ESA announces details for 2019 leadership summit

IRVING, Texas—ESA recently announced the dates, location, schedule and speakers for its 2019 Leadership Summit: the executive level event will be held Jan. 28-31 in Austin, Texas.

“We try to be a very, very efficient leadership event—one that is strategic about the interactions we foster,” Jillian Bateman, ESA chief development officer, told Security Systems News. Bateman highlighted that the central location of Austin will be a benefit of this year's Summit.

At the event, ESA puts a lot of effort on bringing in outside perspectives from experts not part of the security industry, Bateman said, which provides attendees a new way of looking at challenges for their businesses.

Hiring is a topic that always grabs attendees' interests, according to Bateman. “We know that finding talent is a very difficult challenge that not only our industry is faced with, but every industry right now.” She highlighted the classroom session “Optimize Your Sales Organization with Existing Talent and by Winning the War for New Talent,” and the main stage presentation “Hiring for Attitude.”

Another key feature of the program is “What Keeps You Up at Night?” This will be an interactive session where attendees can discuss the issues that they are having and hear from the presenters that might have best practices around the subject. “That ends up being another very … strong session that we've offered in the past few years,” Bateman said.

The 2019 summit will also include ESA's Rising Leaders Forum. “Not only will this be a gathering place for CEOs and executive management, but if they've got a star in the company that they want to show their invested in,” Bateman said. “We've got an entire track for rising leaders.”

ESA will have an online networking portal to help facilitate beneficial meetings, fully launching for the first time in 2019, Bateman said. “It's able to help pair folks on interests,” she said. “Whether an attendee wants to meet with another attendee on, maybe, some issues that they're having with technicians that they can brainstorm and talk through, or, if they want to meet a vendor on a new product that they have, they can do that as well.”

The 2019 Leadership Summit's Diamond Event will be held at Spin, “a recently opened ping pong social club, where attendees can get competitive or cheer their friends on in a lively atmosphere with music, drinks and food,” the announcement read.