Panels
Everything on this page — blocks, sessions, and panelists — is subject to change until finalized. Panelist names will be added here once confirmed.
From the 2025 Summit · Hedi LaMarr Photography
AI and the Long Game: Positioning to Benefit
Where AI is already reshaping work, how to adopt it without panic or hype, and what leaders should be doing right now while the technology is still shifting.
Generational Wealth in Wisconsin: Building What Outlasts You
The real difference between income and wealth, the barriers that have kept certain communities from building equity, and what it takes to transfer wealth successfully to the next generation.
Who Gets the Keys? When Leadership Changes Hands
What it takes to prepare someone else to lead, transfer institutional knowledge, and build something that doesn't depend on any one person.
The Trust Deficit: Can We Still Build Anything Together?
Where trust breaks down across sectors, what it takes to earn it back, and how to work with people you fundamentally disagree with.
The Weight Leaders Carry
An honest look at the pressure to appear steady, what leaders have had to unlearn about what leadership is supposed to look like, and what actually helps them stay whole.
Built Without Permission: The Entrepreneurs Creating Their Own Doors
What it takes to build a business with none of the traditional advantages, from finding capital to surviving the years before anyone calls you a success.
Supporting the Support System
What it actually costs, financially and personally, to keep a community organization running, and what a genuine partnership between funders and grassroots groups looks like versus a transactional one.
Brother Deficit
A conversation on grief, brotherhood, and what holds men back from asking for support, even when they know they need it.
Built to Educate: The Future of Wisconsin's Public Schools
What the current funding picture means for classrooms, why referendums have become the default funding tool, and what adequate, equitable school funding would actually require.
The Future Isn't AI, It's Leaders Who Know How to Use It
A practical look at what leaders need to know now to put AI to work without losing sight of the people it's meant to serve.
Authentic Leadership Across Cultures
What authenticity costs and requires across different cultural and generational spaces, and where the line sits between adapting to a room and losing yourself in it.
Sister, Rest
On being “the strong friend,” what it costs to always be the one who never needs anything, and what rest without guilt actually looks like.
Built to Stay: Housing, Homeownership, and the Future of Wisconsin
The real barriers between renters and homeownership in Wisconsin, and what it would actually take to expand housing supply and access.
Marketing & Comms with Kennedy Communications
A working session on sharpening your organization's story and message, led by the team at Kennedy Communications. (working title)
Protecting the Work for the Long Haul
How leaders keep programs and people safe when the work is under public pressure, and what it takes to still be doing this work in ten years.
Behind the Campaign: What It Takes to Run and Stay Grounded
What running for office actually demands day to day, from fundraising to public scrutiny, and what it costs to put your name and record up for a vote.
Holy Imagination: Faith, Race, and Radical Grace
How faith sustains leaders through exhaustion and injustice that nothing else can touch — and what it means to lead from belief in a moment that often rewards cynicism instead. Closing reflection for the day.
All panelist lineups are subject to change until finalized.