Spotlight Speaker Series Challenges Us to Rethink How We Lead, Adapt and Move Forward

Aims Community College brings leaders from across industries and organizations together on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, for a full-day event focused on one of leadership’s most persistent challenges. 

The Spotlight Speaker Series event will take place at the Aims Welcome Center, 4901 W. 20th St. in Greeley.  Three nationally recognized authors and leadership experts, Cassandra Worthy, Susan Cain and Dan Heath, will examine how people experience change, whose ideas receive attention and what organizations can do when familiar approaches stop producing results.

The event offers organizations an affordable opportunity to provide their entire teams with access to high-quality speakers and a full day of professional development. Tickets are $50 and include lunch, making the conference accessible to organizations looking to invest in their employees without incurring significant training expenses. Groups of 10 or more receive 20% off admission, creating an additional incentive for employers to bring teams together to learn, exchange ideas and return to work with a shared perspective. 

Cassandra Worthy: Turning the Emotions of Change Into Forward Movement

The day begins with Cassandra Worthy, founder and CEO of Change Enthusiasm Global, presenting “Master the Chemistry of Change: Emotional Alchemy Through Change Enthusiasm.” Worthy’s work begins with a reality that many change-management plans overlook: people do not experience organizational change as a purely logical process.

Even a necessary or positive change can create uncertainty, frustration, fear or resentment. Employees may understand why something is happening and still struggle with what it means for their responsibilities, relationships or sense of stability. Worthy contends that successful change depends on more than knowing the correct procedures. Her Change Enthusiasm framework focuses on recognizing emotional reactions and using them as information rather than treating them as obstacles that should be dismissed or suppressed.

Her own approach grew from firsthand experience. Earlier in her career, Worthy worked through the aftermath of a $5 billion corporate acquisition and reached a point where she nearly quit. She eventually began to view her frustration as a signal that she had an opportunity to respond differently. That shift became the foundation of a framework she now uses to help individuals and organizations build resilience and adaptability.

During her keynote, Worthy examines how people can transform what she describes as emotional friction into fuel. Attendees can expect strategies for identifying the emotions that surface during disruption and using that awareness to lead with greater confidence, clarity and courage. Rather than asking people to pretend change is easy, Worthy offers a way to acknowledge the difficulty and still move forward.

Susan Cain: Making Room for Quiet Strengths and Better Ideas

After Worthy’s keynote and a moderated question-and-answer session, bestselling author Susan Cain joins moderator Lisa Taylor for a fireside chat titled “Quiet Leadership: How to Harness the Strengths of Introverts to Change How We Work, Lead, Learn, and Innovate.”

Cain is best known as the author of “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” a book that challenged long-standing assumptions about confidence, charisma and leadership. She is also the author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller “Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole,” an Oprah Book Club selection. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and her TED Talks have received more than 50 million views.

For roughly two decades, Cain has examined the experiences of people who are quiet, sensitive, reflective or easily overlooked in environments that reward fast responses and visible enthusiasm.

Her work does not argue that introverts are better leaders or employees than extroverts. Instead, she argues that introverts and extroverts can contribute equally as leaders, salespeople, researchers, or in any other role, and asks organizations to examine whether their cultures allow different kinds of people to contribute fully. 

Cain’s session explores how introverts and extroverts approach problem-solving and risk differently, and how organizations can structure work so the strongest ideas rise to the top rather than simply the most forcefully expressed ones. Drawing on research in psychology and neuroscience, she will also examine the connections among working style, creativity, collaboration and innovation.

The session offers an opportunity for leaders to consider who may be missing from important discussions. For employees, it may provide language to understand and communicate how they do their best work. The session is helpful as a reminder that inclusion is not only about inviting people into the room. It is also about creating conditions that allow them to participate meaningfully once they are there.

Dan Heath: Finding a Better Way Through What Is Not Working

The afternoon concludes with Dan Heath presenting “Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working.”

Heath is the author or co-author of six bestselling business books, including “Switch,” “Made to Stick,” “Decisive,” “The Power of Moments,” “Upstream,” and “Reset.” His books have sold more than 4 million copies and have been translated into 35 languages. He also hosts the podcast “What It’s Like to Be…,” which explores the realities of different professions and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

His presentation addresses a frustratingly common situation: everyone knows something is not working, but the organization continues doing it anyway. Sometimes the problem is an outdated process. Sometimes it is a bottleneck that employees have learned to tolerate. In other cases, a team remains so busy responding to immediate demands that no one has the time or authority to address the problem's source.

His session will focus on how individuals and teams can escape those patterns by identifying leverage points: areas where a focused intervention can produce a disproportionately meaningful result. Instead of continually “fighting fires,” Heath encourages organizations to identify and move the “boulders” that block progress.

Using examples that range from improvements in hospital logistics to the efficiency of restaurant drive-thrus, Heath will demonstrate how organizations can question assumptions, redirect existing resources and make progress without waiting for ideal conditions.

Heath’s framework does not promise that complex problems can be solved with one clever idea. It does, however, offer a disciplined way to stop spreading effort too thinly and start focusing it where change is most likely to matter.

What to Expect on September 16

The event takes place at the Aims Community College Welcome Center, located at 4901 West 20th Street in Greeley.

• Doors open at 8 a.m. for check-in and networking. 
• Cassandra Worthy starts the day at 9 a.m. with a 60-minute keynote and a 30-minute Q&A 
• A 15-minute break is scheduled at 10:30 a.m.
• A 60-minute fireside chat with Susan Cain and moderator Lisa Taylor begins at 10:45 a.m.
• A break and lunchtime provide time to network with other professionals. Lunch service begins at noon and is included in the ticket price. 
• At 1:30 p.m., Dan Heath takes the stage for a 60-minute keynote presentation. 
• Closing remarks complete the program at 2:30 p.m., and attendees are welcome to stay and network until 3:30 p.m. 

Tickets are $50, plus taxes and fees. Groups of 10 or more receive 20% off admission. Learn more about the Spotlight Speaker Series and buy tickets at spotlightspeakerseries.com.