Program Schedule – 2025 NBAA Leadership Conference

Conference Registration

Location: Magnolia Foyer

Welcome Reception

Location: Magnolia Garden

Kick off the Leadership Conference in style! Reconnect with familiar faces, spark new connections and surround yourself with an inspiring network of peers who will share in your leadership journey. This is your chance to set the tone for an unforgettable conference experience – don’t miss it!

Conference Registration

Location: Magnolia Foyer

Continental Breakfast

Location: Magnolia Foyer

Conference Kickoff – Simplify Your Leadership

Leadership Conference Chairs:
Samantha Garrison, Wonderful Aviation
Jay Orwin, Netflix
Jeff Poeppelman, Nationwide Aviation Business Center

NBAA Welcome

Ed Bolen, NBAA President & CEO

Hear an insightful update on the latest trends, challenges and opportunities shaping the future of business aviation that will help empower your leadership journey in this dynamic industry.

Conference Preview

Leadership Conference Chairs

Supercommunicators: The Science of Conversation and Connection

Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning Reporter and Best-Selling Author
Why do some conversations succeed while others fail? How does communication work within our brains, our families, our workplaces and our communities? Duhigg’s book, Supercommunicators, is about what happens inside our minds when we open our mouths and ears — and the surprising and unexpected reasons why things go right… and wrong.

You will hear about CIA officers trying to recruit spies, marriage counselors helping couples, NASA psychologists hoping to pick astronaut candidates by testing who can ‘hear’ emotions, and how Netflix discussed internal controversies over race. Walk away knowing how supercommunicators do what they do, and what can we learn from them about bridging divides.

With actionable advice and fascinating stories, this session will demonstrate how effective communication can be the difference between success and failure, and even life and death.

Morning Networking Break

Location: Magnolia Foyer

Morning refreshments, including coffee and tea, are included in the conference registration fee.

A book signing by Charles Duhigg will take place at the Duncan Aviation sponsor table.

Welcome Back

Leadership Conference Chairs

Everyone Owns the Result: Instilling Accountability from Top to Bottom

Linda Galindo, Creator, Best-Selling Organizational Culture Changing Programs: Accountability That Works! and The Accountability Experience, and Author, The 85% Solution

Every time someone in your organization engages in unaccountable behavior, there is a cost. You waste time. You waste money. You move further away from the results you need. If everyone in your organization isn’t fully accountable, who’s accountable for that? When we make agreements with each other to be fully accountable, we are all leaders.

Using the key principles of accountability outlined in The 85% Solution, this presentation shows leaders (and everyone is a leader) how to teach and model personal accountability. You will learn to:

• Understand what accountability is and the benefits it produces
• Measure exactly how accountable your organization is
• Identify unaccountable behaviors in your organization and learn how to stop them
• Outline what your accountable organization looks, sounds and feels like
• Identify the key agreements within organizations that people must make with each other to instill complete accountability from top to bottom

Morning Wrap-up

Leadership Conference Chairs

Lunch

Location: 8 Flags Patio & Lawn

Lunch is included in the conference registration fee.

Welcome Back

Leadership Conference Chairs

Dare to Care™: How Leaders Inspire and Influence with Emotional Intelligence

Sylvia Baffour, Emotional Intelligence Coach, Trainer and Author, I Dare You to Care

Leadership in today’s diverse work environment demands more than expertise; it requires connecting emotionally and empathetically with teams to truly inspire and influence. Through the Dare to Care™ EI Framework, Baffour introduces emotional intelligence as the essence of transformative leadership, offering practical tools and strategies to enhance emotional awareness and interpersonal skills. You will learn to:

• Strengthen leader-to-team connections, fostering collaboration and productivity
• Enhance the emotional intelligence across your organization, promoting a more supportive and understanding culture
• Become empowered to drive positive change and organizational success through empathetic leadership

Afternoon Refreshment Break

Location: Magnolia Foyer

Afternoon refreshments, including soft drinks and snacks, are included in the conference registration fee.

Welcome Back

Leadership Conference Chairs

Building a High-Performance, Last 8% Culture

Bill Benjamin, Emotional Intelligence, Performance and Leadership Expert

You need to move fast, adapt to a changing environment, and deliver performance, yet your team is moving too slow when it comes to making tough decisions and are avoiding the more challenging “last 8%” conversations that drive results.

Culture is at the heart of high performance. Unfortunately, most leaders misunderstand culture, believing it’s organization-wide and set by the CEO. However, a study of 7,500 leaders shows that culture exists primarily on teams, with managers at the center of building culture. Without giving managers the right tools to own the culture of their teams, culture can be built haphazardly, which causes good people to leave and goals to not be met.

When leaders feel agency and have skills to lean into the difficult, they build a high-performance culture that becomes a powerful force in your organization. You will learn:

• The two pillars of a high performing culture: High Connection (psychological safety) and High Courage (ability to do hard things skillfully)
• How to build the culture on your team with a proprietary approach of Model & Own
• Specific tools to connect and coach their people to be their best in “last 8%” situations
• How to influence and engage others who are at a distance
• How to create the conditions to keep the best and brightest

Closing Announcements

Leadership Conference Chairs

Seas the Night Cookout

Location: Oceanside Beach

Trade your conference shoes for flip flops and join your colleagues for a night by the ocean featuring good food, signature cocktails and fun activities. Be sure to join the YoPros for s’mores on the beach.

Conference Registration

Location: Magnolia Foyer

YoPro Sunrise Social

Start your day on a high note! All attendees are welcome to join for a refreshing glass of freshly squeezed juice, warm coffee and light snacks while connecting the next generation of emerging leaders. Visit sponsor tables to explore innovative leadership solutions and take advantage of this energizing morning atmosphere to reflect, recharge and set the tone for a successful finale to your Leadership Conference experience. With so much learning in store for the day, you’ll need this energizing boost to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Business Aviation Management Committee Chair Welcome, Scholarship Awards & CAM Fellow Program Recognition

Joe Barber, CAM, Clay Lacy Aviation
Julie Goodridge, CAM, MedAire

Hear from your Business Aviation Management Committee leadership team as they share updates on the work of the committee. We will recognize this years Leadership Conference scholarship winners as well as new inductees in the CAM Fellowship.

Welcome Back

Leadership Conference Chairs

The Great Generational Shift – The Workforce is Changing, Ready for It?

Bruce Tulgan, Best-Selling Author and Expert on Workforce Demographics

Older baby boomers are leaving the workforce in droves, taking with them their collective skill, knowledge, wisdom, institutional memory and old-fashioned work ethic. Second-wave millennials and post-millennial Generation Z are flooding in, bringing a whole new attitude to work. Meanwhile, older millennials and Generation X are stuck in the middle, with the lion’s share of day-to-day supervisory responsibility. Not only is this a great generational shift in the demographics of the workplace, it’s also an epic turning point for the norms and values around work.

With a workforce more generationally diverse than at any other time in history, employers and managers are facing new challenges across the age spectrum. At the conclusion of this session, you will be able to answer:

• Do you know where each generation in your workplace is coming from and where they are going?
• What kind of succession planning is your organization doing?
• Are you developing talent at every level?
• What kind of knowledge/wisdom-transfer are you prepared to do?
• How are you attracting, selecting and on-boarding the best young talent?
• What are you doing to make sure that new hires are not thrust into a sink-or-swim workplace that will drive them away?

Morning Networking Break

Location: Magnolia Foyer

Morning refreshments, including coffee and tea, are included in the conference registration fee.

NBAA Business Aviation Management Committee (BAMC) Panel Discussion

Lunch

Location: 8 Flags Patio & Lawn

Lunch is included in the conference registration fee.

Welcome Back

Leadership Conference Chairs

Radical Leadership

Craig Zablocki, Former Teacher and Nationally Recognized Speaker

A ‘Radical Leader’ is someone who knows deeply, in their heart, who and what to follow. With strong elements of relevance and levity, you will be challenged to consider an effective leader as someone who:

• Leads by example
• Takes themselves lightly while leading from purpose
• Is willing to be vulnerable, champions others, can own their “stuff” and knows their weaknesses
• Taps into their innate creativity, joy and passion and helps others do the same

Radical Leadership will bring your people back to their authentic selves and create enthusiasm for your organization’s mission.

Closing Comments & 2026 NBAA Leadership Conference Announcement

Leadership Conference Chairs

Closing Connections: A Final Toast to Leadership

Location: Magnolia Foyer

Close out a week with conversation and camaraderie during this farewell social.