Meet the Speakers!
NAHAD is thrilled to welcome 5 incredible speakers to Indianapolis this year. Learn more about the speakers and their presentations below!
Alex Weber
With his contagious energy and actionable System, ALEX WEBER immediately impacts audiences and ignites record-breaking achievements! Alex is an Award-Winning Keynote Speaker, Champion Coach, Acclaimed Author, TV Host for NBC, and competitor on American Ninja Warrior. Alex is also the only person ever to Host and Compete on NBC’s American Ninja Warrior! Alex helps you lead beyond changes, overcome challenges, and unlock new levels of achievement!
Alex connects so well with audiences because of his genuine openness about the challenges, self-doubt, and uncertainty that we all face — and how you can overcome it! As a professional entertainer, US Lacrosse Coach of the Year, and acclaimed Author, Alex is highly sought after for his unique ability to engage, empower, and transform audiences. Alex has positively inspired over 5.5 million people worldwide, and worked with major companies like Xerox, Apple, Fidelity, Amazon, Under Armor, LinkedIn, RE/MAX, The Los Angeles Lakers, Stanford Business and many more!
With his inspiring stories, captivating energy, and actionable takeaways, Alex empowers you to lead beyond changes and conquer challenges, so you can accomplish your biggest goals in your career, your relationships, and your life! Now is the time to unlock The Unstoppable You™!
Alex is presenting on Tuesday, at the General Session and Business Meeting
Annalise Koltai, MA, CPCC
Annalise Koltai is an executive coach who has spent the last decade working with leaders at Fortune 500 companies including Slack, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Workday, Fidelity Investments, and OpenAI, as well as serving as a featured workshop facilitator at the University of International Distribution 2025 Conference. Annalise has built her career on coaching high-performing leaders to move beyond technical excellence in their work to develop the presence, relational capacity, and strategic vision required for true impact.
Annalise works with leaders who understand that the primary barrier between where they are and where they want to be is themselves. Her approach is intensive and practical, ensuring results are extraordinary. She helps leaders examine the beliefs and frameworks they’ve built their leadership around—questioning what’s actually serving them and what’s holding them back. This creates clarity, choice, and the ability to lead with full ownership rather than reactivity.
Annalise is presenting on Sunday, at the Afternoon Workshops.
Michael Feuz
Michael Feuz is a key member of ITR Economics’ team of expert economists and consultants. Backed by a decade of experience working for technology start-ups, he contributes to the production of client reports, forecast reviews, economic research, and regular client-facing communications.
Michael majored in business administration at Franciscan University of Steubenville and earned his master’s degree in economics from George Mason University. His accomplishments include building, implementing, and executing multiple go-to-market plans for technology start-ups, advancing as a national finalist in a public speaking competition, and publishing multiple op-eds in major media outlets while working in public relations.
Prior to joining ITR Economics, Michael worked as a technology consultant. He helped manufacturers, construction companies, oil and gas firms, financial institutions, and small businesses enhance their operational efficiencies. He worked with C-suite executives across a wide range of industries to improve intra-company communications, data capture and analysis, sales numbers, and profitability.
Michael is presenting on Sunday, at the Opening General Session.
Steve McClatchy
Steve McClatchy is a keynote speaker and author of the award-winning New York Times Bestseller Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress & Lead by Example. Decide has enjoyed global success and has been translated into 11 languages including Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and Spanish. In every speech Steve weaves insight, interaction, and actionable content with humor, inspiration, and motivation.
For over 20 years Steve has worked with the most prominent organizations in the world including Google, Under Armour, Disney, John Deere, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Accenture, HP, Merck, Wells Fargo, Campbell’s Soup, and many teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB.
He speaks frequently at Harvard, Wharton, and Chicago Booth. He has appeared on CNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, WSJ TV, and NBC’s The Today Show and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, WebMD, Oprah Magazine, Entrepreneur, and Investor’s Business Daily. His new book Leading Relationships hit #2 on the USA Today National Bestseller List and is also a Publisher’s Weekly and Associated Press Bestseller! Steve’s passion is for continuous improvement and believes that when we stop growing, learning, gaining experience, and achieving goals, we stop living.
Steve is presenting on Monday at the Members Luncheon, and hosting Afternoon Workshop #4.
Tracie Sponenberg
Tracie Sponenberg is a business leader specializing in people, HR transformation, and leadership development. She is the former Chief People Officer of The Granite Group Wholesalers LLC, where she led People strategy for 700+ employees across 60+ locations in six states and partnered with the executive team through acquisitions, a global pandemic, and a full transformation of HR into an award-winning People Team.
In 2024, Tracie founded Tracie Sponenberg LLC, a boutique HR consulting firm focused on helping organizations—particularly in the distribution industry—build people-first cultures, upskill deskless workforces, and leverage technology (including AI) to drive business results. With nearly 30 years of experience, she has led HR functions across professional services, media, publishing, and private-equity-backed organizations, frequently working with CEOs to align people strategy with growth and culture change.
A globally recognized thought leader, Tracie is an award-winning HR professional, global speaker, and co-founder of several HR communities. Her insights have been featured by the BBC, NPR, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and other major outlets. Known for her practical, candid approach, Tracie challenges leaders to put people before profits—and proves why it works.
Tracie is speaking on Monday, at the General Session and Breakfast, and hosting Afternoon Workshop #3.
About the Presentations...
Sunday Presentations
Annalise Koltai - Presenting Sunday
Session 1: The Line: Managing Yourself Under Pressure
Leadership is most tested in moments of urgency, stress, and constraint. This session introduces a simple but powerful framework that helps leaders recognize when they are operating reactively—blaming, justifying, or avoiding—and how to shift into personal responsibility, clarity, and choice. Your state as a leader doesn’t just affect your own performance; it directly impacts your team’s ability to perform. Participants will explore how mindset drives leadership effectiveness and learn practical ways to reset in real time. Through individual reflection and small group discussion, leaders will leave with language and tools they can immediately apply when pressure is high. This session is foundational for anyone who wants to lead with greater agency and impact.
Session 2: Coaching Skills for Leaders: Stop Doing Everyone’s Job for Them
If you’re constantly solving your team’s problems, you’re not leading—you’re doing their work for them. This is expensive: it bottlenecks decision-making, prevents your people from developing, and keeps you stuck in the weeds instead of leading strategically. This session teaches leaders how to stop being the answer and start developing problem-solvers. Participants will learn how to listen in ways that surface thinking, use reflection to build ownership, and ask questions that expand accountability instead of creating dependency. Through structured practice, leaders will gain the skills to develop their team’s capabilities rather than rescuing them from challenge. This session is for leaders who are tired of being the bottleneck and ready to multiply their impact by developing the talent around them.
Session 3: Feedback for High Performance
The Conversations You’re Not Having Are Costing You
Avoiding feedback doesn’t make problems go away—it makes them more expensive. Performance issues fester, good people get frustrated, and when you finally speak up, it often comes out wrong. Most leaders tell themselves they’re protecting the relationship, but the truth is simpler: feedback is uncomfortable and conflict feels risky. So they say nothing or say it poorly—and both erode trust and performance. This session helps leaders identify what gets in the way of feedback and provides practical tools to move past it. Through structured practice, participants will learn to give feedback that strengthens relationships and drives results. This session is for leaders who want to stop avoiding the conversations that matter most.
Michael Fuez - Presenting Sunday, Opening General Session
The Advantages of Anticipating Changes in Business Direction: Insights from ITR Economics
As decision makers running businesses navigate the complexities of the market, anticipating changes in direction can offer significant advantages. Over the course of the second half of 2026 and through the end of 2027, it will be essential for leaders to be prepared for approximately two shifts in business trajectory. Here are the key advantages to consider:
- Proactive Strategy Development: By foreseeing shifts in the economy, decision makers can develop proactive strategies to address emerging challenges and capitalize on new opportunities.
- Risk Mitigation: Anticipation allows businesses to mitigate risks associated with sudden changes, ensuring stability and continuity in operations.
- Resource Allocation: Preparing for directional changes enables efficient allocation of resources, optimizing investments and reducing waste.
- Competitive Edge: Businesses that anticipate and adapt to changes faster than their competitors gain a significant edge in the market, attracting more customers and increasing market share.
- Enhanced Decision-Making: Decision makers equipped with foresight can make informed choices, driving better outcomes for their businesses.
- Confidence and Morale: Knowing that the business is prepared for future changes can boost the confidence and morale of employees, fostering a positive work environment.
ITR Economics has a long and favorable track record for “seeing the future first,” providing invaluable insights that help business leaders anticipate and prepare for market shifts. ITR Economics’ expertise in economic forecasting equips decision makers with the knowledge needed to navigate forthcoming changes effectively.
By leveraging the insights offered by ITR Economics and preparing for the anticipated changes in direction, business leaders can ensure their organizations remain resilient and thrive in the ever-evolving market landscape.
Monday Presentations
Steve McClatchy - Members Luncheon, Afternoon Workshop #4
Members Luncheon - Leading by Example - Work Smarter & Execute Faster
Your life is a product of your decisions. Your criteria for making decisions are at the very core of your effectiveness. Great decision-making habits can yield a lifetime of success and achievements while poor ones can keep you stressed, frustrated, and out of balance.
Just as a business must never stop learning, improving, and innovating to lead in the marketplace, as a leader in your business you are faced with this same challenge. In this presentation, you will learn which decisions increase your engagement, reduce your stress, prevent burnout, and restore the feeling of balance.
Steve’s infectious energy and thought-provoking style will inspire you with specific actionable content that you can put into practice immediately. If you are interested in learning a decision-making system that can help you prioritize more effectively, prevent burnout, execute faster, achieve your personal and professional goals, and be a leader that others will want to follow this is a “don’t miss” presentation.
- Dramatically increase work and life engagement.
- Work smarter, not harder and focus on results and the true drivers of performance.
- Prevent burnout, end procrastination, and regain critical planning and personal time.
- Execute faster and get more done, in less time with less stress.
- Achieve your personal and professional goals and be an example of balance for others to follow.
Afternoon Workshop #4 - Leading Relationships
Radically Increase Engagement, Reduce Turnover, Eliminate Conflict, and
Build High Performance Business Relationships
If you are in business today, you are in the business of relationships. The skills of communicating effectively, working with diverse multi-generational teams, setting clear expectations, giving and receiving feedback, navigating differing opinions, resolving conflict, working remotely, and holding others accountable can be the most important skills you will ever develop as a leader.
In this presentation you will learn the keys to success in each of these areas and how to build relationships strong enough to handle the pressures and tensions inherent in building, leading and/or being a part of a dynamic, engaged, fast changing, high-performance, creative, collaborative team. This presentation is guaranteed to change the way you work, interact, solve problems, innovate, manage, and lead your business!
After attending this workshop leaders will be able to:
- Use The 5 Levels of Maturity Framework to guide, coach, and mentor others to excellence and greater levels of performance.
- Resolve conflict when it happens so it doesn’t slow down the pace of business.
- Give feedback more consistently and more effectively to increase engagement scores.
- Hold others accountable in a way that doesn’t damage trust and builds loyalty.
- Lead change more effectively and increase business acumen.
- Navigate differing opinions and keep focused on the business of serving your customer.
- Better communicate, collaborate, innovate, and set expectations to improve teamwork.
- Build a culture of high speed and high performance that will retain your top talent.
Tracie Sponenberg - General Session and Breakfast, Afternoon Workshop #3
General Session and Breakfast - How to Become the Company Everyone Wants to Work For
You are competing for talent with more than your biggest competitors. You’re competing with companies down the street, and also with companies offering your potential employees fully remote jobs. While tech companies offer free beer and unlimited PTO, you’re trying to convince 25-year old’s that industrial distribution is where they should build their careers.
It sounds impossible. But it’s not.
Here’s the reality: You have better career paths, stronger earning potential, and more job security than most industries. But if you can’t communicate that value or create cultures that prove it, you’ll keep losing talent.
Drawing from her experience leading people strategy in multiple Distribution organizations, through acquisitions, a pandemic and market downturns, Tracie will show you how to transform your company from “just another industrial job” into a destination employer. You’ll discover how to attract young talent without breaking the bank, retain your best people when margins are tight, and bridge the generational gap so institutional knowledge doesn’t walk out the door with your retiring workforce.
You don’t need to compete with Silicon Valley’s perks. But you do need to show what makes industrial distribution genuinely compelling and building cultures that make people want to stay and grow with you, even when the market gets tough.
Key Takeaways:
- Why your “unsexy” industry is actually your competitive advantage
- Practical retention strategies that work when you can’t match every salary offer
- How to transfer decades of knowledge while embracing new technologies and perspectives practical frameworks to help you get started
Afternoon Workshop #3 - Your Career Accelerator: Standing Out and Moving Up in Industrial Organizations
Ready to take ownership of your career? This interactive workshop is designed for ambitious professionals who want to become indispensable to their organizations and accelerate their path to leadership, or wherever they want their career to take them.
You’ll learn how to position yourself as a high-value contributor, communicate your impact effectively, and develop the skills that industrial leaders are desperately seeking. Through practical exercises and real-world scenarios, you’ll create your own roadmap for advancement whether that’s within your current company or preparing for your next big opportunity.
What you’ll walk away with:
- A clear understanding of the skills and behaviors that drive promotions
- Strategies for building influence across generations and departments
- Tools for communicating your value and creating visibility
- Your personal action plan for the next 12 months
This workshop is perfect for professionals with 5-10 years of experience who are ready to stop waiting for opportunities and start creating them.