Leadership Summit 2026

1,180 executive directors, board members, and senior staff filled the NANA National Conference Center from June 3 to 5, 2026 — up from 1,120 the year before, and the last Summit the board would hold in June. Starting in 2027 the flagship gathering moves to early December, leaving an 18-month gap before the next one.

Walter Abernathy opened with the state of the sector, followed by Board Chair Margaret Oyelaran and Vice Chair Dominic Ferrante on governance priorities for the year. Julian Achterberg ran the membership and chapter-relations session, and Inês Carvalho-Reyes briefed the room on State of Associations 2026 — 750 organizations surveyed, growth holding at 2.1% for a third straight year, renewal up to 94%.

Lorraine Petrakis gave her annual finance briefing, and Treasurer Haruko Tanaka previewed the first phase of the Dues Model Study, a month ahead of the Benchmarking Report's July release. Simone Radcliffe covered advocacy, and Theo Nakashima-Ward ran a session on CAE prep ahead of the May exam window. Rosalind Kettering, who has run every Summit since 2014, sat for a session on what changes and what doesn't when a Summit grows by 60 attendees.

Director of Digital Renée Okafor closed the third day by relaunching NANA's member portal live from the stage — single sign-on, a unified resource library, event registration, and chapter directories, rolled out to all six chapters at once. The NANA podcast, hosted by Amara Obiledu, taped a live episode with Walter Abernathy immediately after. The Summit closed with a plenary on governance and what comes next for the sector.

The Summit met at the NANA National Conference Center, ten minutes from Reagan National by Metro. Registration ran $845 for members and $1,225 for non-members, with an early-bird rate of $625 for those who registered 60 days ahead. The Summit carries up to 18 CAE credit hours across the full three days.