SEPTEMBER 3-5 | NAPA VALLEY, CA
Make Better Decisions Under Pressure
An executive summit for leading in the age of
AI and constant change
Flourish brings together a curated group of senior leaders to apply psychological science to real-world challenges—improving decision-making, strengthening resilience, and driving performance at scale.
ABOUT FLOURISH
The Executive Performance Crisis is
Here.
Senior executives are leading through a convergence of pressures few organizations are fully prepared for: AI disruption, change management, workforce fatigue, cultural fragmentation, declining trust, and relentless performance expectations.
The next era of competitive advantage will not be determined by technology adoption alone. It will be determined by the psychological capacity of leaders and organizations to make sound decisions under pressure, adapt through uncertainty, sustain energy, and build cultures where people and performance reinforce one another.
At this first-of-its-kind summit, APA brings its authority in psychological science together with senior executives, AI leaders, founders, investors, and organizational performance experts to examine one urgent question:
How do leaders build organizations that can perform, adapt, and flourish under accelerating complexity?
Why This Moment Requires a Different Kind of Leadership
AI is not only a technology shift. It is a leadership stress test. It is changing how decisions are made, how trust is built, how work is organized, and how employees experience uncertainty.
Flourish gives senior leaders a science-backed way to strengthen the human capabilities that determine whether transformation succeeds or stalls.
WHY ATTEND
Demands on Senior Leaders Have
Fundamentally Changed.
Flourish helps you meet them with a focused, science-backed approach to improving decision-making, resilience, and performance under pressure.
You'll leave with:
- A practical framework for using psychological capital as an executive performance strategy.
- A clearer understanding of how AI disruption is testing leadership judgment, trust, and culture.
- A peer-tested blueprint for strengthening resilience, decision quality, and organizational capacity.
- New relationships with senior leaders navigating comparable enterprise pressures.
- A language and model for connecting flourishing to retention, innovation, risk mitigation, and growth.
SPEAKERS
Keynote Speakers
Subject Matter Experts
Guillermo Corea
Chief Business Innovation and Growth Officer
American Psychological Association
Dr. Leslie Hammer
Director, Oregon Healthy Workforce Center
OHSU-Oregon Healthy Workforce Center
Dr. Bernadette Han
Head of Learning & Development Operations, Business Innovation & Growth
American Psychological Association
Dr. Gretchen Lester
Professor of Management
School of Management, Lucas College of Business, San Jose State University
Dr. Dennis P. Stolle, JD, PhD
Executive Lead Psychologist for Applied Psychology
American Psychological Association
Emcee & Moderators
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
This is not a broad leadership conference. Flourish is curated for senior decision-makers responsible for leading through transformation, AI adoption, workforce pressure, and organizational performance.
LEADERS FROM ACROSS INDUSTRY
- Technology and AI Native
- Financial Services
- Healthcare and Life Sciences
- Professional Services
- Consumer and Retail at Scale
- Media & Entertainment
- Energy & Infrastructure
- Transportation & Logistics
- Manufacturing
2
Days of focused immersive work
130+
Years of APA research Authority
1
Annual event by invitation only
THE EXPERIENCE
A Curated Experience
Two days of focused work at The Meritage Resort & Spa, Napa Valley. Developed in collaboration with leaders across psychology, business, and organizational strategy — and grounded in APA's century of expertise in human behavior and performance — every session moves beyond theory into direct leadership application.
This is where you come to step away from the daily noise, examine how you lead under pressure, and leave with a clearer path to strengthen your performance, culture, and organizational flourishing.
Day 1 | September 3, 2026
1:00 – 3:00 PM
Arrival & Lunch
Arrive at The Meritage Resort & Spa and settle in with some lunch before the Summit begins.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Welcome to Flourish
An introduction to the framework that will define the next 2 days and the leaders who shaped it. Designed to orient, challenge and set the standard for what is possible.
4:15 – 5:00 PM
Psychological Capacity of Executives
Research shows that a discrete set of psychological resources — Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism — directly predicts leadership performance under pressure. This session positions PsyCap as a strategic lever for sustained leadership performance with wellbeing, contributing to enterprise stability.
Speaker:
Dennis Stolle
5:00 – 9:00 PM
Taste of Napa Welcome Event
An evening on the Vineyard Terrace and Wine Cave at The Meritage Resort — where the summit’s most consequential conversations begin among peers who lead at the same level of complexity.
Day 2 | September 4, 2026
6:30 AM
Morning Renewal: Optimize Energy, Focus & Cognitive Readiness
A guided vineyard run, sunrise yoga, or quiet personal time — your choice. Designed to clear the mind and set the tone before a full day of high-stakes leadership work.
8:30 – 9:30 AM
Networking Breakfast
9:45 - 10:30 AM
Keynote Fireside Chat: Leading with Signal, Not Noise
A leader’s decisions, behaviors, priorities and emotional tone orient an organization far more than stated intentions ever will. This keynote surfaces the gap between what leaders mean to communicate and what their organizations actually receive and the operational implications that follow.
Speaker: Teresa Carlson
Moderator: Wendi Williams
10:45 – 11:30 AM
Applied Lab: Activating Your PsyCap
A hands-on leadership lab focused on applying the PsyCap framework to strengthen the internal capabilities that drive external results. Leaders apply evidence-based tools to increase confidence in judgment, adaptive resilience, and strategic optimism—adapted to their leadership context and immediately usable in boardrooms, crisis moments, and enterprise-wide decisions.
Room 1:
Dennis Stolle
Room 2: Julie Broad
Room 3: Ted A. Patterson
Room 4: Gretchen Lester
12:00 – 1:30 PM
Chatham House Lunch: Candid Peer Dialogue guided by a subject matter expert: The Flourishing Leader in Practice
An off-the-record peer conversation focused on the real pressures of senior leadership: talent strain, transformation fatigue, risk exposure, and cultural fragility. Leave with perspective, trusted relationships, and shared strategies for leading at the top – through the lens of your choice among the list of subject matter experts provided.
2:00 – 2:45 PM
Session: The Flourishing Leader Framework: Feeling Well, Functioning Well, Leading Well
A research-backed framework connecting executive wellbeing to leadership effectiveness and organizational performance. Leaders examine how their own sustained capacity directly shapes decision quality, culture, and enterprise results and what to do about it.
Speakers:
Gena Cox & Kathy Baxter
3:00 – 3:45 PM
Crisis Lab: Leading Through AI Disruption
A live simulation in which executive teams navigate a high-stakes AI disruption scenario under real-time pressure, managing uncertainty, stakeholder tension, and reputational risk as conditions evolve. Designed to surface how PsyCap resources hold up, and where they break down, when it matters most.
Room 1: Gena Cox
Room 2: Mindy Shoss
Room 3: Kathy Baxter
Room 4:
Leslie Hammer
6:30 – 8:30 PM
Executive Dinner: Building Strategic Peer Capital
A dinner designed with the same intention as the summit itself, bringing together leaders whose work intersects in ways they may not yet know. The conversations that begin here tend to outlast the agenda.
Day 3 | September 5, 2026
8:00 – 9:00 AM
Breakfast on the Terrace
Breakfast overlooking the Napa Valley vineyards before the summit’s closing sessions.
9:00 – 9:45 AM
Executive Panel: Measuring What Matters: Organizational Flourishing Outcomes
The metrics that connect organizational flourishing to business performance are neither soft nor speculative. In this panel senior executives present how they measure the business impact of flourishing to drive — retention, innovation, risk mitigation, and growth.
Speakers: Cindy Eckert, Ali Khan, David Turner, Rick Gilchrist
Panel Host:
Arthur Evans PhD
10:00 – 10:30 AM
Summit Synthesis: The Blueprint Session
A behind‑the‑scenes look at how FLOURISH was intentionally designed to produce high performance—and a systems‑level blueprint CEOs can apply to build the same conditions for clarity, resilience, and results inside their own organizations.
Speaker: Bernadette Han
10:45 – 11:30 AM
Closing Keynote: The Competitive Imperative of Organizational Flourishing
This closing keynote makes the strategic case for leveraging flourishing as a competitive advantage.
Speaker: Tucker Bryant
11:30 AM – 11:45 AM
Closing Commitment: Defining Your Leadership Intent
The summit closes with a moment of reflection and commitment, grounded in the insights, peer dialogue, and applied experiences of the summit.
Speaker:
Guillermo Corea
12:30 – 2:00 PM
Farewell Lunch Celebration
The summit concludes with a final opportunity to deepen connections and leave as part of a trusted leadership community committed to building organizations where people and performance strengthen each other.
SUMMIT PARTICIPATION
Summit Participation
Flourish is designed for a limited group of senior executives ready to lead differently, strengthen performance, and build organizations where people and business outcomes thrive together.
Your registration includes full access to the Flourish Summit experience:
2-night stay at The Meritage Resort & Spa
- All summit meals and executive dining experiences
- Flourish ROI Calculator and executive toolkit
- Full access to keynotes, labs, peer dialogues, and curated networking
- Welcome event and closing lunch
Flourish is a premium, invitation-only experience. Pricing details will be shared upon confirmation of your invitation.
130+ Years of
Authority
ABOUT APA
Science Meets Leadership
Flourish is convened by the American Psychological Association Services, Inc., the applied and innovation arm of the American Psychological Association.
For more than a century, APA has been the leading authority on human behavior, cognition, and performance. APASI extends this foundation into real-world application, translating scientific insight into measurable outcomes.
Flourish represents a first-of-its-kind intersection of psychological science and executive leadership— built on evidence, and designed for the realities of modern organizations.
Lead Through Complexity.
Build the Conditions to Flourish.
Join the inaugural Flourish executive cohort — a curated gathering of senior leaders focused on building the psychological capacity required to lead, adapt, and perform under pressure.
Attendance is intentionally limited to preserve the quality of the room and the depth of executive exchange.
SPONSORSHIP
Partner With Flourish
Flourish works with select sponsors and partners to amplify the summit’s focus on leadership performance, resilience, and psychological science to advance how organizations lead, adapt, and perform in a complex, fast-changing world.
For partnership inquiries, please contact:
flourish@apa.org.