Prosper Accelerator Retreat Agenda
October 27-28, 2026
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
2:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Bus Staging and Loading to take Accelerators and CIA/MC to YUM HQ for Opening Session
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
3:30 PM - 3:35 PM
James Fripp, Chief Culture, Opportunity, and Belonging Officer, YUM! Brands, Inc.
Hattie Hill, CEO, Hattie Hill Enterprises and Prosper Company Board Member
David Jobe, Co-Founder & CEO, Prosper Forum
Luke Kircher, Co-Founder & President, Prosper Company
Presented by: Yum! Brands
3:35 PM - 4:05 PM
Join us for a powerful keynote session where we unveil key takeaways from the Accelerate Assessment—a proprietary tool designed to illuminate leadership strengths and growth areas. Whether you’ve taken the assessment or not, this session will guide you through the value of the data, share trends and stories from your peers, and offer clear next steps for leveraging your results to fuel personal and professional growth. Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your self-awareness and leadership impact.
Moderated by:
Hattie Hill, CEO, Hattie Hill Enterprises & Prosper Company Board Member
Panelists:
Jennifer King Ph.D., President, U.S. Operations, Schiller International University
4:05 PM - 5:00 PM
Leadership gets discussed in terms of performance, growth, influence and results. Far less often do we talk about what it actually costs to carry that responsibility.
This candid conversation goes beyond the traditional leadership playbook to explore the realities that emerge as careers advance: the decisions that stay with you, the loneliness that can come with senior leadership, the politics of influence, and the uncomfortable realization that sometimes the behaviors that made you successful are the very ones holding you back.
From firing someone you care about and backing the wrong leader to navigating boards, protecting your integrity, balancing family and career, and confronting what comes after the climb, this session creates space for leaders to talk about the parts of leadership that rarely make it onto the stage.
It’s a conversation about judgment, influence, identity, personal cost and perspective, and what it takes to build not only a successful career, but one you can look back on and feel good about.
Moderated by:
Luke Kircher, Co-Founder & President, Prosper Company
Panelists:
James Fripp, Chief Culture, Opportunity & Inclusion at YUM! Brands, Inc.
Hattie Hill, Board Member, Prosper Company
David Jobe, Co-Founder & CEO, Prosper Company
Presented By: Yum! Brands
4:05 PM - 5:00 PM
5:10 PM - 5:30 PM
Accelerators will get on busses and head over to the Middleby Innovation Kitchen.
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Dinner and Reception at the Middleby Innovation Kitchen
Presented By: Middleby
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
7:00 AM - 6:00 PM
6:45 AM - 8:00 AM
Presented by:
8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
8:30 AM - 8:35 AM
James Fripp, Chief Culture, Opportunity, and Belonging Officer, YUM! Brands, Inc.
Hattie Hill, CEO, Hattie Hill Enterprises and Prosper Company Board Member
David Jobe, Co-Founder & CEO, Prosper Forum
Luke Kircher, Co-Founder & President, Prosper Company
8:35 AM - 9:15 AM
Leadership preparedness usually means having a strategy for the business. But what happens when life, not business, is what disrupts the plan?
As careers advance, professional responsibilities grow, but so does the complexity of life outside of work. A family emergency, health event, aging parent, unexpected loss or sudden need to step away can expose just how much depends on one person being available.
This candid and practical conversation challenges leaders to think differently about preparedness across five critical areas: family, legal, financial, health and work. From knowing who can step in at home to ensuring someone can step up at work, the session explores the decisions and conversations that are easy to postpone until they’re suddenly urgent.
Because being prepared isn’t expecting the worst. It’s making sure the people, organizations and responsibilities that depend on you are protected when life happens.
9:15 AM - 10:15 AM
Join Candace Barnes for a compelling session designed for professionals seeking to elevate their impact and advance with intention. Drawing on the PIE framework, Performance, Image, and Exposure, Candace will explore how to craft a powerful personal narrative that aligns with your leadership goals. Through strategic insights and real-world examples, she’ll guide you in identifying the key elements that shape perception and influence progression. This session offers the tools to own your journey, amplify your voice, and position yourself for continued growth in the evolving foodservice landscape.
Presenter: Candace Barnes
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM
Presented By: Middleby
10:45 AM - 1:00 PM
10:45 AM - 11:30 AM
High performers don’t just communicate—they connect. They don’t just inform—they inspire.
In today’s fast-paced world, the ability to capture attention, build trust, and drive action isn’t just a soft skill—it’s a high-performance strategy. The best leaders, salespeople, and influencers know that storytelling isn’t just a way to share ideas—it’s a way to elevate results.
Drawing from the insights in his bestselling book, The Power of Storytelling, Ty Bennett reveals how mastering this skill can transform the way you sell, lead, and influence—ultimately driving higher engagement, stronger relationships, and greater success. This keynote delivers a proven framework for crafting compelling stories that move people to action.
What You’ll Learn in This High-Impact Keynote:
The High-Performance Communication Blueprint – Learn how top professionals use storytelling to simplify complex ideas, overcome objections, and inspire change.
The Leadership & Sales Edge – Why the highest performers in business leverage storytelling to lead teams, close deals, and create lasting impact.
Practical Storytelling Techniques for Immediate Results – Discover when and how to use storytelling in daily conversations, presentations, and all interactions to drive performance.
The Science Behind Why Stories Drive Action – How storytelling engages emotions, increases influence, and enhances decision-making.
With over 2,000 speeches delivered, Ty Bennett translates the power of storytelling into a tangible skillset that fuels high performance—giving you the tools to communicate with more confidence, clarity, and impact.
This keynote is a game-changing experience designed to unlock a competitive edge, enhance your influence, and take your results to the next level.
Presenter:
Ty Bennett, Speaker, Author, Entrepreneur, Leadership Inc.
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
The higher you rise, the more your words carry weight. Whether you’re sitting for an interview, speaking on a panel, joining a podcast, responding to a difficult question, or representing your organization in a high-stakes moment, great leadership requires knowing how to communicate clearly when the pressure is on.
This interactive media training session will put Prosper Accelerators in the hot seat and give them practical tools for navigating today’s increasingly complex communications environment. Participants will learn how to sharpen their message, answer difficult questions without losing control of the conversation, eliminate habits that weaken their delivery, and communicate with greater confidence and authenticity.
More than preparing for the media, this session is about preparing for visibility. Because as your leadership platform grows, knowing what you want to say is only half the equation. You also have to know how to make it land.
12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
Being ready for the next level and being seen as ready for the next level are not always the same thing.
As leaders advance, performance is often just the starting point. How you communicate, navigate complexity, build trust, influence decisions, and show up when the stakes are high all shape how others perceive your readiness for greater responsibility.
This session explores the unwritten signals that influence who gets considered for the next opportunity. Participants will examine the behaviors and perceptions that build executive credibility, identify the gaps that may be holding them back, and learn how to demonstrate readiness before the title arrives.
Because the next step in your career isn’t only about proving you can do the job. It’s about giving others the confidence to see you in it.
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM
Ambition gets celebrated as a virtue, but the brain tells a more complicated story.Sometimes what we call drive is a dopamine loop that rewards the chase and neverthe arrival, which is exactly why high performers can hit every target and still feelrestless, empty, or quietly burned out. This session opens with a 15-minute TED-stylemasterclass that decodes the lie at the center of ambition: why dopamine fuelswanting far more than liking, how reward-prediction error keeps us escalating, andwhere healthy drive ends and performance addiction begins. We then flip the stageinto a guided Think Tank where leaders interrogate their own motivation. What isactually driving me? Am I chasing the right goals, or just the next hit of “done”?Participants leave able to tell the difference between fuel and compulsion, with thecognitive clarity to lead from intention, not impulse.
Presenter:
Dr. Melissa Hughes, Keynote Speaker, Author & Human Potential Alchemist
12:45 PM - 1:45 PM
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
2:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Bus Staging and Loading to take Accelerators and CIA/MC to YUM HQ for Opening Session
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
3:30 PM - 3:35 PM
James Fripp, Chief Culture, Opportunity, and Belonging Officer, YUM! Brands, Inc.
Hattie Hill, CEO, Hattie Hill Enterprises and Prosper Company Board Member
David Jobe, Co-Founder & CEO, Prosper Forum
Luke Kircher, Co-Founder & President, Prosper Company
Presented by: Yum! Brands
3:35 PM - 4:05 PM
Join us for a powerful keynote session where we unveil key takeaways from the Accelerate Assessment—a proprietary tool designed to illuminate leadership strengths and growth areas. Whether you’ve taken the assessment or not, this session will guide you through the value of the data, share trends and stories from your peers, and offer clear next steps for leveraging your results to fuel personal and professional growth. Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your self-awareness and leadership impact.
Moderated by:
Hattie Hill, CEO, Hattie Hill Enterprises & Prosper Company Board Member
Panelists:
Jennifer King Ph.D., President, U.S. Operations, Schiller International University
4:05 PM - 5:00 PM
Leadership gets discussed in terms of performance, growth, influence and results. Far less often do we talk about what it actually costs to carry that responsibility.
This candid conversation goes beyond the traditional leadership playbook to explore the realities that emerge as careers advance: the decisions that stay with you, the loneliness that can come with senior leadership, the politics of influence, and the uncomfortable realization that sometimes the behaviors that made you successful are the very ones holding you back.
From firing someone you care about and backing the wrong leader to navigating boards, protecting your integrity, balancing family and career, and confronting what comes after the climb, this session creates space for leaders to talk about the parts of leadership that rarely make it onto the stage.
It’s a conversation about judgment, influence, identity, personal cost and perspective, and what it takes to build not only a successful career, but one you can look back on and feel good about.
Moderated by:
Luke Kircher, Co-Founder & President, Prosper Company
Panelists:
James Fripp, Chief Culture, Opportunity & Inclusion at YUM! Brands, Inc.
Hattie Hill, Board Member, Prosper Company
David Jobe, Co-Founder & CEO, Prosper Company
Presented By: Yum! Brands
4:05 PM - 5:00 PM
5:10 PM - 5:30 PM
Accelerators will get on busses and head over to the Middleby Innovation Kitchen.
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Dinner and Reception at the Middleby Innovation Kitchen
Presented By: Middleby
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
7:00 AM - 6:00 PM
6:45 AM - 8:00 AM
Presented by:
8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
8:30 AM - 8:35 AM
James Fripp, Chief Culture, Opportunity, and Belonging Officer, YUM! Brands, Inc.
Hattie Hill, CEO, Hattie Hill Enterprises and Prosper Company Board Member
David Jobe, Co-Founder & CEO, Prosper Forum
Luke Kircher, Co-Founder & President, Prosper Company
8:35 AM - 9:15 AM
Leadership preparedness usually means having a strategy for the business. But what happens when life, not business, is what disrupts the plan?
As careers advance, professional responsibilities grow, but so does the complexity of life outside of work. A family emergency, health event, aging parent, unexpected loss or sudden need to step away can expose just how much depends on one person being available.
This candid and practical conversation challenges leaders to think differently about preparedness across five critical areas: family, legal, financial, health and work. From knowing who can step in at home to ensuring someone can step up at work, the session explores the decisions and conversations that are easy to postpone until they’re suddenly urgent.
Because being prepared isn’t expecting the worst. It’s making sure the people, organizations and responsibilities that depend on you are protected when life happens.
9:15 AM - 10:15 AM
Join Candace Barnes for a compelling session designed for professionals seeking to elevate their impact and advance with intention. Drawing on the PIE framework, Performance, Image, and Exposure, Candace will explore how to craft a powerful personal narrative that aligns with your leadership goals. Through strategic insights and real-world examples, she’ll guide you in identifying the key elements that shape perception and influence progression. This session offers the tools to own your journey, amplify your voice, and position yourself for continued growth in the evolving foodservice landscape.
Presenter: Candace Barnes
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM
Presented By: Middleby
10:45 AM - 1:00 PM
10:45 AM - 11:30 AM
High performers don’t just communicate—they connect. They don’t just inform—they inspire.
In today’s fast-paced world, the ability to capture attention, build trust, and drive action isn’t just a soft skill—it’s a high-performance strategy. The best leaders, salespeople, and influencers know that storytelling isn’t just a way to share ideas—it’s a way to elevate results.
Drawing from the insights in his bestselling book, The Power of Storytelling, Ty Bennett reveals how mastering this skill can transform the way you sell, lead, and influence—ultimately driving higher engagement, stronger relationships, and greater success. This keynote delivers a proven framework for crafting compelling stories that move people to action.
What You’ll Learn in This High-Impact Keynote:
The High-Performance Communication Blueprint – Learn how top professionals use storytelling to simplify complex ideas, overcome objections, and inspire change.
The Leadership & Sales Edge – Why the highest performers in business leverage storytelling to lead teams, close deals, and create lasting impact.
Practical Storytelling Techniques for Immediate Results – Discover when and how to use storytelling in daily conversations, presentations, and all interactions to drive performance.
The Science Behind Why Stories Drive Action – How storytelling engages emotions, increases influence, and enhances decision-making.
With over 2,000 speeches delivered, Ty Bennett translates the power of storytelling into a tangible skillset that fuels high performance—giving you the tools to communicate with more confidence, clarity, and impact.
This keynote is a game-changing experience designed to unlock a competitive edge, enhance your influence, and take your results to the next level.
Presenter:
Ty Bennett, Speaker, Author, Entrepreneur, Leadership Inc.
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
The higher you rise, the more your words carry weight. Whether you’re sitting for an interview, speaking on a panel, joining a podcast, responding to a difficult question, or representing your organization in a high-stakes moment, great leadership requires knowing how to communicate clearly when the pressure is on.
This interactive media training session will put Prosper Accelerators in the hot seat and give them practical tools for navigating today’s increasingly complex communications environment. Participants will learn how to sharpen their message, answer difficult questions without losing control of the conversation, eliminate habits that weaken their delivery, and communicate with greater confidence and authenticity.
More than preparing for the media, this session is about preparing for visibility. Because as your leadership platform grows, knowing what you want to say is only half the equation. You also have to know how to make it land.
12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
Being ready for the next level and being seen as ready for the next level are not always the same thing.
As leaders advance, performance is often just the starting point. How you communicate, navigate complexity, build trust, influence decisions, and show up when the stakes are high all shape how others perceive your readiness for greater responsibility.
This session explores the unwritten signals that influence who gets considered for the next opportunity. Participants will examine the behaviors and perceptions that build executive credibility, identify the gaps that may be holding them back, and learn how to demonstrate readiness before the title arrives.
Because the next step in your career isn’t only about proving you can do the job. It’s about giving others the confidence to see you in it.
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM
Ambition gets celebrated as a virtue, but the brain tells a more complicated story.Sometimes what we call drive is a dopamine loop that rewards the chase and neverthe arrival, which is exactly why high performers can hit every target and still feelrestless, empty, or quietly burned out. This session opens with a 15-minute TED-stylemasterclass that decodes the lie at the center of ambition: why dopamine fuelswanting far more than liking, how reward-prediction error keeps us escalating, andwhere healthy drive ends and performance addiction begins. We then flip the stageinto a guided Think Tank where leaders interrogate their own motivation. What isactually driving me? Am I chasing the right goals, or just the next hit of “done”?Participants leave able to tell the difference between fuel and compulsion, with thecognitive clarity to lead from intention, not impulse.
Presenter:
Dr. Melissa Hughes, Keynote Speaker, Author & Human Potential Alchemist
12:45 PM - 1:45 PM
