Keynote Presenters
Futurist Keynote: Heather McGowan
Wednesday, March 11, 10:15 AM - 10:45 AM
Heather E. McGowan, Forbes’ top 50 Futurist, a two-time bestselling author, and LinkedIn's #1 Global Voice for Education, will deliver groundbreaking insights on the future of work and organizational transformation that could reshape your enterprise strategy.
Heather brings fresh energy and actionable insights to the future of work. She equips organizations to navigate relentless change by activating their most critical resource: their people.
Heather’s audiences range from startups to publicly traded Fortune 500 companies, including Google, JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, and Kaiser Permanente. Through data-driven insights and powerful visual frameworks, she helps leaders and teams transform their distinctly human capabilities—adaptability, empathy, and curiosity—into strategic advantages.
Often quoted in The New York Times, with Thomas Friedman calling her an "oasis" for her insights, Heather’s bestselling books include The Adaptation Advantage and The Empathy Advantage, which was named a Top 10 Business Book of 2023.
By teaching people to ask better questions, she enables them to adapt at the speed of possibility to Solve Tomorrow's Problems™.
Emcee: Justin Robbins
Justin Robbins brings two decades of expertise in business communications and customer interactions to our Las Vegas stage. As our Emcee, he'll maintain high energy, provide context between sessions, and help translate the event's insights into actionable strategies.
As Founder and Principal Analyst at Metric Sherpa, Justin equips executives, operators, and investors with independent research and practical strategies that deliver measurable business impact.
His experience spans frontline leadership, SaaS market strategy, and executive education. Justin specializes in cutting through complexity, providing clarity in noisy markets, and delivering insights that drive organizational change.
A researcher, educator, and keynote speaker, Justin delivers data-backed perspectives that challenge assumptions, inspire action, and help leaders align communication strategies with business success.
Keynote Panels With Industry-Leading Vendors
Join industry visionaries and technology leaders as they tackle the most pressing questions shaping the future of enterprise communications. These three dynamic keynote panels will challenge conventional wisdom, expose hard truths, and provide actionable insights you can't afford to miss. From AI's real-world ROI to the evolving landscape of customer experience and workplace collaboration, our expert panelists will deliver the strategic clarity you need to navigate 2026 and beyond.
Watch as our panelists debate the industry's hottest topics:
- What If AI Never Pays Off? The Reckoning
- CX Battleground: Does More Technology = Happier Customers?
- Collaboration Under Fire: The Security vs. Experience Showdown
Check back soon for details on our industry-leading Keynote panelists.
Keynote Panel: What If AI Never Pays Off?
Tuesday, 2:25 PM - 2:45 PM
AI technology is real, and (in many cases) it really works. But what if it just can’t deliver enough productivity benefit to outweigh what you’ve already invested, and will continue to invest? In this session, we’ll convene a panel of top AI vendors, and hold their feet to the fire about whether, 3 years after ChatGPT’s emergence, the promise of transformation is fading. Our moderator will press the panelists to provide specific examples where AI has already delivered outsize benefits relative to cost. They’ll be asked to share projections for the top business cases for 2026, and why you should be confident these cases will prove out. You’ll come away with a better understanding of what’s real in AI today, and also where the case for increased investment just isn’t there.
CX Panel: Does More Technology = Happier Customers?
Wednesday, 11:10 AM - 11:30 AM
AI is providing new capabilities for contact centers, but how does this translate into better customer experience? In this session, thought leaders will debate the role of technology in customer satisfaction: Do customers want to do more self-service? Can agents really handle more complex and contentious customer problems, or will they burn out? What tools do we have to improve agent and customer experience, and how do we know they work? You’ll hear competing perspectives and learn what your enterprise has to do if it’s going to deploy technology that makes a difference to the customer, the agent, and the bottom line.
Keynote Panel: Securing and Advancing the Employee Experience
Thursday, 11:10 AM - 11:30 AM
Whether your end users have returned to the office, or hybrid work still reigns in your enterprise, meetings must provide high-quality audio and video and AI-supported tools for those who want them, delivered in compliance with your company’s governance requirements. Adding to your challenge, you face unprecedented security threats: With increasingly sophisticated AI-driven attacks and deepfakes looming, your communications infrastructure must be infused with security technology and best practices. And, it all has to run on an infrastructure that’s not only secure but reliable and, most likely, decreasing in cost. Join a panel of industry leaders for a discussion of how you can balance and accomplish all these goals.