Leadership Love Asheville
Monday, September 14 - Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Century Room on the Park at Pack’s Tavern
20 South Spruce Street • Asheville, NC 28801
Overview | Speakers | Agenda | What’s Included | Venue | Event T-Shirt | What Attendees Have to Say
MEET YOUR LEADERSHIP LOVE SPEAKERS
STEPHEN GATES
Stephen is the founder of CRZY design and strategy studio.
Stephen was born into creativity, raised in Pittsburgh by a creative director father and artist mother, with a letterpress in the family basement that sparked a lifelong passion for design. Over a 30-year career, he has built brands, campaigns, and digital experiences for companies including McCann Erickson, Starwood Hotels, Citi, and InVision, with clients such as American Airlines, Disney, Verizon, and W Hotels.
Today, he leads CRZY, his Atlanta-based strategy and design studio, working with brands and founders to create work with meaning and impact. Stephen is also the host of The Crazy One podcast, an award-winning speaker and mentor, and an active leader in the creative community—proving that for him, creativity has never been a profession alone, but a way of life.
Stephen’s Presentation
I Was Good at the Wrong Job
After three layoffs, Stephen Gates sat down to interview for his next big role and realized he hadn’t created work he was proud of in over five years.
He had become a politician, organizational therapist, interventionist, and executive hysteria coordinator. Not a creative. Not the kind of leader he’d set out to be. The salary was there, but the work and creativity had gone lost along the way.
This is a talk about something senior leaders almost never say out loud: that success can quietly hollow you out. That imposter syndrome doesn’t get smaller when you get the big job. The further you climb, the more alone you can feel, and the less you want to admit it.
It’s also about what happened next. The past four years building his own studio have been a reckoning and a rediscovery about what it takes to find your original voice again, build work you are proud of, and stop measuring yourself by what a corporation decided you were worth.
SCOTT WELLIVER
Founder & Psychotherapist at Within Mental Health.
Scott’s career has long centered on understanding people—working at the intersection of human behavior, systems, communication, and design across Fortune 500 companies, startups, and consulting environments. That work sparked a deeper interest in the emotional and existential questions that shape our lives, ultimately leading him into psychotherapy and mental health counseling.
With an MSEd in Counseling and Mental Health Services from the University of Pennsylvania, Scott now provides therapy through outpatient and intensive outpatient settings, helping individuals navigate burnout, life transitions, identity, relationships, and meaning. Grounded in humanistic and existential approaches alongside evidence-based therapies, his work is dedicated to helping people reconnect with their values, authenticity, and resilience.
Scott’s Presentation
CTRL+ALT+DEL: On Burnout, Meaning, and Becoming
For a long time, I got really good at being a functional human inside systems that rewarded functioning. Creative leadership. Tech. Strategy. Performance. Achievement. From the outside, much of my life looked successful. Internally, though, there was a growing sense that I had become disconnected from something essential in myself. In the middle of shifting from design leadership into psychotherapy, while also rebuilding my own life in real time, I became increasingly interested in the possibility that burnout is not just depletion, but direction. Less about failure and more about feedback.
CTRL+ALT+DEL is a conversation about transitions, identity, and the strange experience of realizing the person you became to survive or succeed may no longer fully fit who you are becoming now. Blending mental health, philosophy, systems thinking, and lived experience, the talk explores what happens when the old operating system stops working, and how interruption, grief, uncertainty, and reinvention can sometimes become the beginning of something more honest. More alive. More you.
ELIA MILÁN
Principal & COO at Four Kitchens.
Elia thrives at the intersection of vision and execution, helping ideas become reality through thoughtful systems, clear leadership, and steady momentum. Over the past decade at Four Kitchens, she has grown from Operations Manager to Principal and COO, helping transform the company into a thriving, human-centered organization while leading major transitions, strengthening teams, and building sustainable operational foundations. Known for her calm focus and ability to turn strategy into action, Elia serves as a trusted partner to founders and leaders, guided by a simple belief: clarity creates freedom.
Elia’s Presentation
I Used to Call it Luck
Most of us have a highlight reel of moments we chalk up to being in the right place at the right time. Humble, sure. But that story has a cost. If luck got you here, it can take you out just as easily — and that’s the perfect breeding ground for imposter syndrome.
In this talk, Elia walks through the turning points of her own life story. First, the way she used to tell them. Then, through a different lens: what she attracted, what she chose, and what she created. The reframe is simple. What you reclaim when you apply it to your own story? That’s the whole point.
NANCY LYONS
Founder/CEO at Everdare Advisors.
Nancy is the Founder and CEO of Everdare Advisors, where she helps organizations navigate cultural transformation and the evolving future of work amid AI, disruption, and change fatigue. A seasoned entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and board leader with more than two decades of experience, she is known for treating culture as strategy—helping leaders build adaptability, accountability, and sustainable growth. Through her work and board service, Nancy champions human agency, inclusive leadership, and workplaces designed to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Nancy’s Presentation
Falling Apart Is Part of the Plan
On grief, reinvention, and the leadership lessons nobody teaches you
This past year, I lost my father. I lost my mother-in-law. I stepped away from the company I co-founded and led for twenty-three years. I watched my city get militarized. I sent my kid into the world while the world was actively on fire. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I was still expected to lead.
Nobody teaches you this part.
We talk endlessly about resilience and grit and pivoting with grace. But we almost never talk about what it actually feels like when everything hits at once. When the grief is personal and professional and civic and existential, all at the same time, and you still have to show up.
This session is for leaders who’ve been there - or who know it’s coming. It’s not a framework. It’s not a five-step recovery plan. It’s an honest conversation about what happens when you stop performing leadership and start actually doing it. Which, it turns out, sometimes looks like falling apart.
Because falling apart, done with intention and honesty, is not the opposite of leadership. It is leadership. The kind that earns trust. The kind that lasts.
What You’ll Walk Away With
Permission to name it. The thing you’ve been managing around, minimizing, or white-knuckling through - you’ll leave with language for it and less shame about it.
A different definition of strength. Not the stoic, steady-handed kind - the kind that tells the truth, asks for help, and keeps moving.
Clarity on what actually holds. When everything shifts, something always remains. You’ll have a sharper sense of what that is for you: your anchors, your non-negotiables, your actual values.
The courage to start over. Whether that’s a role, a relationship, an identity, or just a story you’ve been telling yourself - you’ll leave with more appetite for the blank page than you came in with.
BRAD FARRIS
Executive Coach & Thinking Partner at Anchor Advisors, Ltd.
Brad brings a different approach to leadership and business growth—one that moves beyond quick fixes and hustle culture. Blending strategic business insight with emotional intelligence, he helps leaders build sustainable success rooted in presence, self-awareness, and genuine connection. Brad believes that businesses often reflect the mindset behind them, which is why his work focuses not only on systems and strategy, but also on the inner work that supports lasting growth, stronger relationships, and greater well-being.
Brad’s Presentation
We Can’t Wait for the World to Settle Down
We’ve all been through a lot. The pandemic, the social unrest, the political chaos, the economic whiplash, AI. And it’s not over. For many of us, the cumulative weight of it all quietly narrowed our lives. We stopped planning far out. We stopped dreaming big. We got careful. We insulated ourselves from all the things.
In this session, we’ll name what happened honestly, and then we’ll do something about it. Not a pep talk, not a productivity framework. A real conversation about anxiety, presence, and what it means to choose your full life even when the world feels unstable.
KARL SAKAS
Advisor to Agency Owners on Growth and Enterprise Value at Sakas and Company.
Karl is a trusted advisor to agency founders and leadership teams, helping them navigate growth, delegation, and long-term business planning with clarity and confidence. Having worked with more than 600 agencies across 36 countries, he brings deep real-world experience and practical insight to every engagement. Known for his thoughtful approach and actionable guidance, Karl helps leaders cut through complexity, make better decisions, and build businesses that scale—and eventually transition—on their own terms.
Karl’s Presentation
Be Prepared: Your Emergency Succession Plan
Life doesn’t schedule itself around your agency. A health scare, family crisis, burnout—or a sudden opportunity—can take an owner out of the day-to-day with zero notice.
Karl shares a simple “Be Prepared” approach to keep the agency steady before an emergency happens—and to act fast when it does. You’ll learn how to stabilize what must keep moving, assign backups and decision rights, de-risk what’s trapped in your head, and run a quick “succession drill” so the plan is real before you need it.
What You’ll Walk Away With
Before it happens: identify the few “must-keep-moving” priorities and decisions that can’t stall.
When it hits: assign backups + decision rights (with guardrails) so your team can act without mind-reading.
Make it real now: de-risk what’s trapped in your head and run a short “succession drill” to find the cracks before a crisis finds you.
TANYA TARR
Behavioral Scientist, Executive Health Coach at Cultivated Insights.
Tanya is a behavioral scientist and nationally board-certified executive health coach. She works with executives and CEOs who are managing through chronic illness or navigating a life-altering diagnosis (like cancer.) She has over 20 years of experience studying human behavior in high-stakes environments, across many industries. Tanya integrates science, practical strategies and case studies in ways that help people adapt safely to stress. She also learns about performance and stress management through serving as a licensed combat sports referee and judging official.
Tanya’s Presentation
The Art of Delivering Bad News: How to give and receive updates we never want to share.
Telling people about a life-altering diagnosis is terrifying. Unfortunately, it’s something most of us will have to do. In the United States, 66% to 75% of Americans suffer from one or more chronic illnesses: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, long COVID, or other illnesses.
With numbers like these, having to deliver bad news is inevitable. You might have to tell your family, friends and employees about a scary new normal, or have an employee tell you the same type of news. It’s not a matter of “if”, but a matter of “when”.
So how do we navigate this space as leaders? Can we create strategic vulnerability in ways that strengthen emotional support when we need it most? And can we turn the worst news of our lives into an empowering moment of navigating heartbreaking change? Or help others do the same when they need to lean on us?
It comes down to delivering bad news with empathy, respect and dignity, and knowing HOW to give and receive those signals. Knowing your communication style (and the style of others) is a compass that can help you discern how to deliver bad news, well.
Key Tools and Takeaways You’ll Learn:
How to recognize communication styles – yours, and spotting someone else’s style, too. We’ll examine giving and receiving news, and how knowing styles can craft better, more mindful, empathetic exchanges.
How distress or survival can alter communication preferences, and what to look for so you can adjust your communication appropriately.
Best practices around trauma-informed notifications of major illnesses (like cancer.) How to consider and deliver useful encouragement. And what definitely NOT to do.
TRACI BARRETT
Workplace & Leadership Expert at Navigate the Journey.
Traci Barrett is an innovative entrepreneur, visionary founder, international speaker, and accomplished business owner. You may know her as one of the founding team members behind the massively popular television network HGTV, but Traci’s journey doesn't stop there.
She is now a consultant, author, and speaker. You can find her most often on stage delivering keynotes to all types of audiences.
Traci loves speaking to crowds of all sizes about finding meaning and purpose in their work, becoming the best leader possible, and beating burnout by redefining success. Whether it’s through stories about the early days of HGTV or coaching CEOs through sticky situations, Traci knows how to hold your attention while also challenging you to imagine a bigger and more positive impact. She loves inspiring people to commit to a common purpose while holding each other accountable for excellent results.
Traci’s Presentation
What's Next? A Conversation with Traci Barrett
Interviewed by Carl Smith
Most leadership stories end at the hard thing. The loss. The moment everything changed. But what happens after that? What does it actually look like to stop waiting to return to who you were and start figuring out who you're becoming
Traci Barrett has spent over a decade coaching leaders through exactly this territory, and she's navigated her own share of pivots and business heartache along the way. In this candid conversation, we'll dig into the messy, non-linear work of what comes next, with real talk and practical takeaways you can utilize in your own leadership... and life.
Member Price: $1,450
Nonmember Price: $1,950
Teams of 4 or more receive a $200 discount per ticket!
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