Speakers

Has security in the channel improved? Probably not. But at least we’ve (mostly) stopped lying about it. This keynote cuts through the noise to ask the hard questions about the MSP ecosystem: Are we better off than we were a year ago? Are vendors helping or just selling? Are MSPs actually securing their clients or themselves? With a mix of hard data, sharper opinions, and a few uncomfortable truths, Jason Slagle and Matt Lee take stock of where we are, how we got here, and whether there’s any hope for doing better.

Community-driven development is often framed as “just listen to users.” In reality, it’s an ongoing negotiation between trust, constraints, and rejection. Drawing on real-world experience managing both grassroots communities and product-focused businesses, Kelvin Tegelaar and Ashley Cooper unpack what it actually means to build in public, with a candid look at the systems, trade-offs, and human work behind building with a community rather than just around one. They'll explore where community input accelerates innovation, where it introduces friction, and why saying “no” can either fracture trust or strengthen it. Success depends on understanding what deserves attention, and how those choices ultimately shape both the product and the community that forms around it.

I am a marketer and content creator who started posting on LinkedIn every day in 2023. What began as low-stakes shitposting turned into visibility, career opportunities, and an unexpected amount of pressure. This talk explores what happens when humour-driven content becomes a career lever, how performance metrics quietly shape identity, and how rejection shows up even when things appear to be working.

This presentation explores how high performing teams turn good intentions into consistent execution by operationalizing accountability and transparency. Drawing on real world leadership experience, it reframes accountability not as a personality trait, but as a repeatable system built on clarity, ownership, and trust. The session walks leaders through the hidden costs of vague expectations, avoided conversations, and misaligned goals, and shows how world class clarity drives measurable performance gains. Attendees learn the three core behaviors that make accountability real: making ""what good looks like"" explicit, leaders modeling transparency first, and talking about performance early and often. Through practical examples and interactive exercises, the presentation equips leaders with concrete tools to improve execution, strengthen culture, and turn insight into action within their own organizations.

On paper, cyber insurance and cybersecurity should be best friends. They're both trying to reduce risk and responding to the same threats. Cybersecurity is about prevention and resilience. Cyber insurance is about risk transfer and survivability. But year over year, these industries collide with each other. This talk explores what every cybersecurity professional needs to know about the digital lag of cyber insurance and how some carriers are trying to keep up — for better or for worse — with the rapidly changing cybersecurity industry.

Here's a question that will ruin your morning: If your best client's systems catastrophically failed at 3AM, would they call YOU? This session is the talk that gets rejected from every major channel conference. Because it tells the truth. You've done everything "right." Hit the MRR targets. Added logos. Attended the conferences. Scaled the way the podcasts told you to scale. And you're exhausted. Your "best" client consumes 40% of your support hours while paying 15% of your revenue. Your best employees are updating their LinkedIn profiles because of this client. But you keep them — because the revenue feels safe.

In this talk, Roddy Bergeron, Cybersecurity Technical Fellow at Sherweb, goes over the topic of building leadership in your cybersecurity team. Taking on his experience in the education system and building IT teams, Roddy tackles how the existing education system does not build leadership and steps you can take to help identify then build the next generation of leaders in your organization. Roddy will also discuss how organizations currently get it wrong when they don't differentiate between leadership and management. Attendees will take away actionable items they can implement in their organization to identify, build, and sustain a leadership program. This will include a growth chart, checklist, and an 8.5x11 picture of Roddy with the caption "Do Better."

I want to tell my story of personal development and how I was able to grow my business by embracing growth within myself first. This deeply personal talk shares the journey of building a successful MSP through the lens of self-development — how investing in yourself as a leader creates a ripple effect throughout your organization, your team, and ultimately your clients.

Ready to get real about maturing your vCIO practice? Join Nett Lynch, MBA — a vCIO/vCISO with 20 years' experience — for a fast-paced, no-BS session built for MSP leaders and client strategy pros. Go beyond the usual hype: discover the raw truth of what works (and what absolutely doesn't), with honest stories and battle-tested frameworks.

"Most managers and executives equate strong processes with predictability and control. But what happens when following the rules and processes slow down outcomes, frustrate employees, or, worse, frustrate customers? This talk explores how intentionally empowering teams to bend the rules can unlock faster resolutions, better employee engagement, and measurable business value. Attendees will learn how to build the right foundation, recognize where flexibility adds the most value, and create feedback loops that turn exceptions into systemic improvements."

"Complacency is our industry's quiet failure mode. This talk calls you to a higher duty of care: lead, serve, and deliver with wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance — then act on a simple framework of continuous improvement. This keynote explores the concept of ""duty of care"" for MSPs through the lens of Stoic virtues, addressing the dangers of complacency. It emphasizes MSPs' moral and ethical responsibilities toward their clients, communities, and the broader technology ecosystem."

"Most MSPs don't struggle with automation because the tools are bad. They struggle because leadership treats automation like a technical upgrade instead of an organizational change. In this session, we'll explore why automation — and now AI — gets labeled a ""job killer,"" why teams quietly resist it even when it works, and how leaders often unintentionally sabotage adoption while doing everything they believe is ""right."" Drawing from real MSP experience — including automation councils, failed rollouts, ROI modeling, backlog battles, and the messy middle between vision and execution — this talk reframes automation as a leadership responsibility, not a scripting problem. We'll dig into how trust in automation is actually built, how to prioritize high-ROI work without burning political capital, and how to move teams from ""this is just how I do my job"" to ""please automate this off my plate."" This is a practical, honest look at what really moves automation forward inside MSPs with real constraints, limited resources, and leadership teams that don't always agree."

"This talk shows you how lessons from the fast-paced service industry can transform the way you run your MSP. You'll see how restaurant-style preparation, teamwork, and customer focus can be applied to IT services. You'll learn how to train staff more effectively, prepare for daily operations with structure, and respond quickly when things get hectic. You'll also discover how hiring and developing talent from the service industry can strengthen your team. By connecting the dots between restaurant experiences and MSP challenges, you'll gain practical strategies to improve client outcomes. In the end, this talk helps you deliver service with efficiency, consistency, and excellence."

"It seems so simple, right? You have a goal and a team. Easy, go! Facilitation skills help teams stay on track toward the goal and also govern how to handle necessary ""asides."" MSPs and their projects benefit from these skills. This talk draws from many years in software development requirements and project definition — projects where often the team was the smallest vendor pushing the butt of the horse that was pushing the cart up the hill with its nose. It all begins in a small city, and your job is to scope the work to the right fenced-in back yard. So let's go"

"AI Won't Fix a Broken MSP — But It Will Expose One. Since the term MSP became a thing, this industry has been sold the idea that most problems can be solved with the right software. AI is the next chapter of that same temptation. But layering powerful technology on top of an immature or dysfunctional business doesn't create leverage — it creates chaos."

"Help MSPs start a structured conversation with clients about data management, highlighting the value, urgency, and ROI. The Conversation Starter: ""We've discovered that many of the automation and AI tools available today fail to deliver results because the data they rely on is incomplete, inconsistent, or scattered. If we don't control your data, you can't expect these tools to work to their full potential — and that's costing you efficiency, time, and money."""

"Most MSP owners are stuck in a ""Documentation Loop."" You spend thousands of hours and dollars building out a massive Knowledge Base, thinking that more information equals better performance. But here is the cold truth: Your KB is where good processes go to die. We are suffering from a ""Knowledge Paradox"" — the bigger your library gets, the more your techs ""wing it"" because they can't find what they need or they've simply tuned it out. This session exposes the dangerous lie that ""sending a link to an updated SOP"" is a training plan."