Breaking Your Ceiling: Unlocking Meta Performance for Executive Impact (Part 1 of 2)

Time: 9:45 AM - 12:15 PM

Room: 3B

Speaker/Trainer: Lawrence Huey, Amy Tucker

Target Audience / Career Band: Executive

Session Format: Interactive workshop with strategic reflection, peer dialogue, and practical planning

SASE Leadership Competency Focus: Strategic Planning (LO.1.1), Self-awareness (LY.1.5), and Accountability (LP.3.5)

Session Overview

Note: This is the first part for certification. Participants who attend the full session series and submit the completed worksheet will receive a certificate of participation recognizing awareness of the Executive competencies covered.

At the executive level, the next breakthrough rarely comes from working harder. It comes from seeing the system more clearly, evolving the leadership patterns that shaped past success, and aligning decisions with the future the organization needs to create.

For STEM executives, past success can become an invisible ceiling. The habits, assumptions, and decision-making approaches that helped leaders advance may not be the same ones required to lead through complexity, influence across systems, and drive enterprise-level results. Sustained executive impact requires the ability to step back, examine how leadership choices shape strategy and culture, and create stronger accountability for translating vision into measurable progress.

This session introduces meta performance as an executive leadership capability: the ability to intentionally examine how you think, decide, influence, learn, and create value. Through strategic reflection, peer dialogue, and practical planning, participants will identify the leadership ceilings that may be limiting their next level of impact and clarify the shifts needed to lead with greater strategic focus, self-awareness, and accountability.

Executives will leave with a sharper understanding of where their leadership must evolve, how to strengthen alignment around key priorities, and what actions will create greater enterprise value over the next 30–60 days.

Leadership Competencies Strengthened

At the Executive career band, these competencies are about more than personal improvement or day-to-day execution. They involve seeing how individual leadership patterns shape enterprise strategy, organizational culture, stakeholder alignment, and measurable business outcomes:

- Strategic Planning (LO.1.1) - Clarifying where leadership must evolve to support long-term organizational priorities and enterprise-level results.

- Self-awareness (LY.1.5) - Examining the habits, success patterns, and assumptions that may be creating a ceiling on future executive impact.

- Accountability (LP.3.5) - Identifying actions that create stronger ownership, follow-through, and enterprise value around strategic priorities.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this interactive workshop, participants will be able to:

- Identify the success patterns, assumptions, and leadership habits that may be creating a ceiling on future executive impact.

- Apply a strategic planning lens to clarify where their leadership must evolve to support long-term organizational priorities.

- Examine how their leadership style and decision-making patterns influence enterprise alignment, culture, and performance.

- Identify opportunities to strengthen accountability by clarifying ownership, expectations, and follow-through around strategic priorities.

- Use peer dialogue and reflective practice to surface new perspectives on current leadership challenges and growth opportunities.

- Develop a focused executive action plan that connects self-awareness, strategic direction, and accountability to measurable enterprise impact.

Participant Takeaways

Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of the leadership patterns that may be limiting their next level of executive impact and a focused 30–60 day action plan for strengthening strategic focus, self-awareness, accountability, and enterprise value.

Breaking Your Ceiling: Unlocking Meta Performance for Executive Impact (Part 2 of 2)

Time: 9:45 AM - 12:15 PM

Room: 3B

Speaker/Trainer: Lawrence Huey, Amy Tucker

Target Audience / Career Band: Executive

Session Format: Interactive workshop with strategic reflection, peer dialogue, and practical planning

SASE Leadership Competency Focus: Strategic Planning (LO.1.1), Self-awareness (LY.1.5), and Accountability (LP.3.5)

Session Overview

Note: This is the last part for certification. Participants who attend the full session series and submit the completed worksheet will receive a certificate of participation recognizing awareness of the Executive competencies covered.

At the executive level, the next breakthrough rarely comes from working harder. It comes from seeing the system more clearly, evolving the leadership patterns that shaped past success, and aligning decisions with the future the organization needs to create.

For STEM executives, past success can become an invisible ceiling. The habits, assumptions, and decision-making approaches that helped leaders advance may not be the same ones required to lead through complexity, influence across systems, and drive enterprise-level results. Sustained executive impact requires the ability to step back, examine how leadership choices shape strategy and culture, and create stronger accountability for translating vision into measurable progress.

This session introduces meta performance as an executive leadership capability: the ability to intentionally examine how you think, decide, influence, learn, and create value. Through strategic reflection, peer dialogue, and practical planning, participants will identify the leadership ceilings that may be limiting their next level of impact and clarify the shifts needed to lead with greater strategic focus, self-awareness, and accountability.

Executives will leave with a sharper understanding of where their leadership must evolve, how to strengthen alignment around key priorities, and what actions will create greater enterprise value over the next 30–60 days.

Leadership Competencies Strengthened

At the Executive career band, these competencies are about more than personal improvement or day-to-day execution. They involve seeing how individual leadership patterns shape enterprise strategy, organizational culture, stakeholder alignment, and measurable business outcomes:

- Strategic Planning (LO.1.1) - Clarifying where leadership must evolve to support long-term organizational priorities and enterprise-level results.

- Self-awareness (LY.1.5) - Examining the habits, success patterns, and assumptions that may be creating a ceiling on future executive impact.

- Accountability (LP.3.5) - Identifying actions that create stronger ownership, follow-through, and enterprise value around strategic priorities.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this interactive workshop, participants will be able to:

- Identify the success patterns, assumptions, and leadership habits that may be creating a ceiling on future executive impact.

- Apply a strategic planning lens to clarify where their leadership must evolve to support long-term organizational priorities.

- Examine how their leadership style and decision-making patterns influence enterprise alignment, culture, and performance.

- Identify opportunities to strengthen accountability by clarifying ownership, expectations, and follow-through around strategic priorities.

- Use peer dialogue and reflective practice to surface new perspectives on current leadership challenges and growth opportunities.

- Develop a focused executive action plan that connects self-awareness, strategic direction, and accountability to measurable enterprise impact.

Participant Takeaways

Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of the leadership patterns that may be limiting their next level of executive impact and a focused 30–60 day action plan for strengthening strategic focus, self-awareness, accountability, and enterprise value.

Beyond AI Adoption: Reimagining What’s Possible for Leadership, Teams, and Organizations

Time: 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Room: 3B

Speaker/Trainer: Nozomi Morgan, Keith Nishida

Target Audience / Career Band: Executive

Session Format: Executive Roundtable with Wisdom Circles and peer dialogue

SASE Leadership Competency Focus: Navigating Uncertainty (LO.3.3), Strategic Planning (LO.1.1), and Change Management (LP.3.8)

Session Overview

AI is creating more than new efficiencies. It is giving executive leaders an opportunity to fundamentally rethink how organizations are designed, how teams work, how decisions are made, and what high performance looks like.

This Executive Roundtable moves beyond AI tools and adoption to explore a more strategic question: What becomes possible when we rethink leadership, teams, and organizations through an AI-native lens? An AI-native leader is not simply someone who uses AI effectively, but someone who recognizes that AI is changing what is possible and is willing to challenge long-held assumptions about how work gets done, where value is created, and how organizations operate.

Through facilitated Wisdom Circles and peer dialogue, executives will exchange perspectives, surface emerging practices, and learn from one another. Together, participants will explore how leadership needs to evolve in an AI-enabled world, how people and AI can each contribute where they create the greatest value, which assumptions AI gives leaders permission to rethink, what should be intentionally preserved as organizations evolve, and what will distinguish truly high-performing organizations when access to AI becomes ubiquitous.

This session is designed as a strategic space for senior leaders to step back from implementation, think with peers, challenge assumptions, and expand what they believe is possible for the future of their organizations.

Leadership Competencies Strengthened

At the Executive career band, these competencies involve guiding the entire organization through complexity, interpreting major industry shifts, defining long-term direction, making high-level decisions, and leading large-scale transformation with clarity and confidence:

- Navigating Uncertainty (LO.3.3) - Guiding organizations through complexity and industry shifts while maintaining agility and resilience.

- Strategic Planning (LO.1.1) - Connecting emerging technology shifts to long-term organizational vision, enterprise-level decisions, and future value creation.

- Change Management (LP.3.8) - Leading people and organizations through AI-driven transformation while building clarity, trust, commitment, and resilience.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this Executive Roundtable, participants will be able to:

- Identify long-held assumptions about leadership, work design, team structures, decision-making, or value creation that may need to be reexamined in an AI-enabled future.

- Describe how AI may shift where value is created across people, teams, systems, and organizations.

- Explore how executive leaders can connect emerging technology shifts to long-term organizational vision, strategic priorities, and enterprise-level decisions.

- Examine how leaders can guide people and organizations through AI-driven transformation while building clarity, trust, commitment, and resilience.

- Reflect on what should be intentionally preserved as organizations evolve, including human judgment, trust, culture, relationships, and purpose.

- Articulate one strategic question or leadership commitment they will take back to their organization to advance future-focused thinking about AI, leadership, teams, or organizational design.

Participant Takeaways

Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of how AI-native leadership can expand what is possible for their organizations and with one executive-level commitment to help guide strategic thinking, change leadership, or organizational transformation.

Master Executive Storytelling: How to Convince, Compel, and Shift Mindsets with Strategic Narratives

Time: 1:45 PM - 3:00 PM
Room: 3B

Speaker/Trainer: Rebecca Okamoto

Target Audience / Career Band: Executive

Session Format: Interactive workshop

SASE Leadership Competency Focus: Storytelling (LY.2.4) and Influencing Others (LP.2.5)

Session Overview

Storytelling has become a critical leadership capability for executives. Once viewed as a creative skill or a “nice-to-have” communication style, strategic storytelling is now essential for helping senior leaders align stakeholders, challenge conventional thinking, and shape business outcomes.

Executive storytelling is not simply about humanizing leadership or delivering a moving presentation. It is a strategic communication technique that helps leaders clarify complexity, connect ideas to business priorities, and guide others toward a shared conclusion. When used well, a strong narrative can align opposing views, shift mindsets, and create momentum around important decisions.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to create a strategic narrative that influences senior stakeholders and supports executive-level leadership. Participants will explore how to guide others to see from their perspective, draw meaningful conclusions, and move toward action. Using a practical framework, they will learn how to build a strategic storyline that can be delivered in as few as 10 slides or 10 sentences.

Leadership Competencies Strengthened

At the Executive career band, these competencies involve using strategic narratives to communicate direction, shape culture, align senior stakeholders, challenge conventional wisdom, and inspire action across the organization:

- Storytelling (LY.2.4) - Crafting narratives that move beyond information-sharing to create alignment, influence decisions, and advance business outcomes in complex environments.

- Influencing Others (LP.2.5) - Using strategic narratives to guide senior stakeholders, shift mindsets, and create momentum around critical business priorities.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

- Explain why strategic storytelling is an essential executive leadership capability, especially when leaders need to align stakeholders, shift mindsets, or create momentum around a business priority.

- Identify the mindset, assumption, or conventional wisdom that must shift in order to influence a senior stakeholder or leadership audience.

- Apply a practical storytelling framework to organize a strategic narrative in a clear, compelling, and concise way.

- Develop a strategic storyline that helps stakeholders understand the current context, see the business implications, and draw a shared conclusion.

- Practice shaping a narrative that connects audience perspective, business priorities, and desired action.

- Determine how to use strategic storytelling to influence decisions, build alignment, and support executive-level business outcomes.

Participant Takeaways

Participants will leave with a practical framework for building executive narratives and the beginning of a strategic storyline they can use to influence senior stakeholders, shift mindsets, and communicate with greater clarity and impact.