Conflict Resolution
Healthy Disagreement at Work: Conflict as a Leadership Skill
Tom Williams, Stoll Keenon Ogden
Don Wooldridge, Leadership Louisville Institute
Cory Lockhart, Hart Communications, Inc.
Vivian Blade, C-Suite Advisor
Conflict is inevitable. Dysfunction is optional. The strongest leaders address disagreementbefore tension becomes damage.
This practical session explores how leaders can navigate disagreement early, give difficultfeedback, de-escalate conflict and repair trust so that hard conversations strengthenrelationships rather than weaken them.
Environment
The Land We Share: Finding Common Ground in KY's Landscapes
This conversation examines the role of Kentucky’s shared natural assets in economicstrategy and asks a practical business question: how does caring for the landscape createstronger companies and healthier communities?
Storytelling
Stories That Move Communities: A Kentucky Story Showcase
Designed in the spirit of a live story showcase, the session will feature distinct voices ratherthan a traditional panel. At least one story will come directly through the lens of building orleading a business, keeping the experience tied to the Summit’s good-business audience.
LEADERSHIP
Trust is Good Business
Vitale Buford Hardin, Vitale & Company
Cynthia Knapek, Leadership Louisville Institute
Rocki Rockingham, GE Appliances
Trust is one of the most valuable assets an organization can build and one of the easiest tolose. Inside a workplace, it affects whether people share information, raise problems early,collaborate across departments and follow through on commitments.
This practical leadership-development session focuses on the everyday behaviors that buildcredibility within teams and across an organization, as well as what leaders can do whentrust has been strained or broken.
NONPROFIT PARTNERSHIPS
Mission Marketplace
Josh Williams, Metro United Way
Scott Koloms, Canopy KY & FMS, pbc
Rhona Kamar, Feed Louisville
Kevin Smith, Community Ventures
Greg Baker, AffirmedRX
What if everyday business purchasing could become a tool for community impact?
Building from the work being developed by Canopy and Metro United Way, the session brings together the initiative’s systemperspective, a nonprofit operator, an experienced social-enterprise and community-development leader, and a business buyer topressure-test what would make the model useful, reliable and scalable across Kentucky.
Students
Business Beyond Profit Student Showcase: The NextGen Defines Good Business
Adam Watson, Canopy KY
Students from Eastern High School, Southern High School and Shawnee Academy
Kentucky's future workforce is already developing ideas about leadership, purpose and the role business should play in strengthening communities.
Canopy will open with a concise introduction to the Business Beyond Profit Unit and what the program is desgined to achieve. Students will then share their experience with the curriculum, the kinds of workplaces they hope to join, and what they believe good business should look like in practice.
Internships
What Interns Want: Creating Value for Kentucky's Workforce Pipieline
Stephanie Geddes, University of Louisville Colege of Business
This candid conversation brings both sides together. Current or recent interns and thepeople who design internship programs will compare what they need, where expectationsbreak down and how a well-designed experience can help emerging talent see a future inKentucky.
Tech
KY by Choice: Tech Beyond the Usual Hubs
This session will feature technology leaders based outside Louisville and Lexington. Panelistswill discuss what building from Kentucky makes possible, which barriers it creates and howregional identity can become an advantage rather than a limitation.
AI
The AI Decision Room
Allison Pugh, Johns Hopkins Univsersity
Sarah Batia, Slingshot
This session is the practical counterpart to Allison Pugh's main-stage conversation about human connection. Pugh asks what organizations must protect as workchanges.
The AI Decision Room asks the follow-up: when leaders face an actual AI decision, what should they automate, what should they augment and whatshould remain meaningfully human?
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