This isn’t just a keynote; it’s a live-action masterclass in redefining high performance.

What does it really take for hospitality teams to perform under pressure? To adapt, recover, and deliver service excellence again and again?

You’ll find out live, as two elite athletes tackle a Ninja Warrior-style course right on the CHART mainstage. Every leap, slip, and recovery becomes a metaphor for how high-performing hospitality teams move, learn, and adapt together.

With experience as a successful entrepreneur and CEO, as well as more than 2,000 presentations delivered worldwide, leadership expert Ty Bennett will use a powerful live demonstration to challenge the old “grind harder” mindset. You’ll walk away with a new perspective of what performance looks like in training rooms, on the floor, and across every guest interaction. Real-world strategies backed by proprietary research will leave you prepared to train smarter, lead better, and perform higher.

This will be a high-energy, full-body lesson in what high performance looks like when it’s not just talked about, but lived. Come and learn what it really takes to elevate people, performance, and purpose in hospitality.

Key Takeaways:

• Lead for Lift: Discover how the best leaders create momentum to energize, empower, and retain top talent.
• Train for Agility: Design training that builds adaptability and accountability, not burnout.
• Perform with Purpose: Learn how values-driven teams sustain excellence, even when conditions change fast.
• Stay on Course: See how focus, resilience, and recovery—demonstrated live on the Ninja course—mirror the skills your teams need to thrive under pressure.

Most teams don’t stall because of skill — they stall because people are waiting for the perfect moment instead of owning the one in front of them. Real momentum isn’t built in the easy moments… it’s built in the ones that require you to act with deliberate intention when it would be easier to step back.

In this high-energy session, best-selling author, former rock star, and Apple Top 15 podcast host, Brant Menswar reframes ownership as something bigger than personal performance — it’s about choosing to show up in service of others in a way that lifts the room, strengthens the culture, and creates movement where others would have paused. Because the moment you own isn’t just yours — it becomes fuel for everyone around you.

Participants will learn how to:

• Build trust by showing up for people, not just beside them
• Master the KPI of hope by balancing desires, expectations, and actions — the true metrics of momentum
• Turn uncertainty into a catalyst by discovering the opportunities hidden inside disruption
• Apply the BUMP Framework to turn any moment into momentum

When you own your moment in service of someone else, you don’t just change the outcome — you change what’s possible for everyone watching.

Brant will also join us at the New Orleans conference in February 2026 to double the impact with The Influence of Purpose, exploring how leaders can influence their teams in a way people feel, trust, and follow. Together, these sessions move from inspiration to implementation — from understanding what drives team engagement to owning the moments that bring it to life.

It’s a community brain trust of more than 250 top hospitality trainers together, in one room, rapid-fire sharing solutions from our industry. Always a highly popular session, LAMP is an interactive roundtable version of our online discussion forum offering best practices in crucial areas identified by trainers, such as implementing recruitment and retention strategies, using artificial intelligence and technology, creating high-performing teams, delivering training and certifications, and crafting effective instructional design.

(CHART Members have access to the online Ask My Peers forum 24/7/365! Log into our member site to join the conversation!)

This session is for those who want to gain a deeper understanding of mental health drivers (e.g. PTSD), body language, brain science, common mistakes, and effective, respectful tactics to effectively handle this issue at your establishment without incident. 

Learn proven tactics for effectively managing problematic behaviors like panhandling, rummaging through trash cans, loitering, and aggressive behavior towards staff – without conflict. Understand the brain science and mental health drivers and triggers of individuals suffering from homelessness, mental illness, substance use, and trauma to better train your teams to defuse conflict before it escalates.

Participants will:

• Learn the 4 most common mistakes employees make in managing problematic behavior.
• Learn how to use effective body language and non-verbal communication to avoid conflict.
• Gain a deeper understanding of the mental health drivers of problematic behavior and how their staff’s actions exacerbate them.
• Develop an appreciation for how a sensitive topic can be taught respectfully without downplaying difficult realities.

Having run a large homeless shelter outside of Chicago for 20 years, Ryan Dowd has a deep understanding of the cause of conflicts and how to handle it safely. Ryan has presented on the topic around the world and has developed the training used by thousands of organizations, including the McDonald’s Corporation.

This session is for training professionals who are ready to stop asking: "Can AI do this?" – and start asking: "What could we create together?"

This isn't just a tech session; it's a reinvention story – and an invitation to start your own. There will be no tech jargon, and no borrowed ideas. Just real results when curiosity, technique, and imagination meet – and become possibly the most powerful creative partner you've ever had.

You'll leave not just informed, but invigorated, confident, and ready to create:

• Discover why imagination is your greatest AI asset, and why the question "Could it...?" may be even more powerful than any prompt you'll ever write.
• Learn elevated prompting techniques that transform good results into great ones – and feel unmistakably like you.
• See what's actually possible through real projects that started with "what if we tried this?" and ended with gasps, a few misty eyes, and one VP of Ops saying "Holy $#!t, that was fast!" 
• Dive in with a live activity that might surprise you, and almost certainly will unlock something special.
• Walk away with real tools in hand, including a custom prompting guide and curated AI resource list built specifically for hospitality training professionals.

Three years ago, Jim Rich proudly raised his hand at a CHART conference when asked “who isn't using AI?” What followed was one of the most energizing professional reinventions of a 38-year career – and the reason he's back in Boston to tell you about it.

After 27 years at California Pizza Kitchen and 11.5 years as VP of Training at Mendocino Farms – helping grow both from a handful of locations into category-leading restaurant brands – Jim founded JimRichHospitality, a selective consulting practice built on a simple but powerful conviction: imagination, in addition to technical skill, is the real unlock with AI.

Fellow AI travelers, and those still thinking about becoming one, come get invigorated!

This session is designed for trainers, L&D professionals, and people leaders who want to expand their impact beyond content delivery and become more strategic, visible, and influential within their organizations.

Come for a forward-focused exploration of what it means to transform your role from delivering content to shaping culture, driving performance, and inspiring meaningful change. This new perspective positions you not just as an expert in learning, but as a strategic partner who aligns talent development with organizational goals. You become a catalyst: someone who anticipates needs, influences decisions, builds relationships across teams, and champions growth at every level.

By embracing the power of influence, you move from simply facilitating learning to forging connections, guiding transformation, and ensuring that every training moment becomes part of a larger narrative of success. This is your pathway to greater leadership, visibility, and impact – within your organization and in your professional career.

Your key takeaways:

• Understand how to anticipate needs, influence decisions, and build cross-team relationships.
• Learn how each L&D initiative can contribute to a larger narrative of organizational success and your own professional growth.
• Move beyond content delivery and actively shape the broader environment in which learning happens.

This session is for trainers and managers at any level who are responsible for developing people and want to build stronger belief in their teams.

You train the people. Which means the belief you build, or break, doesn’t stop with you. It multiplies through every person you develop.

This hands-on workshop will start where all lasting change begins: with you. You’ll identify your Black Sheep Values – the non-negotiables that define how you make decisions and how you lead – using a live, research-backed assessment built from more than half-a-million data points. Then you’ll apply those values as a diagnostic lens across the four locations of the Magnetic Field: The Plan, The People, The Purpose, and The Possibilities.

You’ll uncover where belief is breaking down. And, which of the 4 Cs – Courage, Connection, Contribution, or Commitment – is missing. You’ll develop your one specific move to make this week.

Leave with a completed Belief Blueprint and a clear action plan. Not a concept. Not a framework. A move.

Participants will: 

• Identify your top Black Sheep Values and understand how they shape the way you lead and develop others  
• Pinpoint exactly where belief is breaking down across your team using the Magnetic Field diagnostic  
• Identify which of the 4 Cs is the missing ingredient driving disengagement on your team  
• Complete a personalized Belief Blueprint with one specific, executable move for each location of your Magnetic Field  
• Leave with a single high-leverage action you will take within seven days of this conference 

James Frank
Manager, Field Training & NROs
Dine Brands Global
LinkedIn

This session is for hospitality trainers, field training leaders, and learning professionals who are navigating how to advance inclusive leadership development in today’s evolving workplace landscape.

Though language around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) continues to shift, the need for effective, people-centered leadership has not gone away. For hospitality trainers, the challenge is finding ways to keep developing inclusive leaders while ensuring programs feel relevant, practical, and aligned with current business priorities. This breakout explores how DEI work has evolved in terminology, but not in purpose. And why it remains a critical driver of team engagement, retention, and performance in hospitality environments.

Participants will examine how inclusive leadership behaviors already show up in their training programs and day-to-day operations, even when the label “DEI” is not used. Through practical discussion and real-world examples, you will learn how to frame inclusive leadership concepts using role-safe, business-aligned language that resonates with operators, leaders, and frontline teams in a shifting climate. The session emphasizes action over theory, helping trainers move beyond intent to implementation.

Gain clear strategies to reinforce inclusive behaviors through training, coaching, and reinforcement without adding complexity or risk. Each participant will identify at least one concrete, inclusive leadership action they can immediately integrate into their training practices or leadership development programs.

You will leave with:

• A clearer understanding of how inclusive leadership supports engagement, retention, and performance in hospitality.
• Practical ways to reframe DEI principles into business-focused, role-safe language that connects with today’s leaders.
• Strategies to reinforce inclusive behaviors through training, coaching, and on-the-job learning.
• One actionable commitment you can implement immediately with leaders or frontline teams.

This hands-on workshop is for professionals at any level who create and deliver presentations, and want to elevate their slides and storytelling to drive clarity, credibility, and action, regardless of the platform they use. 

Do your presentations inspire people to action? In this fresh take on a PowerPoint workshop, you’ll learn to think outside the traditional slide format across different slideshow builders, including PowerPoint, Keynote, Canva, and Prezi. Gain small, but powerful, techniques that will instantly elevate the look and clarity of your slides. Apply creative strategies so that your presentations stand out, regardless of what platform you use to build it in. This hands-on workshop reinforces essential presentation skills so that the slides support the speaker, not compete with them. The result is a slideshow presentation that drives buy-in and moves audiences to action.

Participants will:

• Discover how small slideshow adjustments and built-in tools can dramatically improve the visual impact and professionalism of your slides.
• Learn how to design and adapt presentations for different audiences, environments, and objectives to maximize engagement and clarity.
• Upgrade your slides to transition seamlessly, whether you’re delivering a keynote for hundreds or presenting to your executive team.
• Build essential presentation and facilitation skills so your slideshow supports your message and delivery.

If you are ready to upgrade your career, there is no better sign of a pro than the CHT achievement. Sign up for this review and exam for the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI) Certified Hospitality Trainer Certification. In order to attend this session, apply directly to AHLEI. Apply by July 5 to ensure that your application is approved on time.

All study materials are provided online in advance. Study on your own in advance, attend the review session Sunday morning, August 3, and then sit for the exam Sunday afternoon.

The review session will help you learn how to: assess training needs, apply training tools and techniques, design instruction, measure and evaluate training, develop supervisory and management personnel, and outsource. Then, take the exam with the new knowledge and confidence to succeed!

Go to CHT®: Certified Hospitality Trainer Application, Online Study Guide and Exam (ExamFlex) to register. If you have already completed the application process and are currently enrolled in the CHT program, contact the Certification department at 407-999-8195 or email [email protected]. When registering, enter coupon code CHARTCHT25 to receive $75 off the $520.00 AHLEI price - only for CHT participants taking the exam at the CHART Conference.

Are your presentations driving the desired results? If not, this workshop will teach you the behaviors that will enhance your ability to prepare and make a quality presentation that will more effectively drive your company's sales and build profits. 

This workshop focuses on the need to:

• Be organized and prepared for training sessions
• Possess a reasonable knowledge of the subject matter
• Connect classroom content to participant's job responsibilities
• Demonstrate a participant-centered approach
• Provide an interactive learning experience that encourages learner involvement

It is critical that managers oversee projects but determine which ones take higher priority and which ones meet objectives and provide the best ROI.

The workshop will teach you how to:

• Identify corporate development needs based on strategic objectives and goals
• Prioritize training development based on a criteria of projects most likely to positively affect the business
• Review projects based on a return on investment model, approving those that deliver positive value
• Coordinate efforts of developers to ensure that projects address training needs and are developed on time and within budget
• Coordinate workflow of designers / trainers to maximize team's focus on key business objectives
• Frequently review training curriculum to ensure that the right programs are being delivered to address company's changing needs

This hands-on two-day workshop is for: Instructional designers and training professionals ready to build more engaging and interactive e-learning using Articulate Storyline 360. Ideal for those with beginner to intermediate experience looking to apply best practices and create with confidence.

Master the widely recognized and popular e-learning tool of Instructional Designers, Articulate Storyline 360, in this complete two-day workshop at a vastly reduced price for CHART. Articulate Storyline 360 is known for its flexibility and user-friendly design—and this two-day interactive workshop is your chance to take full advantage of what it can do. With expert guidance from a certified master trainer, you’ll walk through how to build and publish an e-learning module from start to finish. From syncing audio and animation to building interactive layers and quizzes, you’ll gain practical experience in the features that matter most.

You'll also explore how to make your content accessible with tools like closed captioning, and how to publish your finished module for use in an LMS or Review 360. You’ll leave ready to apply what you’ve learned to your own training programs immediately.

Learn how to:

• Use the core building blocks of Storyline 360 to design effective learning experiences.
• Sync audio and animation for dynamic slide design.
• Add interactivity through states, layers, and triggers.
• Build basic quiz questions to check learner understanding.
• Incorporate accessibility features like closed captioning.
• Publish your finished module for LMS or Review 360 use.

Technology Requirements: A WiFi-enabled Windows laptop (or Mac running Windows), with Storyline 360 or Storyline 3 installed and active. Trial versions expire after 30 days—download one week before the session if needed.

Cost: $595 with conference attendance (includes lunch both days), $1095 with no conference attendance. You can sign up for this workshop when you register for the conference. If you have already registered and would like to add this session, email Susan.
Discounted introductory rate for CHART: Don't miss this amazing rate. As part of our new partnership with Articulate, CHART is offering this workshop at a special rate; more than 50% off what other learning organizations charge for a two-day Storyline workshop.
Note: Pre-registration and proper software installation required before session starts.