How the SITE Young Leaders Conference Will Focus on Opportunities This ‘Dragon Year’

 

On this year’s Lunar New Year (celebrated February 10, 2024) we entered the Year of the Dragon, one of the most powerful and auspicious animals in Chinese zodiac culture—and the only that is a mythical creature.

The dragon, considered unparalleled in talent and excellence, symbolizes strength, wisdom, luck, prosperity, honor, power, nobility and success. Throughout this Chinese New Year (concluding January 28, 2025), the Year of the Dragon is forecasted to bring about positive changes and challenges, making 2024 a favorable time for shifts in life—and in our careers.

It’s a year dedicated to opportunities, and that makes it the perfect theme for this year’s SITE Young Leaders Conference (YLC), taking place October 6 at Las Vegas’ Golden Nugget.

The conference’s theme, “Dragon Year: Key Strategies for Growth and Career Advancement,” will focus on growth and development within the meetings and events industry, exploring strategies for climbing the corporate ladder successfully and recognizing the right time to transition to new opportunities.  

"The 2024 SITE Young Leaders Conference is set to be truly exceptional, aligning with the Lunar Year of the Dragon—a symbol of growth, prosperity and change, perfectly reflecting our conference's goals. This year, we’re returning to the core values that define what it means to be a SITE Young Leader,” said Max Simpkins, SITE board member and director of Young Leaders. “We’ll focus on expanding your network, mastering the complexities of management, and, most importantly, developing your leadership skills. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with the brightest young leaders from around the globe!"

[Related: How Mentorship Will Be Making a Big Impact at IMEX America]

Conference Highlights and Featured Sessions

Every year, the SITE YLC invites some of the industry’s newest and youngest faces to gather the Sunday before IMEX America for a one-day conference dedicated to inspiring the next generation of talent, educating them on what’s new in the industry and helping them network and connect with others following similar career paths.  

Frequently included on the SITE YLC agenda is an industry update with SITE CEO Annette Gregg, who will tap into recent findings from this year’s Incentive Travel Index (ITI) as well as current industry trends related to everything from destination selection to budgets.  

Of course, the schedule also includes numerous opportunities for networking and building connections with other SITE YLC attendees, a corporate social responsibility (CSR) component in which young leaders can participate in an activity that gives back to the community and sessions dedicated to professional development.  

It also features keynote speakers talking about the hottest topics in the industry, such as AI and the essence of belonging, as well as insightful panel discussions centered around conversations related to young leaders’ career journeys.  

Highlights of this year’s SITE YLC include:

• An opportunity for attendees to practice their public speaking skills.  
• An AI session and activity with Nitin Sachdeva, 2025 SITE International Board of Directors President.
• A NextGen Leaders Panel, with a focus on growing careers, families and teams (Shameless plug: Catch me on stage as a panelist!).
• Keynote session, “The Laboratory of Interpersonal Joy” with Jacques W. Martiquet, aka The Party Scientist.
• A panel discussion about career path planning, “How I Got Here,” sponsored by IHG Hotels & Resorts.
• Hot topic roundtables, ice-breaker activities, a closing reception and more.

[Related: Who Is The Party Scientist? Meet the Expert on the Science of Joy and Human Connection]

SITE Young Leaders Conference NextGen Panel Discussion

While SITE YLC is designed specifically for young leaders in the community, young leaders haven’t always had the opportunity to get on stage and be in the spotlight. This year, the SITE YLC committee set out to ensure young leaders were just as much a part of the programming as they are the conference itself with the creation of the NextGen Leaders Panel.

“We always give updates on what’s going on in the industry with insights from experts, but it’s like, there are 100 of us in this room that are young leaders, let’s talk amongst each other. Let’s find out what’s going on. Is it just me that’s facing these problems? Probably not,” Simpkins said. “[The panel] is really going back to the roots of what young leaders is. Why it started is to connect us at the same level, that’s one of the core values: reconnecting us as young leaders, together, and finding out and telling each other that it’s OK.”  

“We want to have a variety of ranges of young leaders; those that are just starting but also those that maybe have just graduated from [the Young Leaders program] or are older on the spectrum that can talk about, how do you be in this industry and have a family? How do we balance that?” said Ashley Krueger, SITE IBOD Young Leaders Representative. “I know, personally, growing up in the Young Leaders program, it was important for my career, but also important for me personally to have a young leader that I could reach out to and ask questions—for my career and just life in general.  

“When I was going through something in my career, it was SITE young leaders and SITE mentors that I reached out to who helped me during that time,” Krueger continued. “So, having a panel to really try to highlight this connection that you can get within the SITE community, to facilitate that discussion and the career milestones they hit and how they got to that point, that’s our goal: Highlighting how you can survive in this industry.”  

[Related: IMEX America Promises Impactful Programming That Will Engage Attendees on Deeper Levels]

Providing Practical Takeaways

In the research I’ve done for my Gen Z column, “The Z,” I’ve learned a lot about what it looks like to keep Gen Zers engaged and involved in event programming. Oftentimes, their short attention spans will find something else to focus on during presentations in which they are seated in silence, listening to someone on stage speak for an hour before moving onto the next session.  

This year’s SITE YLC is all about interactive formats and providing practical takeaways that keep young leaders engaged and tuned in.  

The AI session with Nitin Sachdeva, for example, will give attendees the opportunity to practice what Sachdeva is teaching in the moment so they can familiarize themselves with new AI processes, take what they learn and implement it in their careers as soon as they see fit.

“The idea for that is we want to do an AI talk but actually have a practical input,” Simpkins said. “So, there’s going to be a 20-minute-or-so session, and after Sachdeva talks about how to use AI for social posts, we are going to have a practical element so attendees can start using it straight away.  

“The idea is to have all of the attendees post something about the conference and tagging SITE, and then having people work out who used AI and things to flag when you think AI may have been used to generate content,” he continued. “It’s going to focus on how you can actually start using these skills as of today, because there are so many things about AI that we’ve all learned, but we don’t always have the opportunity to try it out.”  

Other strategies the SITE YLC committee has planned to keep young leaders engaged include facilitating group discussions during presentations, allowing more time for networking, encouraging attendees to switch tables throughout the conference and having breakout discussions after which the group comes back together to share key takeaways.

“We’ll also be launching next year’s application for the 2025 SITE Mentoring Members program, and we’ll be announcing the winner of this year’s Mentee of the Year award, which features a full-ride scholarship, essentially, to our global conference next year,” Krueger said.  

The SITE YLC committee will also be facilitating a group meet-up in the morning on MPI’s Smart Monday to continue facilitating connections and help young leaders feel more confident navigating the tradeshow floor.  

For more information or to register for this year’s SITE Young Leaders Conference, visit https://siteglobal.com/event/site-young-leaders-conference.  

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