Thasunda Brown Duckett is a visionary leader dedicated to fostering financial opportunity for all. She is the President and CEO of TIAA, a leading provider of secure retirements and outcome-focused investment solutions. Before joining TIAA in 2021, she held several key executive roles during a 17-year career at JP Morgan Chase, including CEO of the Consumer Bank and Auto Finance. In 2024, Duckett was listed as one of the TIME100 Most Influential People in the World and named a CNBC Changemaker. Duckett serves on various boards, including NIKE, Inc., Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Dean’s Advisory Board for Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business. Duckett has received a wide array of accolades from financial media, including Fortune, Forbes, Barron’s and American Banker.

Leaders know that it’s not enough to simply succeed—you must deliver results, stay personally grounded and create spaces where others can thrive. In this candid live interview with David Ashcraft, CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett will share how she built inclusive cultures that truly worked and found support from unexpected allies along the way. Through personal stories and meaningful insights, she’ll open-up about overcoming imposter syndrome, navigating setbacks, and using every challenge as a catalyst for growth. Be inspired to lead with confidence and chart a path to even greater impact.

Christine Caine is a speaker, activist and bestselling author of more than a dozen books and studies. In 2008, Caine and her husband founded the anti-human trafficking organization The A21 Campaign, a recipient of the Mother Theresa Memorial Award for their work combating human trafficking among refugees. They also founded Equip & Empower, a ministry mobilizing people to live on mission for Jesus, and Propel Women, which comes alongside women all over the globe to activate their God-given purpose. Their ministry has also planted three life-giving Zoe Churches in Europe, bringing the Gospel to the region and serving the most vulnerable during times of crisis. She is the author of “Don’t Look Back: Getting Unstuck and Moving Forward with Passion and Purpose.”

Deep down, every leader longs to know their work truly matters — but staying anchored to a clear vision isn’t always easy in the midst of constant demands. Christine Caine — who has led teams across industries and continents — will inspire leaders to reclaim a vision that fuels real impact. She’ll share how to recognize the subtle ways leaders can drift off course and why vision is one of the greatest sources of strength and clarity, especially in seasons of turbulence and instability. You’ll leave with a renewed sense of purpose, fresh vision and practical strategies to lead with confidence and hope.

Jon Acuff is the New York Times bestselling author of 10 books, including his most recent, “All It Takes Is a Goal: The 3-Step Plan to Ditch Regret and Tap Into Your Massive Potential.” When he’s not writing, Acuff can be found on a stage, as one of INC’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers. He’s spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at conferences, colleges and companies around the world including FedEx, Nissan, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Chick-fil-A, Nokia and Comedy Central. He’s also helped some of the biggest brands tell their story, including The Home Depot, Bose and Staples.

“When I woke today, suddenly nothing happened. But in my dreams, I slew the dragon.” Too many of us find ourselves living out these lyrics — stuck between what we want to do and what we actually do, endlessly putting off the things that really matter most. Boomers wrestle with seeing the next chapter as a chance to thrive, not retire, Gen X and Millennials wonder if it’s too late to pivot and Gen Z grapples with the myth of work-life balance in search of true meaning. Join Jon Acuff as he redefines procrastination as a storehouse of untapped creativity, energy and time — waiting to be unlocked. Explore how applying four cornerstone permissions work together to create a success loop. Walk away equipped with a proven framework to stop procrastinating and take the first step toward leading a remarkable life.

Stephanie Chung made history as the first African American and second female president of a major private aviation company. As an aviation sales leader, she generated $1B in revenue annually, and she now brings her 30 years of experience to coach others in the neuroscience of sales and leadership. Chung serves on the Make-A-Wish Board and collaborates with senior national security leaders through Business Executives for National Security, helping solve some of the nation’s most complex security challenges. A prolific author whose work has been translated into 60 different languages, her most recent book is “Ally Leadership: How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You.”

One of the biggest challenges leaders face today is connecting with team members who think, work and communicate differently than they do. Instead of trying to make everyone fit the same mold, great leaders learn how to unlock the strengths in those differences — because it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s smart leadership that ultimately drives business wins. Stephanie Chung, a proven executive and author of “How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You,” brings practical insight and real-world experience, sharing how to build trust, communicate with clarity and create a culture where everyone feels seen, heard and motivated. Walk away with actionable strategies to lead more effectively and gain a competitive edge by leveraging the full potential of every individual.

John C. Maxwell has spent his life helping people. His mission is to add value to leaders who multiply value to others. In pursuit of this desire, he has founded multiple organizations, written more than 90 books selling 38 million copies, produced six New York Times bestsellers including a number one, trained more than 5 million leaders in 180 countries and created the largest coaching company in the world. Business Insider called him America’s #1 leadership authority, and Inc. magazine identified him as the most popular leadership expert in the world. The recipient of the Horatio Alger Award and the Mother Teresa Prize for Global Peace and Leadership from the Luminary Leadership Network, Maxwell is still growing, writing, speaking and creating transformative programs in the U.S. and around the world. John is joining us as a speaker for his 6th Global Leadership Summit!

Leadership can lift people up or tear them down — and right now, too many leaders are doing the latter. In a world filled with conflict and division, it’s not enough to lead with talent. We must lead with character. Join John C. Maxwell as he unpacks the three paths every leader can take—and why only one leads to lasting influence. Discover how emotional resilience, authenticity and the ability to lead without keeping score can help leaders rise above the chaos and bring unity in divided times. Walk away with practical tools to lead well, live with purpose and become the kind of leader the world desperately needs.

A regular feature in top global media outlets, including Forbes and Fast Company, Juliet Funt is a tough-love advisor to the Fortune 500. As the founder and CEO of the firm Juliet Funt Group, she is an evangelist for freeing the potential of companies by unburdening their talent from busywork. She has brought her powerful concepts to Spotify, National Geographic, Anthem, Vans, Abbott, Costco, Pepsi, Nike, Wells Fargo, Sephora, Sysco and ESPN. Juliet is also the author of “A Minute to Think,” nominated for the Next Big Idea Club curated by Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Pink, Susan Cain and Adam Grant.

Work is not a pie-eating contest, and professional success isn’t about the sheer quantity of effort. Yet in their ambition to achieve more, leaders often lose sight of this truth. They overwhelm their teams with too many projects, goals, and initiatives, unintentionally derailing the very progress they seek. Join Juliet Funt as she introduces the Reductive Mindset — a transformative approach to balancing the additive demands of modern work. She will help you eliminate overload and restore your team’s energy and focus. Walk away with actionable tools to uncover planning blind spots, refine your leadership, and adopt strategies that unlock clarity, capacity and results.

James Hewitt is a human performance scientist who provides some of the world’s top-performing businesses with science-backed strategies for achieving sustainable high performance. Combining firsthand experience as a full-time racing cyclist with ground-breaking research, proven on Formula 1 tracks and in Fortune 500 companies, Hewitt integrates endurance sports strategies with insights from neuroscience, physiology and psychology to reveal a future where well-being fuels business success. Hewitt holds a doctorate in performance science and is the founder of the Knowledge Work Lab, a human high-performance consulting firm that serves some of the world’s leading companies.

Leaders are under immense pressure to deliver results, often at the cost of their own and their team’s well-being. Burnout, disengagement and turnover are common pitfalls of the relentless pursuit of performance. Join James Hewitt as he explores how to achieve sustained peak performance without sacrificing well-being or productivity. Learn how to leverage Hewitt’s Cognitive Gears framework to enhance mental clarity. Discover how aligning work with natural energy rhythms can improve efficiency and leadership effectiveness. You’ll walk away with strategies to cultivate environments where performance and well-being thrive together.

Erica Dhawan is an internationally recognized authority on 21st-century teamwork, collaboration and innovation. Named by Thinkers50 as the “Oprah of Management Thinkers,” Dhawan shares innovative strategies to unlock the collective power of teams, build a culture of trust across any distance and create authentic engagement to ensure competitiveness. Considered one of the management thinkers most likely to shape the future of business, Dhawan frequently appears in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Wall Street Journal. She is the author of two books: “Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence” and “Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance.”

“These days we don’t talk the talk or even walk the talk — we write the talk,” says Erica Dhawan. In our digital age, building trust and fostering connection has become more complex, especially when teams are separated by generations, work styles and physical distance. Many leaders feel it is harder than ever to inspire engagement, encourage risk-taking and create meaningful bonds within their organizations and teams. Join Erica Dhawan as she unpacks the challenges of virtual communication and introduces the concept of “digital body language.” Learn how to identify and interpret the signals and clues that define modern collaboration. Walk away with practical ways to foster trust, enhance connection and inspire confidence — no matter the platform or distance.

The Rev. Gabriel Salguero is pastor of The Gathering Place, a multi-ethnic Assemblies of God congregation in Orlando, Florida. Salguero is also the president and founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, a coalition of several thousand evangelical congregations in the United States. Salguero has served on the White House Faith-Based Advisory Council and has been named as one of the U.S.’s most prominent Latino evangelical leaders by the New York Times, CNN Español and NBC Universal. In addition, his leadership on issues of young male education and criminal justice reform has been featured by the Discovery Channel and the Oprah Winfrey Network.

The skillful leader of the future will need to reconcile conflicting perspectives within themselves and within their teams. This will require an approach that honors complexity rather than oversimplification. Join Gabriel Salguero as he challenges leaders, with wisdom and warmth, to be bridge builders who transform differences from a barrier to a source of strength. Learn new ways to leverage cultural and viewpoint diversity as a leadership strength. Walk away with practical tools to foster connection, breakdown silos and ultimately lead with greater empathy and impact.