San Antonio Executive Summit
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 7:15 a.m. - 4:15 p.m. CDT
Beyond Limits
You’re not just a CEO. You’re a visionary, driven to grow faster, scale smarter and lead with purpose. To climb higher, you dig deeper and tap into collective wisdom.
The climb isn’t a solo journey. It thrives on the strength of a global network – from your Chair, to your group, to peak-performing peers. The Vistage Executive Summit is your launchpad: a moment to elevate your vision, expand your impact and explore new vistas.
Key Takeaways:
- Access Expertise & Build Relationships: Tap into diverse perspectives to solve challenges with innovative solutions, strengthen your network, and find motivation through shared experiences.
- Unlock Business Opportunities: Build meaningful connections that lead to new partnerships and strategic referrals for long-term growth.
- Gain Cutting-Edge Insights: Stay ahead of economic shifts, identify growth opportunities, and enhance business resilience with actionable advice.
- Sharpen Leadership Vision & Wellbeing: Gain strategies to make confident decisions, boost productivity, avoid burnout, and build emotional resilience to navigate stress and uncertainty.
This is more than an event; it’s a community where leaders inspire new perspectives and forge meaningful connections. Boundaries are not just challenged – they’re transcended. You shape the future of business and innovation. Let’s redefine what’s possible.
Event Speakers
Taylor St. Germain
Economist, ITR EconomicsChallenges and Opportunities in 2025–2026–2027
2025 and beyond will present opportunities and challenges to business leaders. Inflation and interest rates will return on the wings of government spending, a tightening labor market, global demand, and higher-cost production inputs from raw materials to electricity. Navigating the twin challenges of inflation and interest rates will require immediate action. We will discuss the timing and the actions to take to get your company ready for the next few years and the rest of the decade.
The economy, in general, is in recovery, but the rate of rise will vary by industry and even geographic region. The information we present on the various domestic and global landscapes will allow decision-makers to position their companies for maximum return through the coming years.
Joe Roberts
Author, HumanitarianFrom Skid Row to CEO: Building Mental Resilience One Step at a Time
In this powerful keynote, Joe shares his transformative journey through mental health challenges and personal setbacks, revealing how the combination of community support and individual resilience became the cornerstone of his extraordinary success. Through his compelling story of overcoming substance use and catastrophic failure, you will discover that everyone has the capacity to rebuild, grow, and thrive when given the right tools and support system.
You will leave with:
- A toolkit for building personal resilience and supporting others' mental health.
- Practical techniques for taking small, consistent actions that compound over time to create meaningful change in both personal growth and organizational culture.
- Leadership strategies that balance empathy and accountability, enabling teams to support struggling individuals while maintaining high-performance standards.
- Methods for reframing limiting beliefs and stigma around mental health, and embracing vulnerability as a pathway to strength.
- Actionable steps for building support networks and fostering community connections that enhance both personal resilience and collective well-being.
Anne Petrik
VP of Research at Vistage Worldwide, Inc. | Summit EmceeInflection Point: Growth at the Speed of Now
To navigate through inflection points in the business cycle, Vistage Research reveals that CEOs must focus on growth, talent, infrastructure and technology. Learn insights and sentiment from your peers as well as expert perspectives from trusted Vistage community experts in this presentation featuring the latest Vistage CEO Confidence Index data.
Breakfast buffet served
- The CEO's Guide to Strategically Scaling Sales
- Transforming Your Business Through AI & Intelligent Automation
- Eliminate Hiring & Management Mistakes: How Data Analytics Save Time & Money
A deep dive into the economic forecast facing your market.
- Turn on the Financial Headlights: Maximize Your Profitability & Success
- Walk-Away Money: 6 Steps To Turn Your Business Into Financial Freedom
- Is Your Company Investment Grade? 12 Key Factors for an Outsized Valuation
From Skid Row to CEO: Building Mental Resilience One Step at a Time
Celebrate your community's Vistage Member Excellence Award winners and finalists and connect with fellow peers. Refreshments to be served in the Marketplace.
Breakout sessions
7:45 - 8:45 a.m.
Transforming Your Business Through AI & Intelligent Automation
Presenter: Mark Shivers, Founder & CEO, Ignite IPA
Are you worried about hiring/retaining staff? Are you nervous about inflation or a potential recession/depression? Are you looking to grow your business but concerned about increased costs? Are you sick and tired of hearing about how great AI is, but never see the financial impact as a result?
Leveraging intelligent process automation can help companies of all sizes support their corporate strategy and achieve high ROI by reducing expenses, avoiding costs, accelerating revenue, and creating more efficient business processes.
In this session you’ll learn about intelligent process automation technologies, and how other companies have leveraged them to achieve higher margins.
Topic: Business Operations: Technology
7:45 - 8:45 a.m.
Eliminate Hiring & Management Mistakes: How Data Analytics Save Time & Money
Presenter: Barry Shulman, Principal, Shulman Associates Search Services, Inc., Premier Certified Partner from PI
Experts agree 90% of business problems are people problems. Do you have the right people in the right roles? How do you assess employees and candidates? Can you accurately define and articulate job specs for every role in your company? Do your managers have the tools to effectively create and manage teams for maximum performance, profitability, and ROI? How do you address over-and-under performers, conflict resolution, and communication differences? Can you quickly and effectively create winning teams and predict how they'll work together?
In this breakout, you’ll take away tools to easily and efficiently optimize your talent and understand why people behave the way they do.
Topic: Leadership: Employee Development
7:45 - 8:45 a.m.
The CEO's Guide to Strategically Scaling Sales
Presenter: Frank Niekamp, Managing Partner, SalesStar
Unlock the secret to scalable, measurable, and predictable sales growth in this exclusive session designed for CEOs. Learn how to build a strategic sales system that drives consistent results and empowers your sales force. Attendees will leave with actionable takeaways:
- Proven methodologies to streamline sales processes and drive consistent results.
- Strategies to leverage data for better decision-making and measurable outcomes.
- Insights to achieve sustainable growth and elevate your company's performance.
This session is for CEO's who want a clear path to building a strategic sales system that is scalable, measurable, and predictable.
Topic: Customer Engagement: Sales & Marketing
12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
Is Your Company Investment Grade? 12 Key Factors for an Outsized Valuation
Given today’s dynamic M&A climate, business owners need a candid market perspective on what drives enterprise value.
Join us to learn:
- What it takes to attract an outsized valuation from institutional grade buyers
- A 20 minute market based approach to assess your company’s “investability”
- Top 5 deal breakers and seller missteps
- How to better align operational focus with value creation
Topic: Financials: Mergers & Acquisitions
12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
Turn on the Financial Headlights: Maximize Your Profitability & Success
Presenter: K. Scott Crawford, Partner, Preferred CFO
The future can't be predicted, but with proper tools and strategies, businesses can “Turn on the Headlights,” increasing their opportunity for prosperity while reducing risk of failure. In this session, Preferred CFO presents tools and strategies that help stakeholders elevate their company's fiscal health, confidence, and strategy by: • Understanding the importance and intricacies of a forward-facing financial strategy—and how to execute it. • Evaluating a financial teams' capabilities and ability to provide actionable information. • Tracking the right metrics to better inform the future. • Harnessing the power of forecasting to more confidently achieve goals through data-backed decision making.
Topic: Financials: Financial Management
12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
Walk-Away Money: 6 Steps To Turn Your Business Into Financial Freedom
Presenter: Paul J. Brahim, Wealth Enhancement Group
In today's rapidly evolving job market, the talent crisis is casting a shadow over the potential growth of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) in the US. Job openings are surging, surpassing the number of available skilled workers, resulting in a vicious cycle of long hiring times, skyrocketing salary expectations, dwindling efficiency, and declining productivity of the US workforce- especially for SMBs.
In response to the talent crisis, SMBs should reevaluate their hiring strategies. Through his deep expertise in remote talent integration and management, Rob offers tailored, innovative solutions that meet today's unique challenges.
Topic: Financials: Capital / Cash Management
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