For a Conference That Delivers Real Growth, Purpose, & Community
Power Packed Agenda:
Learn from real experts, leaders, executives and powerful speakers who have tried "traditional" leadership and career advancement methods only to find themselves unfulfilled, exhausted, and stagnant.
These industry disruptors didn't lean into the outdated standard; they rewrote it and found success when they redefined leadership on their terms. Now, they’re here to share the strategies, stories, and lessons learned that helped them rise whole, lead human and redefine together!
More agenda updates coming soon!
DAY 1 - 9/15
Registration Opens
5:00pm - Speaker and Sponsor Meet & Greet
6:00pm - 8:30pm - Power Networking Event (all attendees)
DAY 2 - 9/16
5:30 am - Wellness Activation to Boost Our Minds and Bodies
7:30 am - Registration and Breakfast
8:00 am - Conference Begins w/Opening Remarks from your host Shayla N. Atkins
8:30 am - Keynotes and concurrent talks and workshops across content tracks
12:00 pm - Provided Lunch & Networking
1:00 pm - Keynotes and concurrent talks and workshops across content tracks
5:00 pm - Conference Closes with your host Shayla N. Atkins
Opening Keynote: Julie Flowers
We’ll kick off the Leadership Redefined Conference with a powerful keynote: Not Every Room Deserves You.
Leadership is not just shaped by the rooms you enter-but by the ones you choose to stay in. Too often, connection is driven by access, proximity, or obligation-rather than alignment, growth, and intentionality.
This keynote challenges conventional thinking around networking and introduces a more discerning, strategic approach to relationships. Julie helps leaders evaluate where they invest their time and energy, and how to build connections that genuinely expand who they are becoming and how they lead.
The Regulated Leader: Why Leadership Failure Is Often a Nervous System Issue
Content Track: Rise Whole (leading self)
Many leadership challenges are treated as communication, personality, or competence issues. Yet under pressure, leaders often do not act from training, they act from automatic response patterns. These reactions influence trust, accountability, and psychological safety long before policies or strategies take effect.
This workshop explores how stress responses shape leadership behavior and workplace culture. Participants will examine how common patterns such as avoidance, over-control, inconsistency, and withdrawal frequently emerge from regulation rather than intention. The goal is not self-criticism, but awareness that allows leaders to choose their actions rather than react. The workshop will include guided reflection, paired discussion, and a short facilitated practice. Participants will leave with concrete ways to recognize their reactions in real time and respond in ways that strengthen clarity, accountability, and relational trust.
From Self-Sabotage to Self-Trust
Content Track: Rise Whole (leading self)
So many high-performing women know what they should be doing next in their careers, leadership, or lives. The real challenge is not strategy. It is what is happening internally. Overthinking. Hesitation. Playing small. Waiting for permission. Trying to be everything for everyone except themselves.
In this workshop, Desiree introduces her Clarity-Identity-Strategy model and shows how sustainable self-leadership starts from the inside out. She teaches audiences how to recognize the hidden mental patterns that quietly keep them stuck and how to shift into self-leadership so they can lead with confidence, presence, and alignment.
This session blends real stories, research-backed insight, and practical reflection moments so attendees are not just listening; they are thinking, recognizing, and deciding. Participants leave with language for what has been holding them back and tools to move forward differently.
Rise Whole in Heavy Times: Building Your Leadership Performance Operating System
Content Track: Rise Whole (leading self)
Research in stress science and performance psychology shows that chronic, unregulated strain, not acute stress erodes clarity, decision-making capacity, and long-term effectiveness. The World Health Organization recognizes burnout as an occupational phenomenon, and neuroscience confirms that prolonged cognitive load narrows perspective and impairs executive function. Yet leadership culture continues to reward constant output.
In this timely workshop, endurance athlete and performance strategist Crystal Hadnott introduces The Performance Operating System (Performance OS), a practical, cyclical model for sustaining leadership, clarity, and impact in complex environments. Drawn from endurance science, behavioral performance research, and real-world executive leadership, this system reframes performance as cyclical rather than linear.
Each phase of leadership requires a different protocol. When leaders apply "push" strategies during seasons that require regulation or recalibration, they accelerate depletion. When leaders understand the cycle, they regain agency, clarity, and sustainable momentum. Participants will learn to identify which phase of performance they are currently in, apply the appropriate leadership protocol, regulate energy instead of simply managing time, and sustain excellence without sacrificing humanity.
Radical Care Leadership: Cultivating Accountability and Care in the Workplace
Content Track: Lead Human (leading others)
In this session, participants will explore how radical care leadership reframes accountability as a relational practice built on trust, communication, and shared responsibility. Leaders will learn practical strategies for setting clear expectations and agreements that are followed through while maintaining compassion and respect. This allows leaders to stay grounded and consistent instead of feeling pulled between over-caring and over-correcting. Through emotional intelligence, psychological safety practices, and actionable communication tools, participants will leave with a framework for leading with confidence and care while strengthening workplace culture and performance.
From Operator to Architect: How Strategic Leaders See and Shape Complex Systems
Content Track: Lead Human (leading others)
Many senior leaders remain in operator mode, solving, reacting, and absorbing complexity without ever elevating to architectural thinking.
This workshop explores the shift from doing the work to designing the structure that sustains the work. The focus is on self-awareness, strategic clarity, and human-centered leadership within complex organizations. Participants will examine how incentives, power dynamics, and decision patterns shape outcomes and how leaders can influence those structures rather than be constrained by them.
Participants will leave with practical tools to move from reactive leadership to structural leadership, strengthening both organizational impact and personal sustainability.
Leading From Every Level: Power Without Position
Content Track: Lead Human (leading others)
In complex environments, leadership is shaped as much by unwritten rules as formal authority. In this dynamic and reflective session, Shaun will unpack how ambitious women can build influence at every level by understanding organizational systems, rewriting internal narratives, and aligning performance with purpose.
Attendees will explore the difference between positional authority and earned credibility, identify the invisible barriers that limit their voice, and develop practical strategies to lead with conviction without sacrificing authenticity or well-being.
The session blends storytelling, research-backed insights, guided reflection, and peer dialogue to ensure both deep learning and meaningful connection.
How C-Suite Women Pivot, Persevere and Build Portfolios for What's Next
C-Suite POWER Panel
What happens when you've climbed the corporate ladder and the career you've built no longer feels like the career you want?
For senior women leaders, the next chapter may mean persevering, pivoting, building a portfolio career, or creating something entirely new. This candid conversation explores how to make those decisions strategically, while protecting your financial security, reputation, well-being, and sense of purpose.
Hear from women who have navigated these crossroads firsthand and gain practical insight on how to assess your options, test what’s next, build the right relationships and resources, and know when it’s time to stay, shift, or step forward.
How C-Suite Women Pivot, Persevere and Build Portfolios for What's Next
C-Suite POWER Panel
What happens when you've climbed the corporate ladder and the career you've built no longer feels like the career you want?
For senior women leaders, the next chapter may mean persevering, pivoting, building a portfolio career, or creating something entirely new. This candid conversation explores how to make those decisions strategically, while protecting your financial security, reputation, well-being, and sense of purpose.
Hear from women who have navigated these crossroads firsthand and gain practical insight on how to assess your options, test what’s next, build the right relationships and resources, and know when it’s time to stay, shift, or step forward.
How C-Suite Women Pivot, Persevere and Build Portfolios for What's Next
C-Suite POWER Panel
What happens when you've climbed the corporate ladder and the career you've built no longer feels like the career you want?
For senior women leaders, the next chapter may mean persevering, pivoting, building a portfolio career, or creating something entirely new. This candid conversation explores how to make those decisions strategically, while protecting your financial security, reputation, well-being, and sense of purpose.
Hear from women who have navigated these crossroads firsthand and gain practical insight on how to assess your options, test what’s next, build the right relationships and resources, and know when it’s time to stay, shift, or step forward.
When the Paycheck Is No Longer the Plan: Building Financial Power, Protection, and Possibility
POWER Panel
When the Paycheck Is No Longer the Plan: Building Financial Power, Protection, and Possibility
POWER Panel
FOBO (Fear of Being Obsolete) in the Age of AI
Content Track: Lead Human
Fear of Becoming Obsolete is the most expensive unspoken fear in leadership right now. AI is moving fast. Roles are shifting. Headcount is tightening. And even high performers are quietly wondering if they are one restructure away from irrelevance.
This session tackles FOBO head on. Not from a hype lens. From a power lens.
We will unpack how fear of irrelevance shows up in overworking, gatekeeping, defensiveness, perfectionism, and burnout. We will examine how leaders unintentionally transmit their insecurity to their teams and how that creates fragile cultures instead of resilient ones.
The focus is repositioning. Attendees will learn how to shift from task value to judgment value, from execution to leverage, and from visibility theater to strategic relevance. We will explore how to future proof careers without spiraling into self sabotage.
Stop Performing: Moving From Executive Presence to Embodied Presence
Closing Keynote & Masterclass
For decades, women have been taught that executive presence means mastering the right voice, posture, wardrobe, tone, and behaviors to be perceived as leadership material. But what happens when the performance required to look like a leader begins to disconnect you from yourself?
This session challenges the outdated standards of executive presence and asks a harder question: What if leadership presence isn't about becoming more polished, but becoming more fully present?
Explore the shift from performing leadership to embodying it, with practical strategies to lead with greater clarity, authority, authenticity, and self-trust without constantly monitoring how you are being perceived.
Because the goal isn't to perform leadership well.It is to inhabit it.
Meet Our 2026 Speakers!
Stay Tuned for our 2026 Agenda!
Check out last year's line up!
8:30am - Registration Opens with Light Breakfast
9:00am - Conference Begins w/Opening Remarks from your host Shayla N. Atkins (CEO & Conference Curator)
Introducing Your MC, Moderator & Your Motivator: Schellie Fanf
We’ll kick off the Leadership Redefined Conference with a powerful welcome and set the tone for an inspiring day of transformation. Join us as we introduce our Master of Ceremonies, Schellie Fanfan, a dynamic speaker, licensed mental health counselor, and energy catalyst who will guide us through the experience with purpose, passion, and authenticity.
Redefining Work Life Balance: An Integrative Approach to Success, Hormones & High Performance
Opening Keynote
We’ve been taught that high performance means pushing through, grinding harder, and ignoring the signals our bodies are sending. But what if that definition of success is the very thing holding us back? In this transformative opening keynote, Dr. Alicia Newsome, a renowned functional medicine doctor and integrative health expert, challenges us and invites us to rethink everything we’ve been taught about balance, burnout, and leadership effectiveness.
With science-backed insight and real-world application, Dr. Newsome will take us beyond surface-level solutions and into the root causes that affect our energy, focus, and ability to lead at a high level, especially for ambitious women navigating demanding careers. She goes beneath the symptoms of stress and exhaustion to uncover the deeper drivers: hormone imbalances, energy depletion, and nervous system overload that silently derail even the most capable leaders. This isn’t about self-care fluff. It’s about redefining leadership at the cellular level. This keynote will help you understand how your biology impacts your brilliance and offer a new blueprint for success: one rooted in alignment, vitality, and sustainable performance.
From Boss to Coach: Becoming the Kind of Leader People Choose to Follow
Masterclass
Today’s teams don’t want to be micro-managed; they want to be led and developed. In this session, Shawn Fair will delve into the mindset shift from being a task-driven boss to becoming a trust-building coach. You’ll uncover the five core attributes that separate leaders who merely give direction from those who inspire followership, growth, and high performance. If you’re ready to lead the whole person, motivate your team to perform better, and unlock what actually works in modern leadership, this session is for you.
Power on Your Terms: Influencing, Advocating, & Negotiating High Stakes With Confidence
Power Panel Discussion moderated by Schellie Fanfan
In this powerful panel discussion, industry-leading executives share the pivotal moments, mindset shifts, and hard-won lessons that helped them stop seeing themselves as just employees and start leading like a business. These trailblazing executives, Angela Cotie and Melissa Mack, will share how they’ve negotiated not just salaries, but space, visibility, contracts, and power. They’ll reveal what it looks like to set personal and professional terms, lead with authenticity, and navigate high-stakes conversations without losing themselves in the process. Whether you're seeking your next promotion, making a bold pivot, or learning how to be heard in the rooms that matter, this conversation will equip you with real-world insights and bold strategies to lead your career like the business it is.
The Power of the Pivot: Making Bold Moves When You’ve Already “Made It”
Real Talk Fireside Chat moderated by Shayla N. Atkins
Success is not the end of the journey, it is the beginning of new possibilities. For many executives, reaching the top is not just a milestone; it is a platform for reinvention, redefining what comes next.
In this insightful fireside chat, LaQuenta Jacobs, a trailblazing global HR executive, unpacks the real stories, strategic decisions, and mindset shifts that fueled and empowered her transformative career pivots after she had already “made it.” She will reveal how she navigated transitions, reframed risk, and embraced reinvention while sustaining influence and impact at the highest levels.
Join us to explore:
The key questions every leader should ask before making a pivot
How to reframe risk and recognize opportunity at the executive level
Real-world strategies for transitioning roles, industries, or career paths
The models she used to sustain influence and drive impact through change
True leadership is not just about achieving success, it is about having the courage to redefine it.
Redefining Executive Presence: Leading in Color Executive Fashion Showcase
Edutainment
Who says power has to wear navy? Get ready for a celebration of style, substance, and self-expression.
In this vibrant, one-of-a-kind fashion experience, leading image consultant Shaunda Thompson challenges the traditional executive presence mold and celebrates a new era of leadership style, one where individuality, color, and culture can take center stage without sacrificing credibility.
Executive presence and image are more than appearance, they are visual cues of confidence, capability, and authenticity. In today’s competitive landscape, how you show up shapes how you're perceived, trusted, and remembered. This showcase brings that truth to life.
Through bold looks, real stories, and runway moments, this showcase redefines what it means to “look the part.” You’ll see how women in leadership can align their wardrobe with their voice, values, and visibility, and lead with undeniable presence, on their terms.
Because executive presence is not a uniform. It’s a reflection of who YOU are.
Power, Presence, and Poise: Creating an Authentic Executive Image
Interactive Masterclass
Executive image is more than what you wear, it’s how you carry yourself, how you communicate, and how confidently you show up in every room you enter.
In this transformative masterclass, two boundary-breaking image consultants and CEOs, Kim Roxie and Shaunda Thompson, will guide you through the essential elements of executive presence—from intentional style choices to powerful body language and magnetic personal branding. You’ll learn how to craft an image that reflects not just your role, but your identity, without shrinking, diluting, or conforming.
It’s about making your image a strategic advantage, and showing up in a way that’s aligned, authentic, and unforgettable.
Whether you’re preparing for the next level or redefining what leadership looks like on your terms, this session will equip you with practical tools to elevate your presence and own every room you walk into—with power, presence, and poise.
Thriving with Purpose, Authenticity & Strategy:
Leading with S.P.I.C.E.
Closing Keynote & Masterclass
You’ve checked the boxes. Met the expectations. Climbed the ladder. But deep down, you know leadership was never meant to cost you your peace, your identity, or your purpose.
This keynote and masterclass is a declaration and reclamation of Power. Presence. Possibility.
In this powerful keynote and hands-on masterclass, Shayla N. Atkins, conference creator, global leadership strategist and creator of the Lead with S.P.I.C.E.® framework, invites you to disrupt the outdated model of success and reconnect with the strategy and soul of your leadership.
You’ll explore what it truly means to lead with:
Purpose — anchoring your leadership in values, vision, and clarity
Authenticity — shedding the mask and owning your full presenceclarity
Strategy — making intentional, aligned decisions that drive both impact and sustainability
Through real talk, research-backed insights, and transformative reflection, Shayla will walk you through the five pillars of S.P.I.C.E.: Savvy, Performance, Image, Communication, and Exposure and show you how to use them as your leadership power tools, not performance pressures.
This session is part keynote, part personal reset, part strategic roadmap.
You’ll leave not just inspired, but clear, aligned, and equipped to lead boldly without compromising who you are.
Thank you to our sponsors
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