Agenda

Spend a half day inside Awardco HQ and see our culture in action! Tour the office, sit in on our weekly all-hands, and help shape what our product team builds next in the Innovation Research Hub, where you'll share ideas and feedback directly with our strategists, researchers, and developers. The experience is free, with breakfast and lunch included. You'll also skip the check-in line in Park City, since you'll pick up your badge at HQ. Shuttle transport between the Montage and Awardco (both directions) is available. To save a seat, please email rcgnzsummit@awardco.com.

Book dedicated time with Awardco specialists before the full event kicks off. Whether you want to dig into recognition strategy, explore platform functionality, or get a demo from a Solutions Engineer, these focused 1:1 sessions are designed to give you personalized answers before the main programming begins.

Get focused time with a member of Awardco's Center of Excellence. Bring your real questions—about program design, recognition strategy, maturity, or wherever you're feeling stuck—and walk away with practical guidance tailored to your organization. These sessions fill up fast; book early.

Want to see what's possible before the main event kicks off? Sit down with an Awardco Solutions Engineer for a personalized walkthrough of the platform—whether you want to explore a specific feature, see how other organizations have configured their programs, or just make sure you're getting the most out of Awardco.

Have a challenge you’re working through? A win worth sharing? Braindates are peer-to-peer conversations designed to get the right people talking to each other. Head to the Braindate Lounge or find a discussion to join from the RCGNZ Events App homepage. Some of the best insights at the Summit don’t come from the stage. They come from connecting with peers.

Get a head start on Summit. Pick up your badge and materials early, skip the morning rush, and start building the connections that will carry you through the next three days.

Start Summit with intention. This guided practice combines mindful reflection with restorative sound healing using crystal singing bowls to create space for clarity, presence, and renewal. Leave feeling grounded, recharged, and ready for the week ahead. Presented by ALO

Directions to the Fitness Studio

From the main lobby, take the hallway directly behind the statue to the main elevators and ride down to the 4th floor. Exit and walk straight toward the spa, then turn right toward the fitness area. Check in at the door when you arrive.

Kick off RCGNZ Summit 2026 with an après-ski-inspired evening of conversation and connection. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres and a full bar as we set the tone for three days of bold ideas and meaningful connections. Please note: a full dinner will not be served.

Attire Guide: Think cozy mountain style with a polished twist: sweaters, sweater dresses, puffers, vests, boots, retro ski sweaters, beanies, faux-fur accents, or another après-ski favorite. Ski gear isn’t required—just aim for a look that feels warm, playful, and polished. The reception will take place both indoors and outdoors, with heaters available in select outdoor areas. Park City can be chilly in November, so we recommend bringing a warm jacket or extra layer if you plan to spend time outside.

Have a challenge you’re working through? A win worth sharing? Braindates are peer-to-peer conversations designed to get the right people talking to each other. Head to the Braindate Lounge or find a discussion to join from the RCGNZ Events App homepage. Some of the best insights at the Summit don’t come from the stage. They come from connecting with peers.

Fuel up and get oriented. Pick up your badge, grab breakfast, and explore the Product Expo and sponsor booths before the morning program begins. Make connections and network before the room gets moving.

Menu: Summit Breakfast Marketplace: Morning Breads; Breakfast Potatoes; Eggs Collection with Farm-Fresh Scrambled Eggs; Breakfast Meats with Country Style Pork Sausage Links and Smoked Bacon. Includes squeezed/chilled fruit juices, Montage Blend Coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and deluxe teas.

Pause, reset, and reconnect. Through guided meditation and accessible breathwork, you'll quiet the mind, sharpen focus, and restore your energy. Leave with simple techniques you can return to throughout your day. Presented by ALO

Awardco CEO Steve Sonnenberg and Paige Bennett Carr officially open Summit 2026. Get the lay of the land, hear what's ahead, and settle into three days built around one idea: Recognize What's Next.

In this future-of-work keynote, Heather shows that organizations can change at breakneck speed when they tap into humans’ capacity to adapt. Using vivid stories (like a mop, a burrito, and a hermit crab), she reframes “resistance to change” as an untapped asset—curiosity and collaboration—that can be directed toward what’s next. Leaders learn to move from reacting to disruption to using it as a strategic advantage.

Attendees will learn to:

- Frame better questions that surface problems worth solving

- Adapt faster to new realities with clear mental models for change

- Spot hidden opportunities by mapping patterns from past to future

What does the data actually say about what drives people right now? Awardco's Center of Excellence returns to the mainstage to unveil new original research on employee motivation, recognition effectiveness, and what HR leaders need to know heading into the next era of work. Expect honest findings, practical implications, and a framework you can take back to your team.

Executive recognition matters, but it often breaks down in practice. Leaders are stretched thin, time constraints, distance from the day-to-day, uncertainty around who to recognize, and fear of being inconsistent all create friction at the top. In this mainstage session, Steve Sonnenberg and Awardco’s Center of Excellence unpack why executive recognition stalls, why that gap matters, and how leaders can solve it in a practical, scalable way. Through a live look at Awardco’s AI MCP, Steve and Christi will show how executives can identify meaningful moments, recognize with confidence, and create visible leadership behavior that drives recognition across the organization.

Get a first look at where Awardco is taking recognition next. The Awardco product team takes the stage to spotlight major releases, share innovation on the horizon, and show—through real client stories—how the platform is evolving to meet the complexity of modern workforce needs. If you want to know what's possible, this is the session to be in.

Join fellow CAB members for a private lunch at APEX Restaurant on Tuesday, November 10. Connect with product leaders to unpack the features introduced on the mainstage, share perspectives, and continue the conversation with one another.

Have a challenge you’re working through? A win worth sharing? Braindates are peer-to-peer conversations designed to get the right people talking to each other. Head to the Braindate Lounge or find a discussion to join from the RCGNZ Events App homepage. Some of the best insights at the Summit don’t come from the stage. They come from connecting with peers.

Recharge and keep the conversations going. Grab lunch and spend time in the Product and Sponsor Expo—connect with Awardco product leaders, explore partner solutions, and get inspired by what's possible for your recognition program.

Menu: Baja Buffet: Caldo de Camaron; Baja Romaine Salad; Roasted Chicken in Salsa Roja; Beef Fajitas; Calabacitas Squash Ragout; Lime-Cilantro Rice; Frijoles Charros; Tres Leche Verrine.

Recognition data is only as powerful as what you do with it. In this session, learn how to use engagement surveys, feedback loops, and platform data to continuously improve your recognition program—and how to bring employee sentiment into the strategic conversations that shape your culture.

Designing recognition across a global workforce is about more than launching a platform. Organizations must navigate cultural differences, language considerations, governance models, compliance requirements, budget strategies, and varying employee expectations while maintaining a consistent employee experience. Join the Center of Excellence and a panel of Awardco customers from AT&T and Vertiv as they share their approach to global rollout strategies, balancing global consistency with local relevance, measuring success, and overcoming challenges along the way. Leave with practical strategies, lessons learned, and actionable insights from organizations that have successfully scaled recognition across regions and cultures.

Nominations are one of the most powerful and most underutilized tools in a recognition strategy. When done well, they create moments of visibility that reinforce values, drive participation across the entire organization, and spotlight contributions that might otherwise go unnoticed. In this session, the Center of Excellence and client practitioners share how to design a successful nomination program: from setting the right criteria and building a submission process people will use, to operationalizing nominations at scale and using them to tell the story of your culture. Includes a look at how leading organizations are using Awardco's nominations functionality to launch new recognition moments and increase program momentum.

Deskless employees are often the hardest to reach with recognition, communication, and culture. In this panel discussion, Awardco Center Of Excellence leaders and client panelists from Texas Roadhouse, Vineyard Vines, and Safelite will share what’s working across their frontline, field-based, and offline teams. This session will include practical ways to increase visibility, reduce friction, and make recognition more relevant in the flow of work. Attendees will leave with ideas they can apply to better engage hard-to-reach populations.

HR leaders are being asked to deliver greater strategic value while adapting to changing workforce expectations, business needs, and the growing influence of AI on how work gets done. Deloitte’s HR Reimagined research shows how evolving HR roles, capabilities, and personas can help meet that challenge.

In this hands-on session, you will map your current organization to future-focused HR personas, identify the human and AI-enabled shifts that matter most, and exchange ideas with peers. You will leave with a clearer view of your future-state opportunities and tangible actions for your HR roadmap.

In workplaces where AI can write emails, summarize meetings, and automate tasks, one thing remains uniquely HUMAN:  our need to be seen, valued, and connected.  Join Brenda Betteridge of Utah Valley University and Leah Fisher of CBIZ, as they explore how recognition can become one of the most important leadership tools for creating human connection in an increasingly AI powered workplace.  This session will explore how AI can amplify, rather than diminish, the relationships that fuel trust and belonging. As a leader, if you want to learn more about fostering intentional, HUMAN recognition – you won’t want to miss this session!

Traditional service awards often miss the mark. Join Laura Shanley of Awardco’s Center of Excellence and get a peek into JPMorgan’s recognition strategy, and how they built their best-in-class service award programs using Awardco’s MemoryBooks®. Discover new approaches that make recognition more timely, meaningful, and impactful, and learn how modernizing service awards (and facilitating new programs like JPMC’s “Employee Recognition Week”) will boost engagement, increase retention, and celebrate employees when it matters most.

Research continues to show that psychologically safe cultures are more resilient, productive, and more likely to retain people, and that recognition can help employees feel more seen, supported, and connected.

In this panel discussion, Awardco Center of Excellence leaders and client practitioners will share how they use recognition to strengthen belonging, support wellbeing, and build trust in everyday moments. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for creating recognition experiences that feel more human and help teams stay connected through change, stress, and growth.

Scaling recognition across countries, cultures, and time zones is one of the hardest problems in HR. In this featured client story, hear how a global organization tackled the complexity of multinational rollout—and what it actually took to make recognition feel meaningful at every level of a distributed workforce.

Healthcare organizations face some of the most demanding recognition challenges in any industry. In this featured mainstage case study, hear directly from healthcare leaders about how recognition has become a tool for reducing burnout, retaining clinical staff, and building the kind of culture that supports both their people and their patients.

Have a challenge you’re working through? A win worth sharing? Braindates are peer-to-peer conversations designed to get the right people talking to each other. Head to the Braindate Lounge or find a discussion to join from the RCGNZ Events App homepage. Some of the best insights at the Summit don’t come from the stage. They come from connecting with peers.

Awardco CEO Steve Sonnenberg and Paige Bennett Carr close out day 1 and explain the evening schedule.

Keep the energy going before the evening begins. Visit the Product and Sponsor Expo, drop into Center Of Excellence Office Hours for a strategy conversation, or find a peer you've been meaning to talk to all day. This is the unscheduled time that somehow becomes the most valuable hour of Summit.

Enjoy a 5-star dinner buffet in the Vista Lounge with ample time for networking with other attendees, prior to heading to the Grand Ballroom for the awards ceremony and evening entertainment.

Attire Guide: This is your chance to dress up, celebrate big, and make the most of every photo. A suit and tie, dress slacks with a blazer, cocktail dress, dressy jumpsuit, or elegant separates are all great options. Black tie isn’t required, but an elevated, celebratory look is encouraged. Most importantly, wear something that helps you feel confident and represents you and your brand well. We’re here to connect, learn, and celebrate together.

Menu: Bald Peak Dinner Buffet: Roasted Corn Chowder; Mixed Greens; Grilled Hanger Steak; Herb-Crusted Salmon Filet; Rosemary Roasted Root Vegetables; Parmesan-Herb Steak Fries; Apple Crisp.

Close out Day 2 with an evening of celebration, community, and well-earned recognition. The Recognize Awards Ceremony spotlights this year’s honorees, and the night wraps with a live performance by special musical guest Kenedi Anderson, a fan favorite from American Idol season 20.

Attire Guide: This is your chance to dress up, celebrate big, and make the most of every photo. A suit and tie, dress slacks with a blazer, cocktail dress, dressy jumpsuit, or elegant separates are all great options. Black tie isn’t required, but an elevated, celebratory look is encouraged. Most importantly, wear something that helps you feel confident and represents you and your brand well. We’re here to connect, learn, and celebrate together.

Release tension and restore mobility through a slow, supportive Yin yoga practice. Longer-held poses help ease stiffness from travel and long days of sitting while improving flexibility, creating space to move with greater ease and balance. Presented by ALO

Have a challenge you’re working through? A win worth sharing? Braindates are peer-to-peer conversations designed to get the right people talking to each other. Head to the Braindate Lounge or find a discussion to join from the RCGNZ Events App homepage. Some of the best insights at the Summit don’t come from the stage. They come from connecting with peers.

Ease into the final day with breakfast and one more pass through the Expo. Connect with sponsors, revisit a product conversation, or simply catch up with peers over coffee before the morning program begins.

Menu: Summit Breakfast Marketplace: Morning Breads; Breakfast Potatoes; Eggs Collection with Farm-Fresh Scrambled Eggs; Breakfast Meats with Country Style Pork Sausage Links and Smoked Bacon. Includes squeezed/chilled fruit juices, Montage Blend Coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and deluxe teas.

Steve Sonnenberg and Paige Bennett Carr open Day 3, recap the energy from yesterday, and set the stage for a morning of powerful keynotes and actionable sessions.

The old tools of success got us here. They won’t take us where we need to go next.

Today’s most effective leaders—especially those responsible for culture, recognition, and engagement—are grappling with a hidden paradox: the very excellence that built their credibility is quietly working against them.

In organizations navigating constant change—new technologies, new workforce expectations, hybrid realities, global teams, and always-on pressure—doing what’s always worked is no longer enough. In fact, it can become the fastest path to burnout, stagnation, or being unintentionally sidelined.

In this provocative and energizing keynote, Henna Pryor, CSP, Workplace Performance Expert and 2x TEDx speaker, flips the script on what modern excellence really looks like. Through powerful storytelling, behavioral science, and deeply practical tools, Henna shows leaders how to train the mental and social muscles required to thrive in a world that refuses to slow down.

This session is especially resonant for leaders who are often the emotional backbone of their organizations—designing recognition strategies, stewarding culture, and guiding others through uncertainty, while rarely being recognized themselves.

Together, we explore:

- Identifying our personal Mindset Monkey Wrenches, the invisible habits that quietly cap performance

- Why toxic positivity fails in real leadership moments (and what works instead)

- The #1 tool leaders need when everything feels urgent and unclear: Neutral Thinking

- Your multi-step action plan for resetting and moving through any change that come your way

With strategies that stick and stories audiences will still be thinking about weeks later, this keynote equips leaders to operate with clarity, confidence, and agency—especially when the pressure is on.

At the core of everything we do, one thing remains consistent: we believe in the power of a moment, the impact of meaningful recognition on individual lives, and in the value each person brings to every workplace, relationship, and conversation both in and outside of work. Come get an exclusive look at what that means now and in the future, and join us in recognizing the good in a special way for one of our attendees.

Building a recognition program that works at enterprise scale requires more than a platform—it requires strategy, change management, and executive alignment. In this featured client conversation, hear how one organization evolved their approach, navigated complexity, and made recognition a true business lever across a large, distributed workforce.

Trust is the currency of great workplaces — but most organizations don't know how to build it deliberately. Drawing on Deloitte's HX TrustID™ framework, this session unpacks the Four Factors of Trust (Humanity, Transparency, Capability, and Reliability) and reveals what actually drives — or erodes — trust between employees and their organizations.

Join Christina Brodzik and Chantale Callingham as they explore the surprising connection between trust and rewards & recognition. You'll learn how R&R strategies, when designed with the Four Factors in mind, can become one of the most powerful levers for strengthening culture, boosting retention, and closing the trust gap that's costing organizations engagement and performance.

Walk away with a framework and tools that have been deployed to strengthen culture, boost retention, and close the trust gap for measurable business advantage.

Have a challenge you're working through? A win worth sharing? Braindates are peer-to-peer conversation sessions designed to get the right people talking to each other. Sign up to host or join a discussion on any recognition topic you're navigating—from program design to executive buy-in to frontline engagement. Some of the best insights at Summit don't come from the stage.

A final chance to connect with peers, visit remaining expo booths, and gather your thoughts before the closing mainstage sessions.

Menu: Marketplace To-Go Lunch Boxes. Salads: Roasted Red Bliss Potato and Curried Chickpeas. Sandwiches/wraps: Smoked Turkey Club, Roast Beef, and Southwest Chicken Caesar Wrap. Desserts: Chocolate Chip Cookie and Lemon Bars. Include bag of chips.

For organizations looking to build a stronger culture of recognition, AI is a force that cannot be ignored. It opens new possibilities for how recognition can be delivered, scaled, and strengthened, while raising important questions about where technology adds value and where the human touch matters most.

Join Katie Bundy from Awardco's Center of Excellence and Rebecca de Wind Mattingly from Accenture as we explore how leading organizations are scaling the human touch in the age of AI. Through real-world examples and interactive discussion, we'll examine how AI can remove friction for managers and employees, improve the quality and timeliness of recognition, surface meaningful insights, and create more engaging recognition experiences, while preserving the authenticity and human connection that make recognition meaningful.

Through an interactive design-thinking exercise, attendees will help explore what's possible and consider where AI can have the greatest impact in their own organizations. You'll leave with practical ideas, real-world examples, and an approach for deciding where AI should enhance recognition and where people should remain at the center.

What separates a good recognition program from a great one? This panel spotlights creative, high-impact approaches from Awardco clients across industries who are pushing the boundaries of what recognition can do—and the results they've earned because of it.

How are leading organizations turning recognition data into meaningful action? This panel highlights practical approaches from Insight and SiteOne for using employee feedback, program insights, and recognition data to strengthen the employee experience and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

Recognition programs can deliver meaningful business value—but proving that impact and earning continued investment requires a clear business case. Moderated by Amy Butler of Awardco, this panel brings together leaders from Chick-fil-A, RAIN, and UAB Medicine to share how they measure the impact of recognition, connect outcomes to organizational priorities, and secure leadership buy-in. Hear real-world lessons, practical approaches, and the strategies these leaders use to communicate the value of recognition at every level.

Going live is a milestone, not the finish line. Organizations that achieve long-term success treat recognition as an ongoing change journey rather than a one-time implementation. Join Awardco's Center of Excellence for an interactive workshop focused on sustaining engagement, scaling adoption, and embedding recognition into everyday culture. Through guided reflection and practical planning activities, you'll leave with concrete actions you can take to strengthen your program and drive lasting impact.

A recognition reset is more than a vendor switch or program relaunch—it’s an opportunity to reimagine what recognition can do for your people and your culture. Explore a practical change management roadmap for building alignment, designing for adoption, and turning a stalled or outdated program into a stronger, more meaningful experience. You’ll leave with your own plan that spells out what to keep, retire, or reinvent, who needs to be on board, and how you’ll get managers and employees using the program from day one.

In this hands-on workshop, Awardco product experts walk through the features, configurations, and strategies to help you identify practical ways to improve adoption, visibility, and admin efficiency. Join this session for an optimization framework that will help you map your current state to your next best moves.

Recognition has real business value, but leaders need a clear case, a focused strategy, and credible evidence of impact. In this practical workshop, attendees will name their recognition challenge(s), design one employee experience to improve, choose one primary outcome and one early signal, and turn the work into an elevator statement. They’ll leave prepared to share a concise business-case story with stakeholders.

You’ve got people sitting on gold—but it’s buried under fear, permission-seeking, or “not yet.”

And it’s costing you—innovation, opportunities, engagement, even customers.

But this isn’t a development issue. It’s an ownership issue.

You already have the talent. You already have the resources. What you’re missing is activation. That’s exactly what FlyGirl does.

Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour brings real-world urgency, unshakable presence, and a message your people can’t un-hear. She cuts through performance posturing, dismantles limiting beliefs, and replaces ‘safe leadership’ with self-led power.

OWN YOUR LEADERSHIP™ isn’t a motivational moment. It’s a leadership shift—one your people will feel, live, and act on long after the applause ends.ers to operate with clarity, confidence, and agency—especially when the pressure is on.

Steve Sonnenberg and the Paige Bennett Carr close out Summit 2026. A moment to reflect on what you've heard, who you've met, and what you're taking back. Recognition is how we make the future feel worth building—and this is where we send you out to do exactly that.

Make your departure easy. Reserve a seat on the 3:45 PM airport shuttle and enjoy a smooth, stress-free ride after Summit.

Make your departure easy. Reserve a seat on the 4:15 PM airport shuttle and enjoy a smooth, stress-free ride after Summit.