fluent: what to ask your CFO, how to read the numbers your business actually runs on, and how to build the idea so the financial case is already in it when you walk in.

The First 90 Days, Again

Half the room is somewhere in a transition right now: acquired, acquiring, reorganized, or three weeks into a job that didn't have a description until you wrote one yourself. The work is the easy part. The harder part is walking into a team, a region, or an entire second company's culture and figuring out how to be useful before anyone has decided whether they trust you. This session trades what people are actually doing in those first months: which quick wins bought them room, how they built rapport across offices and time zones that had no reason to give them attention, what they asked for while everything was still in flux, and what they'd do differently if they had to land it all over again.

The Next Act Is Yours to Design

For the first time in a long time, the next move is a choice instead of a reaction. The kids are launching, the money question is mostly settled, you're good at what you do and nobody's rushing you. That combination is rarer than it sounds, and it deserves more than a title bump and another year of head down. This session is about what people are building with it: scope they went and invented, a company or a coast or a side of the business they'd always wondered about, the thing they want to be known for once the resume stops mattering. Bring the version of the next ten years you'd actually be excited to live, and the first move that gets you there.

The Sandwich Generation at Work

One report is counting down to retirement, another needs a gentle talk about what office-appropriate means, and both are on your team. Senior exits, constant reorgs, shorter tenures, and careers that started on a home laptop have broken the osmosis that used to pass institutional knowledge and culture down the line. This session trades how leaders coach professionalism without an HR script, hand off relationships built over decades to people just starting theirs, and build ownership that sticks.

Transition Break

Workshops Round 2

Audience First, Done Right

Audience first is back, and brands that commit to it are planning smarter and getting in before the brief is written. Making it sing takes eyes-open planning for the risks that ride along, from depending on a single data provider to product teams that still think in SKUs. Trade how peers are building the plan, the partner mix and the internal buy-in that make audience first deliver now and hold up next year.

Building the Brand Again

Most of you have the performance machine well tuned, yet every click gets pricier because nothing upstream is filling the funnel. Building brand equity has never been harder, with fragmented media, mass reach that barely exists outside sports, and a next generation of customers who have never heard of you. Trade how peers are building brand with the audiences they haven't won yet, and how they are getting incremental brand dollars funded.

From One Person's Trick to the Team's Tool

The first automation you build yourself is the one that changes how you see the job. The second problem is everything after: fifteen people quietly building fifteen versions of the same thing, nothing shared, nothing that survives the person who made it, and a security team that shuts the door right as it gets interesting. This is a working session on both. What to build first and how to get past the blank page, then how to turn scattered individual wins into something the whole team can pick up and use. Bring what you've made, what broke, and the approval you're still waiting on.

Good Enough to Bet On

Some of the sharpest marketers work without clean scanner data. When a big share of sales goes through retailers that don't report, or the numbers won't break down finely enough to read a single activation, you still have to decide what's working and defend the budget. Trade the proxies and benchmarks peers actually trust, how they set an ROI bar finance accepts, and how they teach the whole company to turn data into decisions instead of reactions.

Talking to the People Who Fund Your Ideas

The people you have to bring along in your marketing plans do not always work in marketing. They work in finance, in operations, in supply chain, and they are motivated by things nobody taught you in this job. The marketers getting their work funded right now are the ones who went and learned that language: product economics, the P&L, what a fulfillment decision actually costs, why the ops team pushes back on the thing that seems obvious to you. This workshop is a practical trade on how to get fluent: what to ask your CFO, how to read the numbers your business actually runs on, and how to build the idea so the financial case is already in it when you walk in.

The Next Act Is Yours to Design

For the first time in a long time, the next move is a choice instead of a reaction. The kids are launching, the money question is mostly settled, you're good at what you do and nobody's rushing you. That combination is rarer than it sounds, and it deserves more than a title bump and another year of head down. This session is about what people are building with it: scope they went and invented, a company or a coast or a side of the business they'd always wondered about, the thing they want to be known for once the resume stops mattering. Bring the version of the next ten years you'd actually be excited to live, and the first move that gets you there.

The Sandwich Generation at Work

One report is counting down to retirement, another needs a gentle talk about what office-appropriate means, and both are on your team. Senior exits, constant reorgs, shorter tenures, and careers that started on a home laptop have broken the osmosis that used to pass institutional knowledge and culture down the line. This session trades how leaders coach professionalism without an HR script, hand off relationships built over decades to people just starting theirs, and build ownership that sticks.

The Team You'd Build Today for Tomorrow

Wherever your company is on the AI curve, one thing holds: the skills your team needs today are not the ones we came up under. Media, experiential, content and the tools we now build ourselves are blurring into one job. Trade how peers are rethinking roles and hiring profiles, and building teams that deliver this quarter and flex for what next year demands.

Networking Activity

Dinner

Late-Night Spot (Optional)

At attendee’s discretion

Morning Sweatworking

Yoga

Breakfast

Shipping Desk

Workshops Round 3

Built to Be Found

Showing up in the AI answer is now a line in the plan, and the brands pulling ahead are past tracking it and into shaping it. That takes the whole company: site copy written for a machine reader, a real Reddit and YouTube plan, partners that feed the engines, and one clear owner when SEO, media and content all claim it. Trade who owns it, what you're fixing first, and the number that gets it funded.

From One Person's Trick to the Team's Tool

The first automation you build yourself is the one that changes how you see the job. The second problem is everything after: fifteen people quietly building fifteen versions of the same thing, nothing shared, nothing that survives the person who made it, and a security team that shuts the door right as it gets interesting. This is a working session on both. What to build first and how to get past the blank page, then how to turn scattered individual wins into something the whole team can pick up and use. Bring what you've made, what broke, and the approval you're still waiting on.

Getting Known for More

You got good at something, so they gave you more of it, and now that's the story people tell about you. The opportunity is that reputations are movable, and the people who move them do it on purpose. This session is about deliberately widening what you're known for. What people took on to show range, how they got credit for work outside their lane, who they needed in their corner saying it out loud, and how long it actually takes for a room to update. Bring the label you've outgrown and the one you want next.

The Team You'd Build Today for Tomorrow

Wherever your company is on the AI curve, one thing holds: the skills your team needs today are not the ones we came up under. Media, experiential, content and the tools we now build ourselves are blurring into one job. Trade how peers are rethinking roles and hiring profiles, and building teams that deliver this quarter and flex for what next year demands.

The Weather You Bring In

Your team reads your mood before they read your deck, and the energy you bring into the room sets the pace for everyone in it. Leading with hope and steadiness gets harder through a merger, a tough year or one more reorg, especially when you're still absorbing the news yourself. Trade how peers reset before the big meeting, rein in a trigger, set goals a stretched team can actually hit, and keep enough in the tank to lead.

The Strategic No

Your Own Board of Directors

At this level, you are usually the mentor: coaching teams, advising younger talent, answering everyone else's late-night texts. Somewhere along the way, the person you'd call for yourself disappeared, and asking turns out to be harder than giving. Trade how peers are finding people who still stretch their thinking, building a personal board of advisors, and making the ask for career moves and the bigger life questions alike.

Networking Break

Workshops Round 4

Building the Brand Again

Most of you have the performance machine well tuned, yet every click gets pricier because nothing upstream is filling the funnel. Building brand equity has never been harder, with fragmented media, mass reach that barely exists outside sports, and a next generation of customers who have never heard of you. Trade how peers are building brand with the audiences they haven't won yet, and how they are getting incremental brand dollars funded.

Built to Be Found

Showing up in the AI answer is now a line in the plan, and the brands pulling ahead are past tracking it and into shaping it. That takes the whole company: site copy written for a machine reader, a real Reddit and YouTube plan, partners that feed the engines, and one clear owner when SEO, media and content all claim it. Trade who owns it, what you're fixing first, and the number that gets it funded.

The Sandwich Generation at Work

One report is counting down to retirement, another needs a gentle talk about what office-appropriate means, and both are on your team. Senior exits, constant reorgs, shorter tenures, and careers that started on a home laptop have broken the osmosis that used to pass institutional knowledge and culture down the line. This session trades how leaders coach professionalism without an HR script, hand off relationships built over decades to people just starting theirs, and build ownership that sticks.

The Weather You Bring In

Your team reads your mood before they read your deck, and the energy you bring into the room sets the pace for everyone in it. Leading with hope and steadiness gets harder through a merger, a tough year or one more reorg, especially when you're still absorbing the news yourself. Trade how peers reset before the big meeting, rein in a trigger, set goals a stretched team can actually hit, and keep enough in the tank to lead.

Lunch & Town Hall

Scavenger Hunt winners will be announced here!