Opening Plenary and Signature Development Session
A shared leadership frame for the weekend, designed to help attendees begin with reflection, focus, and a practical development mindset.
The Experience
Two Days to Strengthen What Comes Next
Ascension is not built around passive attendance. It is a two-day progression through learning, reflection, connection, and application—designed to help you leave with clearer priorities, practical strategies, and relationships that continue beyond the weekend.
The program
Signature Experiences
Ascension combines applied workshops with larger shared experiences that help participants reflect, connect, and carry the learning forward. Additional details will be released as session designs are finalized.
Life By Design Luncheon
A Saturday luncheon experience focused on intentional leadership, life design, and professional growth. Educational content will be announced as the program is finalized.
An Audience With Auntie
A facilitated signature session with Audra Bohannon of Bohannon Advisory, designed as a reflective leadership experience for the Ascension community.
Featuring Audra Bohannon, Bohannon Advisory
Catalyst Awards Dinner
An evening gathering that recognizes leaders whose work is moving organizations and communities forward.
Presented by Crane Group
The Whole and Healthy Leader
A Sunday signature session on the physical, mental, emotional, and relational demands of sustainable leadership. Part of the Health and Wellness track.
Presented by Mount Carmel
Pancakes and Progress Brunch
A Sunday brunch and signature conversation. Panelists and moderators will be announced soon.
What you'll explore
Five Learning Tracks
Every breakout session sits in one of five tracks. Leading through complexity (conflict, change, uncertainty, and high-stakes decisions) runs through the whole program, with its deepest treatment in Leadership and Career Development.
Leadership and Career Development
Build practical leadership capacity, career clarity, influence, conflict navigation, innovation, self-awareness, and the ability to lead through complexity.
See the sessionsFinancial Literacy and Wealth Building
Make more intentional decisions about money, opportunity, financial security, and long-term life design.
See the sessionHealth and Wellness
Support sustainable performance, leader well-being, boundaries, and mental and emotional capacity.
Presented by Mount Carmel
See the sessionsPersonal Branding and Networking
Strengthen executive presence, reputation, communication, relationship capital, and judgment under pressure.
See the sessionsEntrepreneurship and Side Hustles
Help entrepreneurs, side-hustlers, and builders strengthen systems, reduce operational drag, and move ideas forward with more structure.
See the sessionBreakout sessions
Sessions by Track
Applied workshops built around a real leadership or professional challenge, each designed to send you home with a tool, a plan, or a next step.
Track 1
Leadership and Career Development
Build practical leadership capacity, career clarity, influence, conflict navigation, innovation, self-awareness, and the ability to lead through complexity.
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The Culture We Carry: Restorative Leadership, Belonging, and the Black Professional Experience
Explores restorative leadership as a practical approach to accountability, belonging, power, and team dynamics. Participants examine how they lead with others and identify one concrete shift they can make after the conference.
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The Power to Ask: Using Curiosity, Data, and Relationships to Advocate for What You’ve Earned
Helps participants prepare for negotiations around salary, promotion, resources, visibility, development, or expanded responsibility using curiosity, data, and relationships.
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The Cutting Edge: Leading a Culture of Innovation
Examines how leaders support or block innovation through everyday choices, systems, norms, and risk tolerance. Participants use a real workplace challenge to design a focused next step.
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The Architect’s Pivot: Building Your Next Career Chapter With Strategy, Not Just Courage
Treats a career pivot as a staged strategy. Participants assess transferable value, personal brand, financial sustainability, and the sequence needed for a thoughtful transition.
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Brave Voices: How Courageous Leaders Reframe Conflict, Build Trust, and Influence Change
Gives leaders a practical framework for handling disagreement, criticism, controversy, and polarized environments without becoming defensive or losing clarity.
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From Position to Influence: Leadership Beyond the Title
Focuses on credibility, trust, communication, accountability, and relationships as sources of influence beyond formal authority.
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From Talent to Triumph: Using CliftonStrengths to Enhance Professional and Personal Success
Helps participants apply CliftonStrengths to work, relationships, personal goals, and team dynamics through reflection and action planning.
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Managing Career Search Fatigue: A DIP Theory Approach
Helps participants diagnose job-search fatigue, refocus their search strategy, and create a practical 90-day plan using direction, investment, and performance.
Track 2
Financial Literacy and Wealth Building
Make more intentional decisions about money, opportunity, financial security, and long-term life design.
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The Life You’re Funding: How High-Achieving Professionals Can Build Wealth While Designing a Life They Love
Connects wealth-building to the life participants want to create. Attendees examine spending, saving, investing, caregiving, lifestyle, legacy, and personal priorities.
Track 3
Health and Wellness
Support sustainable performance, leader well-being, boundaries, and mental and emotional capacity.
Presented by Mount Carmel
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Signature session · Sunday
The Whole and Healthy Leader
Focuses on the physical, mental, emotional, and relational demands of sustainable leadership.
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Ambition Without Abandonment: Protecting the Mental Health of High-Achieving Women in Leadership
Explores the hidden cost of high achievement for women leaders and offers practical strategies for sustaining impact without ignoring mental and emotional capacity.
Track 4
Personal Branding and Networking
Strengthen executive presence, reputation, communication, relationship capital, and judgment under pressure.
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The Executive Response: Crisis Leadership for Black Professionals
Helps participants prepare for moments when credibility, reputation, and judgment are under pressure. The session focuses on risk, communication, trust repair, and reputation management.
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The Room Reads You First: How Iconic Leaders Command Presence Without Losing Themselves
Focuses on how leaders are read in high-stakes rooms and how to adjust communication style without losing authenticity.
Track 5
Entrepreneurship and Side Hustles
Help entrepreneurs, side-hustlers, and builders strengthen systems, reduce operational drag, and move ideas forward with more structure.
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Automate the Grind: A Hands-On Systems Lab for Side Hustlers and Small Business Owners
A hands-on lab where participants map one repetitive task and design a workable automation plan using practical, accessible tools.
Approved sessions and signature experiences are listed to give attendees a clearer view of the learning focus. Final day placement, session order, and speaker details may shift as the conference-at-a-glance schedule is completed. Check back in December for the latest schedule update.
Weekend at a glance
Your Ascension Weekend
A general outline of how the weekend flows. Times, rooms, and final session order will follow in the conference-at-a-glance schedule.
Friday, January 1 · Optional
AALA Alumni Round Up
- Connection activities
- Informal networking
- A social gathering for AALA alumni and community members
Separate ticket required. Ascension registration does not include the Alumni Round Up.
Saturday, January 2
Learning, Connection, and Community Recognition
- Registration and arrival
- Opening Plenary and Signature Development Session
- Breakout learning across the five tracks
- Life By Design Luncheon
- Networking and relationship-building
- An Audience With Auntie, featuring Audra Bohannon of Bohannon Advisory
- Brothers and Sisters of the Academy gatherings
- Reception and Catalyst Awards Dinner, presented by Crane Group
- Optional post-dinner social gathering
Sunday, January 3
Well-Being, Application, and Next Steps
- The Whole and Healthy Leader, presented by Mount Carmel
- Breakout learning across the five tracks
- Pancakes and Progress Brunch
- Closing session and next-step reflection
Check back for the conference-at-a-glance schedule in December.
Logistics
Plan to Attend
Summit details
- Dates
- January 2–3, 2027
- Venue
- Cherry Valley Hotel, Newark, Ohio
- Format
- Two-day public leadership conference
- Registration
- Current options available through Wild Apricot
Under $200
Two days of high-quality professional development, signature experiences, and included meals. Visit the official registration page for current rates, deadlines, processing fees, ticket types, hotel instructions, and room-block information.
Registration includes
- General sessions
- Breakouts and workshops
- Life By Design Luncheon
- Catalyst Awards Dinner
- Sunday brunch
Hotel and room block
Stay at Cherry Valley Hotel
The Summit is held at Cherry Valley Hotel, and a discounted block of rooms is held for attendees. Booking inside the block keeps you on site for the full two days — including the Saturday evening reception and the Sunday brunch.
- Hotel
- Cherry Valley Hotel
- Address
- 2299 Cherry Valley Rd SE
Newark, OH 43055 - Phone
- 740-788-1200
- Book by
- December 10, 2026
Booking by phone? Ask for the AALA room block. The link above opens the block directly with the dates already set.
Employer approval
Make the Case to Your Employer
Most organizations hold professional-development or tuition-reimbursement funds and will approve a request that ties the learning to the role. Ascension is an easy case to make: registration is under $200, the Summit runs Saturday and Sunday so it costs no working days, and what participants bring back is practical rather than inspirational.
What your organization gets
- Applied leadership development at a fraction of the cost of comparable external programs.
- Learning that returns to the team — judgment, decision-making, and difficult conversations.
- Cross-sector perspective the employee cannot get inside your organization alone.
- A visible investment in a leader you are trying to develop and retain.
- No lost working days, and no conference-season travel budget.
What you get
- Strategies you can put to work the week you return.
- Clarity about your professional and leadership priorities for the year.
- New tools and approaches for the challenges already in front of you.
- Relationships across sectors that outlast the weekend.
- Time to start the year with focus and renewed capacity.
Request template — edit the highlighted parts and send
Subject: Approval request — Ascension Leadership Summit, January 2–3, 2027
Hi [Manager],
I would like to attend the Ascension Leadership Summit on January 2–3, 2027 at Cherry Valley Hotel in Newark, Ohio, and I am requesting approval to use available professional-development funds for registration.
Ascension is a two-day applied leadership program built around five learning tracks: leadership and career development; financial literacy and wealth building; health and wellness; personal branding and networking; and entrepreneurship and side hustles. Sessions also address leading through complexity, including conflict, change, and high-stakes decisions. The format combines general sessions, breakout workshops, and structured relationship-building with leaders across sectors.
What I expect to bring back:
- Practical strategies I can apply directly to [name a current project, team challenge, or goal]
- Sharper judgment and clearer priorities for the decisions ahead of me this year
- Perspective from leaders in other organizations working on comparable problems
- A written summary and two or three specific recommendations I will share with the team
What it costs:
- Registration is under $200 and includes all sessions, workshops, and meals
- The Summit runs Saturday and Sunday, so it requires no time away from work
- Travel is limited to [local mileage / one night at the $129 room-block rate]
I am glad to share the agenda in advance and to debrief the team afterward.
Thanks,
[Your name]
AALA Fellows and alumni
Come Back Home
Ascension remains a meaningful gathering place for AALA Fellows and alumni—even as the Summit expands its reach. Return to the relationships that shaped your experience, see how the community has grown, and connect with leaders across cohorts and sectors.
The 2027 AALA Alumni Round Up takes place Friday, January 1, at Cherry Valley Hotel. It is a separate, optional, separately ticketed experience for AALA alumni and community members. Ascension registration does not include admission to the Alumni Round Up.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Who should attend?
Ascension is designed for advancing professionals, executives, managers, people leaders, entrepreneurs, nonprofit and civic leaders, talent and workforce professionals, and AALA Fellows and alumni. Organizations may also send multiple employees or teams.
Do I need to be an AALA Fellow or alumnus to attend?
No. Ascension is open to professionals who are ready to invest in their development and expand their leadership impact. Attendance does not provide admission, preference, or special consideration for the AALA Fellowship.
Can my employer reimburse my registration?
Often, yes. Many employers support external professional development when the learning is relevant to an employee's role or growth plan, and Ascension is a straightforward request: registration is under $200, the Summit runs Saturday and Sunday so it requires no time away from work, and participants return with practical strategies rather than inspiration alone. Start with your organization's professional-development or tuition-reimbursement process, and use our request template — it is written to be edited and sent.
What does registration include?
Registration includes Summit general sessions, breakout workshops, the Life By Design Luncheon, the Catalyst Awards Dinner, and Sunday brunch. See the official registration page for the current ticket details.
Is the Alumni Round Up included?
No. The January 1 AALA Alumni Round Up is a separate, optional, separately ticketed experience. Select the combined ticket option or purchase the Alumni Round Up ticket separately if you plan to attend both.
When will speakers and the complete agenda be announced?
Approved sessions and signature experiences are listed on this page now. The conference-at-a-glance schedule, with final day placement and speaker details, will be posted in December. Follow AALA and Ascension communications for new announcements.
Where can I find current pricing and hotel information?
The official registration page contains the current rates, ticket types, deadlines, hotel instructions, room-block information, and processing fees.
Can organizations send more than one employee?
Yes. Ascension is relevant for individuals, colleagues, and cross-functional teams. Organizations interested in sending several participants may contact AALA with registration questions.
What accessibility or dietary accommodations are available?
Please identify accessibility or dietary needs during registration when that option is available, or contact the AALA team before the Summit so the team can discuss reasonable accommodations.
Who should I contact with questions?
Email summit@leadersthatascend.org or call 614-245-0451.
Next step
Your Next Leadership Investment Can Start Here
Start the year with practical learning, broader perspective, and relationships that can help you move forward with greater clarity.
At a glance
- Dates
- January 2–3, 2027
- Venue
- Cherry Valley Hotel, Newark, Ohio
- Includes
- Sessions, workshops, luncheon, dinner, brunch
- Registration
- Under $200