2026 Business & Society Summit Agenda
July 6-9, 2026 | Aspen Meadows Resort, Aspen, CO
Agenda
ARRIVAL DAY
Monday, July 6
We are offering shuttles from Denver Airport to Aspen at 1:00pm MT and 4:00pm MT. Advanced registration is required.
| 5:30pm – 7:00pm | Welcome Reception Join us for conversation and cocktails as we kick off the Summit. |
| 7:00pm – 9:00pm | Reset & Restore: Dinner (Registration Required) An optional add-on experience for a small group of senior leaders to connect with one another and explore Aspen’s natural landscape before the event begins. |
EVENT KICKOFF
Day 1: Tuesday, July 7
| 7:30am – 9:00am | Breakfast Available |
| 8:00am – 11:30am | Reset & Restore: An Aspen Leadership Experience (Registration Required) The Reset & Restore retreat offers space for reflection, thoughtful dialogue, and connection with peers, to help ground you in place and purpose in advance of the Summit. |
| 9:00am – 12:00pm | Pre-Summit Sessions Limited capacity. Register in advance. Sustainability Fusion – Speaking Finance This hands-on pre-Summit workshop introduces Sustainability Fusion, a framework born from the Aspen community that converts sustainability logic into the cash-flow narrative every investment committee understands. This session will help sustainability leaders use this new framework to translate sustainability investments into the language of cost, revenue, risk, and return. Taking Stock of the AI Transformation: Tensions, Possibilities, and Personal Agency AI is moving faster than we can effectively guide it. This pre-Summit dialogue creates space to slow down, explore the tensions participants are wrestling with, and consider our own agency in building a better world. Our goal is to reflect on this moment, broaden our aperture, and spark questions and ideas we’ll take into the days ahead. |
| 12:00pm – 1:30pm | Luncheon |
| 1:30pm – 3:30pm | Opening Plenary Shared Prosperity in the Age of AI As AI reshapes the economy, the workforce has a lot at stake and a lot to say. How will they be heard in a system that consistently prioritizes the interests of business and capital? What tradeoffs will ensure that prosperity from this dramatic transformation is effectively shared? Keynote speakers: • Chris Hyams, Visiting Professor, Huston-Tillotson University; Former CEO, Indeed • Liz Shuler, President, AFL-CIO • Kimberly Adams, Host and Senior Editor, Marketplace Morning Report (moderator) The Prepared Leader Highly accomplished musicians are among the most disciplined artists in the world. What do musicians have to teach leaders about what it takes to execute with excellence? Keynote speaker: • Alan Fletcher, President & CEO, Aspen Music Festival & School Delivering Long-Term Value in Peak Turbulence From trade and tariffs to wars that are destabilizing the global economy, the global business environment is exceptionally volatile. How do leaders make decisions that can stand the test of time amid so much uncertainty? Keynote speakers: • Vindi Banga, Chairman, Haleon; Operating Partner, CD&R • Justin Worland, Senior Climate Correspondent, Time Magazine |
| 3:30pm – 3:45pm | Afternoon Break |
| 3:45pm – 5:00pm | Thematic Deep Dive A: Building Allies in the Boardroom Corporate boards are operating in a period of enormous uncertainty, complexity, and consequence. The pace and intensity of issues facing boards are testing the limits of traditional board structures and norms that were built for stability and deliberation. How can corporate leaders on the front lines of business transformation build allies in the boardroom and help their boards better respond to a rapidly changing business environment? Conversation Starters: • David Clark, Chief Sustainability Officer, Amcor • Val Smith, Chief Sustainability Officer, Citi • Scott Tew, Vice President, Sustainability, Trane Technologies • Ann Tracy, Chief Sustainability Officer, Colgate-Palmolive • Judy Samuelson, Executive Director, Aspen Institute Business & Society Program (co-moderator) • Maggie Schear, Managing Director, BCG BrightHouse (co-moderator) Thematic Deep Dive B: The Race to Build Clean, Reliable and Affordable Power Expanded data center development and a growing global energy crisis are raising fundamental questions about how quickly, cleanly, and reliably new energy can come online. How are firms making decisions to quickly expand power systems in the face of constrained supply, evolving technologies, and affordability pressures? Discussants: • Elizabeth Adams, SVP, Chief Customer Officer, Entergy • Adam Shalapin, Vice President, Global Sustainability, Vantage Data Centers • A.J. Simon, Director of Industrial Decarbonization, Carbon Direct • David Monsma, Director, Energy Programs, Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation (moderator) Thematic Deep Dive C: Putting Principles into Practice in Turbulent Times Political polarization and geopolitical volatility have transformed core operating conditions for most companies. How are firms responding to the pressures of ongoing turbulence and staying true to their purpose and strategy? This discussion will examine how companies can strengthen institutional resilience and manage complex risks and decisions required in the midst of the ongoing polycrisis. Discussants: • Bruce Heyman, CEO, Power Sustainable; Former US Ambassador to Canada • Brendan Morrissey, VP, ESG, Walmart Inc. • Tenika Versey Walker, Global Head of Sustainable Futures, NVIDIA • Witold Henisz, Vice Dean, Impact, Value, and Sustainable Business Initiative & Professor of Management, The Wharton School (moderator) Thematic Deep Dive D: The Business Risks of a Declining American Dream Despite the longest economic expansion in US history, nearly half of Americans believe “the American Dream no longer exists,” and there is a growing question about whether America’s current economic trajectory is quietly undermining the conditions that make business work. This session starts with a provocation: is there a material business risk if the American Dream disappears for specific subsets of Americans? And is there a business opportunity for companies willing to invest in it? Discussants: • Byron Auguste, CEO & Co-Founder, Opportunity@Work • Nia Hope, Head of Social Impact Integration, JPMorgan Chase • Dane Linn, Senior Vice President, Business Roundtable • Erneshia Pinder, Vice President, Inclusion & Belonging, CVS Health • Kimberly Adams, Host and Senior Editor, Marketplace Morning Report (moderator) |
| 5:00pm – 6:30pm | Cocktail Reception |
| 6:30pm | Dinner Around Town Continue the conversation over small group dinners around town. |
MAIN EVENT
Day 2: Wednesday, July 8
| 7:00am – 7:45am | Sunrise Nature Walk A naturalist from the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES) will lead a nature walk near Aspen Meadows Resort, featuring the soothing sounds of the Roaring Fork River and a chance to see local wildlife such as deer, beavers, and a variety of birds. |
| 8:00am – 9:00am | Breakfast Plenary The Future of the CSO The mandate of the Chief Sustainability Officer is expanding fast, stretching across volatile energy costs, increasingly complex supply chains, shifting regulation, and mounting pressure to prove value in financial terms. How must the role evolve to meet this widening set of demands, and what will it take to turn sustainability from a reporting function into a driver of enterprise resilience and value? This discussion among sustainability leaders will address the future of the role, including how sustainability leaders can close the “translation gap” with the CFO and the finance function. Keynote speakers: • Katherine Pickus, Chief Sustainability Officer, ADM • Elliot Stultz, Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Assistant Secretary, and Chief Sustainability Officer, Allstate • Steve Goldbach, Sustainability Practice Leader, Deloitte (moderator) |
| 9:15am – 10:45am | Action Labs Action Labs invite participants to roll up their sleeves and work collaboratively to make progress on a live challenge presented by the session host. Topics include: • Business Leadership in a Volatile World • Corporate Governance of AI • Nature-based Solutions • Corporate Action on Democracy • Energy Transition Strategy • Data Center Development • Skilling as Shared Infrastructure |
| 10:45am – 11:15am | Morning Break |
| 11:15am – 12:30pm | Roundtable Dialogues Roundtables offer participants the chance to engage with peers on an issue of shared interest. Sessions are capped at 15 participants. |
| 12:30pm – 2:30pm | Lunch |
| 2:30pm – 3:45pm | Thematic Deep Dive A: Building Trust in a Trust Recession Business leaders have been concerned about declining trust for decades. And yet society’s trust recession has grown. How can businesses help reverse the long-running trend of declining trust among groups and major institutions? This discussion will probe how business leaders can build trust through actions, not just messaging. Discussants: • Maureen Conway, VP & Executive Director, Economic Opportunities Program, The Aspen Institute • Jesse Audet, Director, Infrastructure, KKR • Gerry Rodriguez, U.S. Head of Impact & Purpose, Edelman • Miguel Padró, Associate Director, The Aspen Institute Business & Society Program (moderator) Thematic Deep Dive B: Are We Undervaluing Worker Engagement in the Age of AI? The public narrative about AI and jobs is focused on reduction: layoffs, displacement, efficiency at scale. But companies with high-trust environments, where people feel secure enough to adapt and experiment with new ways of working, without fear of jeopardizing their jobs, may be those best positioned to reap AI’s rewards. Is chasing short-term efficiency gains quietly eroding the fundamentals of long-term business performance? Discussants: • Julie Bedard, BCG Institute Fellow; Managing Director & Partner, Boston Consulting Group • Sarah Bratton Hughes, SVP, Head of Sustainable Investing, American Century Investments • Rolf Paeper, Vice President for Business Transformation, Trane Technologies • Alison Omens, Senior Fellow, The Aspen Institute (moderator) Thematic Deep Dive C: New Pathways for Sustainable Capital The conditions that fueled growth in sustainable investment are shifting, with changing incentives and intense competition reshaping the landscape. Some investors have welcomed this as a correction, distinguishing more sophisticated approaches from prior efforts. Where is sustainable capital flowing now, and can more strategic combinations of capital drive solutions to unsolved sustainability challenges? Discussants: • Antoni Ballabriga Torreguitart, Global Head of Sustainability Intelligence and Advocacy, BBVA • Nick Ellis, Principal, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, Amazon Web Services • Kyung-Ah Park, Chief Sustainability Officer, Temasek • Rekha Vaitla, Investment Officer – Sustainable Investment and Stewardship Strategies, CalSTRS • Mike Boots, Board Member, Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (moderator) Thematic Deep Dive D: Scale, Affordability, and the Sustainable Innovation Imperative For more than a decade, leading companies have designed sustainability into products without compromising performance, and in some cases, without increasing cost. The challenge in front of us is creating repeatable approaches that hold up under tighter economic conditions and the demands of scale. This session will explore how companies are embedding sustainability into core design and procurement decisions to deliver on value, affordability, and performance at once. Discussants: • Haley Lowry, Global Sustainability Director, Dow Chemical • Yupu Zhao, VP, Global Sustainability Strategy, PepsiCo • Shalini Unnikrishnan, Managing Director & Senior Partner, Global Lead for Societal Impact in the Consumer and Social Impact, BCG (moderator) |
| 3:45pm – 4:00pm | Afternoon Break |
| 4:00pm – 5:00pm | Main Stage Plenary Leadership Endurance in an Age of Transformation Leading through constant disruption demands a mindset of endurance rather than crisis-response. What intellectual, emotional, and relational strength must today’s leaders cultivate to succeed in today’s complex environment? This conversation will explore the traits, abilities, and attitudes of high-impact leaders in an uncertain world. Keynote Speakers: • Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune • Erika James, Dean, The Wharton School • William Lauder, Chair, Board of Directors, The Estée Lauder Companies |
| 5:15pm | Depart for Evening Excursion |
| 5:30pm – 9:00pm | Reception & Celebratory Dinner at a Scenic Mountain Lodge Join all participants offsite for an evening of connection and conversation. |
MAIN EVENT
Day 3: Thursday, July 9
