The best individual contributor just got promoted. Let's find opportunities to make them strong people leaders.

Fifteen years ago, ELE launched its first Spring Conference at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee. The theme: The 2020 Workplace — How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop and Keep Tomorrow's Employees Today.

We're a safe space for idea exchange — developing emerging and new leaders alongside world-class brands, built for today's pace of change.

Today, fifteen years later, the format changed. The instinct didn't.

This is ELE's first virtual applied experience: a complimentary Design Charrette, extended to the ATD NYC Chapter's Special Interest Group. And it's landing squarely in luxury retail leadership development — Harley-Davidson in motorcycles, marine & life fitness, Porsche and Ferrari in performance auto. Different products, same question: how do you develop the people leading the floor?

Paul DeSousa, who led learning and development at ULTA, is joining us. Vanja Gavrilovic — marine & life fitness, ELE community member — is being invited too.

Bring your signals. We'll work through the strategic choices and risk tradeoffs together — and reframe them as a 30/60/90 practical action plan for new leaders.

Kyle Swanson put it plainly:

"AI is a thought partner, not a decision-maker. Effective prompts require expertise; effective outputs require judgment."

Instead of a traditional presentation, co-facilitation will run this as a Design Charrette with both a human and a digital (AI) facilitator for ATD NYC Chapter Leaders, John Murphy and Jason Aydelot — built to work through a real talent challenge together, not deliver a keynote. Bring your signals and expertise on this talent challenge. We'll work through it together:

• The best individual contributor just got promoted. What actually develops them into a leader — not another training program they'll skip?
• New leaders inherit teams they didn't build. How do you help them earn trust fast without faking it?
• Everyone's handing new managers AI tools before they've learned to manage humans. Where does that help, and where does it make the gap worse?

We'll test these ideas against real scenarios. You'll leave with sharper performance-consulting moves worth trying with your own leadership team. We'll work what you bring through ELE's Design Charrette framework: Signals, Strategic Choices, Risk & Tradeoffs.

Your challenge could be next on the calendar. 👉 Vote to Shape the Calendar

This Design Charrette feeds into the Learning Circle: Elevating Leadership Performance. Join the pre-chat with your peers: Promoted to Lead, Left to Figure It Out -- New Managers in Luxury Retail - Shape the Calendar - Idea Exchange - ELE Group