2023 AMA Leadership Summit

Breakfast Outing - Arriving Early? Join Us for Breakfast! (optional)

Don’t start the day on an empty stomach! Meet us at the hotel lobby entrance at 8:00 a.m., and we’ll catch a ride share (or two or three) to Tiffany’s Restaurant & Café. Make some fast friends that you can connect with throughout the weekend!

Note: This is an optional activity for attendees who want a change of scenery before the conference starts. An AMA representative will be in the lobby entrance with a sign for a prompt departure at 8:15 a.m.

Lunch, Opening Remarks and Keynote

Say hello to friends from the AMA community as you settle in for lunch to kick off what’s destined to be an exciting and inspiring weekend. The weekend will begin with a special message from AMA’s new CEO, Bennie Johnson.

Opening Keynote: Brace for Impact
Life is full of challenges and often hits us with unexpected adversity. The true test is how we respond and overcome our adversity. Mark will share how his tragic accident led to a life of purpose and community-driven work that has made a huge impact.

Mark Raymond, Jr.

CEO of The Split Second Foundation, Inc.

RE:Fresh – Board in a Box Sessions

By now, you’ve probably heard of Board in a Box (BiB). If not, you will today. BiB gives you the tools and tips to run a successful chapter. Whether it’s your first time as a board leader or you need a refresher, these sessions will revive your memory and guide you through the simple principles needed to run each part of your AMA board.

• BIB Leadership: Learn the fundamentals of running your chapter like a business to build long-term sustainability and accelerate growth. This session is for all chapter leaders focusing on the President and President-Elect roles.
• BIB Membership: Learn the fundamentals of recruiting, retaining and engaging members/volunteers, including making a strong connection with programming and leveraging national/local benefits.
• BIB Programming: Learn the fundamentals of delivering powerful programming that drives engagement, membership and revenue for your chapter, including how to identify and recruit great AMA  programming leaders.
• BIB Finance: Learn the fundamentals of successful board financial operations including tracking finances, the benefits of reserve accounts, the role of CPAs, and leveraging sponsorships to offset costs. This session is for all chapter leaders focusing on the President, President-Elect, Secretary/Treasurer and Sponsorship roles.
• BIB DEI: DEI is not something you either do or don’t. It should be built into the fabric of how you run your chapter. In this session, you will learn how DEI is built into every section of Board in a Box so that you can build it into every aspect of your chapter.
• BIB Communications: Learn the fundamentals of a thorough, consistent and systematic communications plan, including the basics of marketing your chapter, streamlining internal communications and collaborating with other essential board roles like membership and programming.
• New to an AMA Board? Here’s what you need to know: Is this your first time as an AMA Chapter Leader? Is it your first time at Leadership Summit? We know how overwhelming it can be as a first-timer, and that’s why this session exists to help you form a plan on where to start, the basics of what you need to know, and allow a forum for questions that pop into your head at 2:00 in the morning (jot those down)!

How-To Sessions

Now that you have eased into LS23, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work! In these How-To sessions, you will leave with actionable takeaways you can use to REinvigorate your chapter.

• How To Recruit Members: Membership recruitment is the responsibility of all board members, not just the Membership Chair, but how do you set expectations and create actionable commitment? How do you collaborate with other areas of your chapter to get new members? How do you recruit members representing your local marketing community and ensure they feel included in your chapter? How do you articulate member value and overcome objections? Join this session and find out!
• How To Engage Board Members and Ensure Volunteer Support & Wellbeing: Board member engagement has been a hot topic for several years, even before the pandemic. Keeping volunteers engaged leads to greater satisfaction, higher retention, increased interpersonal skills and a more passionate commitment to your board and AMA. Ensuring this engagement and support is easier said than done. This session introduces strategies you can adapt to increase engagement with your board members and committee volunteers.
• How To Develop Impactful Sponsorship Programs: People either love or shy away from the sponsorship role. Sponsorship requires someone who is comfortable with making a monetary ask and well-equipped with the tools and education needed to create a sponsorship program that aligns with the needs of their local community and prospects. In this session you will learn the process of creating right-fit sponsorship opportunities, creating and managing a sponsorship pipeline, and tracking the benefits and results of sponsorship initiatives.
• How To Create and Manage Your Chapter Budget: Budgets … ew! We’re marketers, we like to spend money! As true as that may be, all savvy marketers know that budgets are the key to achieving expectations and success. In this session, you will leave with a template to create budgets for each chapter role, an overview of reading profit and loss statements, and an understanding of how to track/monitor progress. Who knows, you may even be able to use this in your everyday job!
• How To Use the New Chapter Leader Dashboard: Your Community Admin Portal has undergone an exciting transformation, and it’s time to explore! Join key Support Center staff and fellow chapter leaders who helped pilot this new dashboard to identify new features, walk through best practices, and gain one-on-one guidance for implementation. Bring your laptop, and let’s dive in together!
• How To Determine What to Measure for Chapter Success: Goals are great. SMART goals are greater. Knowing what to measure, how to measure it, and why to measure it is the greatest combination. This session will cover key reporting metrics when measuring each board role’s goals. You will also learn how to leverage and apply the data found in your chapter reporting dashboard.

How Did They Do It? CEA Winner’s Panel

We all want to know … how did they do it?! Join us in the Grand Ballroom to hear from our panel of CEA winners, where you’ll learn how they set goals, crushed them, and made waves in their local marketing communities.

Group Dinner (optional)

Meet in the Hotel Lobby Entrance

Explore the tasty cuisines Chicago offers and make new connections along the way! The group dinners are a way to get out of the hotel for an evening, explore the city and meet new AMA friends. Locations for group dinners include:

• Little Italy
• Chinatown
• Pilsen
• Downtown Chicago/River North

For those who wish to stay a bit closer, a group dinner will be organized at Giordano’s, about a 10-minute walk from the hotel.

Sign up in person when you check in for registration on Friday morning.

Notes:

• Limited space is available for each location.
• Individuals are responsible for their own food/drinks.
• Shuttles will be provided to the locations, leaving promptly at 6:15 p.m. Individuals are responsible for their way back to the hotel.

Morning Activity - Beginners Yoga (optional)

Join PCC Member, Amber McKenna, to prepare your mind and body for the rest of the day. This session is 30 minutes and suitable for all yoga levels – even those who have never done yoga before!

Breakfast

Leadership Academy

Leaders, you have a lot of responsibilities resting on your shoulders. From problem-solving, making decisions, and motivating your volunteers, you face great stress and pressure. Leadership Academy sessions help you build your leadership skills and navigate different environments. Who knows, you may even be able to use these in your everyday job!

• Being An Effective President: You were asked, you said “yes,” and now it’s almost time to lead your chapter. But what does that look like? Whether your chapter is small or large, you are the leader for the next year, and we want you to leave feeling empowered and ready to take that on. You’ll leave this session knowing what characteristics make a great chapter president.
• Presidents-Elects: Collaborating With and Learning From Your President for a Smooth Transition: What does a President-Elect even do? That’s a great question, and the answer depends on your chapter. The one thing common among presidents-elects is the willingness to partner with their President to ensure a seamless transition from one year to the next.
• Motivating and Influencing Your Board: You recruited your dream team, rockstar board and volunteers–now what? To get the best results for your chapter, your team needs guidance and support from you–a leader who can motivate and influence them to give their best performance on a consistent basis. This leadership lesson will provide you with strategies, tactics, and tips on how you can influence your peers to have a positive, “can-do” attitude, collaborate effectively, and motivate themselves and each other to go above and beyond.
• Giving and Receiving Effective Feedback: All feedback is not created equal. Although it is impossible to control how others respond to feedback, strong leaders can raise the bar for how their critiques will be heard and followed rather than ignored and rejected. Feedback can motivate your team to improve their performance without a hint of doubt when presented right. In this session, discover the what, why and how of giving effective and impactful feedback, including examples you can use when talking with underperforming volunteers and peers.
• Recognizing and Working With Different Leadership Styles: Having a clear grasp of different leadership styles can help leaders, like yourself, determine different ways to best lead your team, develop your approach, and identify key steps to improve it. In this session, you will learn about three leadership styles that will help you identify which category you may fall in as a leader, along with tips on developing your leadership skills so you can effectively collaborate and lead.

How-To Sessions

Now that we are in day two of LS23, it’s time to keep on keepin’ on with all the hard work and learning underway! In these How-To sessions, you will leave with actionable takeaways you can use to form a tactical plan for your board.

• How To Write Your Strategic Plan: It can feel daunting if you’ve never done it before. That blank page stares back at you waiting for words to fill the space. Don’t panic, we have a solution. You will walk out of this session with SMART goals for every section of your strategic plan that any chapter can use. You’ll even learn how to use this template for your board retreat to help other leaders create their own goals.
• How To Keep Members Coming Back: Recruiting members is just half the fun, but retaining them is where the real party happens. You’ve told us that member retention is one of your biggest challenges, so we’re giving you actionable steps to make AMA membership stickier than a post-it note on a freshly cleaned whiteboard.
• How To Market Your Chapter: We’re all marketers, but we’re also volunteers. This means we get stuck in the cycle of churning out event emails and social posts that we often forget how to market the chapter outside of events. In this session, you’ll hear tips and tricks for marketing AMA [INSERT LOCAL NAME] like it’s running a Super Bowl commercial.
• How To Create an Effective Onboarding Process: Do you feel you agreed to be on the board but never found out what was expected of you in your role? Even if it happened to you, you probably don’t want it to happen to anyone you recruit, so we’re helping you solve that. Learn ways to effectively onboard board members in different roles to make sure they’re set up for success.
• How To Collaborate with Community Organizations and Other AMA Chapters: We get it, running a local chapter takes a lot, but how can you leverage your local community to further your chapter’s mission? Marketers are everywhere, so going outside our membership and partnering with other organizations (and even other chapters) can yield exceptional results. Learn best practices and hear examples of how other chapters are doing this.

Skill-Building Sessions

• Networkshopping: Small and Medium Chapters: Sometimes it just helps to hear it from someone going through the same thing. In this guided networking/workshopping session, you’ll mingle with chapters similar to yours and process common issues. You may even leave with a new therapist for the coming year.
• Improv: Active Listening and Responding: You may not leave as the next Drew Carey or Wayne Brady, but learning improv can help you be a better listener and help you learn how to respond faster but more effectively. It might seem like all fun and games, but we promise you’ll be a better leader for showing up.
• Public Speaking: Toastmasters Crash Course: Leading a chapter often means getting in front of large groups of people, and not everyone loves doing that. Public speaking requires practice but is a skill that can be learned, and this session will get you started on that path.
• Planning Events: A Comprehensive, Logistical Workshop: You’ve agreed to be a programming chair for your chapter, but you’ve never planned a single event in your life. Now what? From sourcing and selecting venues and planning food and beverage for small and large groups to ensuring all the accessibility needs are covered, you’ll get some practical tips for planning the logistics to ensure your event is a success.

Lunch & Keynote: The Surprising Secret That Creates All Celebrities, Billionaires and Politicians

I’ve spent my entire life trying to get to the real truth of how the world really works. What’s behind the curtain? Why do certain people have such outsized outcomes in terms of their wealth, fame, and power? The answer ended up being far more shocking than I ever imagined. I’ve never seen it written in any book, mentioned in any video, or expressed in any public conversation. I’m fortunate to now serve as an advisor to these exact people, so join this talk for my big reveal.

Arvid Ali

Former President of Jordan Belfort's Corporations

Leadership Academy

Leaders, you have a lot of responsibilities resting on your shoulders. From problem-solving, making decisions, and motivating your volunteers, you face great stress and pressure. Leadership Academy sessions help you build your leadership skills and navigate different environments. Who knows, you may even be able to use these in your everyday job!

• Networkshopping: Large Chapters: Sometimes, it just helps to hear it from someone going through the same thing as you. In this guided networking/workshopping session, you’ll mingle with chapters similar to yours and process common issues. You may even leave with a new therapist for the coming year.
• Leading with Emotional Intelligence: You’ve probably heard the term but may not know what it means. You might not realize that emotional intelligence (EQ) can be learned and improved over time, and in this session, you will not only learn about EQ, but you will learn how to lead with it.
• How To Use the New Chapter Leader Dashboard: Your Community Admin Portal has undergone an exciting transformation, and it’s time to explore! Join key Support Center staff and fellow chapter leaders who helped pilot this new dashboard to identify new features, walk through best practices, and gain one-on-one guidance for implementation. Bring your laptop, and let’s dive in together!
• Conflict Resolution: They said this! They didn’t do what they said they were going to do! As a volunteer leader, you’ve heard these and more, but how do you respond when they already give so much? Resolving conflict among board members can be a challenge. Walk away with new tools to help you manage these awkward af situations.
• This Could Have Been an Email: As a volunteer, the last thing you want is to feel like you’re spending your time getting nothing accomplished. Learn how to better manage your time, manage expectations for others, and run productive meetings that everyone enjoys attending.

LOUD Tables

One of everyone’s favorite sessions is back for another year. Mix and mingle with fellow attendees and discuss hot topics during three rounds of LOUD Tables.

Happy Hour

Start the celebration with your favorite beverage and networking with your new and old friends.

Annual Leadership Summit Awards Gala & Dinner

Celebrate the 2022 CEA Award Winners & hear from this year’s Volunteer of the Year!

RE:mix After Party

Dance the night away with the hottest music, enjoy cocktails with friends and celebrate your success as a chapter leader.

Morning Activity - Beginners Yoga (optional)

Join PCC Member, Amber McKenna, to prepare your mind and body for the rest of the day. This session is 30 minutes and suitable for all yoga levels – even those who have never done yoga before!

Breakfast

Closing Keynote: Becoming the Warrior: Strategy for Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

We all have dreams fueled by a passion that may seem too bold or too risky. We strive and are continually challenged to meet our goals, either the goals of our organization or the goals we set in our personal life.

However, we often feel that our goals and dreams are out of reach, that we’re doing something wrong, that we’re not meant for the position we were given or we’re just not good enough.

Jenn will expose the reasons you’re not moving forward. So many of us struggle with imposter syndrome, self-doubt, the fear of failing and roadblocks. Jenn has too; many times while leading on the battlefield and in the boardroom.

Her five-step approach, developed through scientific research and personal experiences, will give you the keys to moving forward into your potential. Her story-driven approach underscores the importance of believing in yourself and what’s needed to reach your unattainable dreams!

Jenn Donahue

Founder, Dare to Rise

Lightening Talks

Here’s your chance to take the stage at Leadership Summit. This unique and fast-paced session gives chapter leaders the chance to share their unique stories with each other.

Final Thoughts & Goodbyes

By this time, your brain might be mush but will be filled with tons of ideas on taking your chapter to the next level. We’ll say goodbye with closing thoughts, prizes  and surprises before you head home to implement everything you’ve learned.