FULL EVENT SCHEDULE

Start your morning off by joining this optional community run. Get your heart pumping while exploring the city!

Meet in the 1st floor lobby of The Westin Book Cadillac at 5:50am, so you're ready to start the run at 6:00am. 

Head to the event venue at One Campus Martius, and fuel up for the day with delicious breakfast and coffee. Get settled before the day kicks off.

Finding True North

At 28, Richard became the reluctant CEO of a 100-year-old family business that was $5 million in debt and six months from bankruptcy. The waters were rough—fierce competition, strained partners, and a team lacking alignment. What followed wasn’t luck. It was navigation. With the guidance of an unexpected mentor, Richard set a clear course, rebuilt the culture, and rallied A-Players around one shared vision. The result: renewed profitability, sustained growth, and a highly successful exit. In this powerful keynote, Richard shares what it takes to navigate uncertainty, align your crew, and lead with clarity when everything is on the line.

Take a break, stretch your legs, enjoy the view of Detroit from the balcony, and chat with new friends. You can also participate in a speed mentoring session with a Sounding Board mentor.

Dust Off Your Personal Compass: Clarity Through Connection

In fast-moving waters, clarity can disappear and isolation can creep in. And navigating well benefits more than personal clarity—it is enhanced through connection. This interactive session will encourage you to tap into what's most important to you and share it to surface support from others. You’ll leave with clarity, confidence, and camaraderie as you embark on the Summit. 

The Gap: Why Getting What You Wanted Might Break You Open

What if the thing you worked hardest for is the very thing that cracks you open? When Sarah Grace stepped into the CEO role, she expected clarity and confidence. Instead, she found herself quietly unraveling. In this deeply honest session, you’ll discover a new lens for self-leadership rooted in curiosity, compassion, and true worthiness. You may not leave with all the answers, but you will leave seeing yourself differently. The most powerful leadership begins within.

Steering Together with Purpose

Dust Off Your Personal Compass: Clarity Through Connection

When everything feels urgent, it’s easy to mistake motion for direction. But navigating well requires clarity about where you’re headed and who you’re becoming along the way. In this interactive session, you’ll learn to listen to your signals to help identify what you truly want and need. Get ready to tap into the power of your peers to better understand yourself and use the collective momentum to move from where you are to where you want to go.

Continue making new connections over a tasty lunch! 

You can also take this time to participate in speed Sounding Board mentoring conversations over lunch.

Rebrewing the Plan

Sometimes the business isn’t ready for the transition you’ve planned—and that realization can change everything. In this fireside chat, Carl shares what happened when a planned succession fell apart and forced a hard reset. When everything went off course, alignment to values and culture mattered more than ever. This is a candid look at navigating uncertainty when plans stop working, recalibrating what the business needs versus what you want, and finding clarity when the path forward isn’t what you expected.

Collective Empathy

On our quest to build cultures that endure, how can empathy be harnessed as a collective skill? In this session, we’ll explore how nurturing empathy across your organization can strengthen accountability, ownership, and connection at every level. Take a behind-the-scenes look at how Tasty Catering brought in an academic researcher to assess, affirm, and evolve as a culture of continuous learning. This has transformed feedback into a powerful tool for growth, retention, and development. Walk away with a practical blueprint for cultivating empathy to create a more engaged, purpose-driven culture.

Human-Centered Change

We’ve all experienced change, but most of us were never taught how to lead the transition. You can roll out a new strategy, reorganize a team, or scale fast and still leave people behind. William Bridges’ Transitions became an influential tool for how Sana and her team modeled their approach to change and uncertainty, both individually and company-wide. This interactive session will walk you through the human-centered approach to change management. Experience how this framework can effectively lead people through periods of change with more clarity, empathy, and momentum. Move beyond just managing change to helping people transform through it.

Think Tank

Think Tank

Meet in the 1st floor lobby of the Shinola Hotel OR the Westin Book Cadillac to catch the shuttle to our evening reception.

The Detroit Bus Company will be shuttling us from our hotels to The Whiskey Factory.

We love supporting purpose-driven businesses, and our transportation is extra special! The Detroit Bus Company provides free rides to Detroit kids, so they have safe rides to school and after-school activities. Your ride is helping to support the community!

We'll gather together to enjoy a delicious meal and continue our conversations with like-hearted leaders.

The highlight of our evening will be the Small Giants Hall of Fame ceremony. We'll celebrate all of the finalists, and will announce the 2026 Hall of Fame inductees live!

Start your morning off by joining this optional community run. Get your heart pumping while exploring the city!

Meet in the 1st floor lobby of The Westin Book Cadillac at 5:50am, so you're ready to start the run at 6:00am.

Head to the event venue at One Campus Martius, and fuel up for the day with delicious breakfast and coffee. Get settled before the day kicks off.

Scaling Profit into Purpose

It started with one moment of care. What began as support for an employee in crisis grew into a mission to serve the community with focus and heart. Sean followed in his father’s footsteps and built community engagement the same way he built the business: with purpose, consistency, and a commitment to show up when it matters most. That mindset led to the launch of a nonprofit dedicated to investing intentionally in the communities they serve. And in an industry built around money, they’re choosing to use it differently by putting profits to work for employees, partners, customers, and charities. Learn how giving becomes sustainable when it’s aligned with culture, backed by margins, and rooted in relationships. Because no margin means no mission—and no people means no purpose.

Take a break, stretch your legs, enjoy the view of Detroit from the balcony, and chat with new friends. You can also participate in a speed mentoring conversations with a Sounding Board mentor.

The Human Compass: Guiding AI with Values and Purpose

AI is everywhere, but using it well is harder than ever—especially for companies that prioritize intimacy, trust, and mission over speed and scale. This session shares real stories of success, failure, and decision-making from a team that integrated AI without compromising what mattered most. You’ll unpack uncomfortable truths about AI, learn a practical framework for aligning tools with purpose, and explore how to experiment without losing your culture. Walk away with examples, a diagnostic tool, and a checklist you can start to use with your team next week. 

Flipping the Switch

More coming soon!

Take a quick break to stretch your legs, chat with new friends, and enjoy the view of Detroit from the balcony. Or have a conversation with a Sounding Board mentor. 

More coming soon!

The Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship

As the workplace continues to evolve, so does the role of leaders. Today’s managers are called to do more than oversee performance—they’re asked to mentor, guide, and develop the next generation of leaders, ultimately fostering employee engagement, growth, and contributing to increased retention rates. In this interactive session, join Scott to explore how leadership and mentorship work together to unlock engagement, growth, and long-term success. You’ll discover how providing the right balance of direction and support can elevate individual performance while strengthening your entire organization. 

Grab some delicious food and join a roundtable to meet fellow leaders, share ideas, ask questions, and gain new insight through topic-specific conversations.

Get ready for the final mainstage sessions of the 2026 Summit.

Natural Truths

Nature has a way of showing us exactly how growth really works—messy seasons, sudden disturbances, and unexpected renewal. Brandy discovered this firsthand during a time marked by deep personal loss and rapid business evolution. As her life shifted, she began to see her company the way she saw an ecosystem: constantly changing, sometimes flourishing, sometimes needing to be pruned back. In this heartfelt story, Brandy shares how the natural world mirrors the realities of leadership, reminding us that resilience is grown through disruption, vulnerability creates space for new growth, and nothing stays static for long.  

Finding Freedom

Many businesses don’t struggle with opportunity—they struggle with leadership capacity. As ownership transitions accelerate and economic uncertainty grows, the ability to build strong leadership teams has become one of the defining challenges of growth. In this session, Jean will explore why leadership is often the hidden barrier holding companies back. Drawing on his work with founders and leadership teams, he’ll share reflections on navigating growth before opening a panel discussion on the realities of building leaders who can guide organizations through uncertain times.