2026 CPAConnect Annual Leadership Retreat Agenda
October 25-28, 2026
The Stoneleigh | Dallas, TX
Sunday | October 25
5:30 – 6:00 PM | Mentor/Mentee Meet & Greet
First time attendees will meet their assigned mentors in person and get to know fellow first-time attendees immediately before Sunday’s Welcome Reception.
Location: The Stoneleigh Complimentary for Mentors & Mentees
Attire: Casual
6:00 – 7:30 PM | Welcome Reception
Join us as we kick off our 2026 CPAConnect Annual Leadership Retreat! Enjoy hors d’oeuvres, beer and wine while mingling with your peers and meeting new members.
Location: The Stoneleigh Complimentary for all Attendees & Spouse/Guests
Attire: Casual
7:00 – 8:30 PM | CPAConnect Advisory Committee Dinner
Sunday evening is designed to welcome attendees, foster connection, and ease into the retreat experience.
8:00 – 9:00 AM | Breakfast
Monday | October 26
9:00 – 9:10 AM | President’s Welcome & Opening Remarks
Grace Horvath, President & CEO, CPAmerica, Inc.
9:10 – 10:40 AM |Delegation: A Primer on This Defining Leadership Skill
Elevate your leadership effectiveness and organizational impact by fine-tuning one of the core skills of leadership, delegation. Recognize the barriers to your effectiveness and reshape your mindset to gain confidence and become more productive in leading your team. Explore the steps to effective delegation, including follow-up that provides crucial feedback and reinforces accountability. Avoid common delegation traps while optimizing productivity, cultivating talent, inspiring ownership, and freeing up valuable time for high-level leadership functions like strategic thinking and innovation
Jon Lokhorst, Keynote Speaker, Your Best Leadership LLC
1.8 CPE | Business Management & Organization
10:40 – 11:00 AM | Break
11:00 – 12:30 PM | Succession and Transition Planning for CPA Firms
A succession event is guaranteed to happen. How you should position your firm to achieve the best results.
Mike Gillis, CPA & Partner, DMJPS PLLC 1.8 CPE | Business Management & Organization
12:30 – 1:30 PM | Lunch
1:30 – 3:00 | Economics
This session will provide an overview of current economic conditions and key trends impacting businesses and CPA firms, offering context to support strategic and financial decision-making.
1.8 CPE | Economics
Monday | October 26
3:00 – 3:15 PM | Break
3:15 – 4:15 PM | Member Sharing – Anything Goes
This interactive session is your chance to bring up topics that matter most to you! Drawing from a mix of survey responses and spontaneous contributions, we’ll create an open forum for candid discussions, idea sharing, and collaboration.
Facilitated By: Jon Lokhorst, Keynote Speaker, Your Best Leadership LLC
1.2 CPE | Business Management & Organization
4:15 – 5:00 PM | Free Time
5:00 – 6:00 PM | Monday Meet Up (Dinner on own)
Location: The Stoneleigh Complimentary for Attendees & Accompanying Person Attire: Casual
8:00 – 9:00 AM | Breakfast
Tuesday | October 27
8:00 – 9:00 AM | Business Before Hours
A facilitated Business Before Hours session focused on timely topics impacting CPA firms today. Additional details forthcoming.
CPAConnect Sponsor 1.2 CPE | Information Technology
9:00 – 9:15 AM | Break
9:15 – 10:45 AM | Identifying and Mitigating Busy Season Burnout
Let’s face it, this profession can be demanding. Many of us pour our energy into serving other clients, teams, colleagues, family, and friends often at the expense of our own well-being. In this session, we will learn how to recognize the signs of burnout and explore how well-being and mindfulness support individual performance, team effectiveness, and leadership capacity. Participants will gain practical tools and strategies to proactively respond to burnout and build greater resilience during periods of peak demand.
Brian Kush, Executive Leadership Coach, Intend2Lead 1.8 CPE | Personal Development
10:45 – 11:00 AM | Break
11:00 – 12:30 PM | Coaching for Accountability
We need to hold people accountable. We have been saying that for years and yet, the traditional forms of accountability are not working in our new world. We need a new model. In this session we will:
• Offer a new evolved way to view accountability, where it’s leveraged to support and energize others, instead of creating blame and fear
• Provide some specific coaching skills you can utilize to empower and support your teammates in a way that creates real ownership
Brian Kush, Executive Leadership Coach, Intend2Lead 1.8 CPE | Business Management & Organization
12:30 – 1:30 PM | Lunch
Tuesday | October 27
1:30 – 3:00 PM | Choosing Your CPA Firm Tech Stack
This session helps CPA firms evaluate their technology stack and make smarter, more strategic decisions. We’ll compare suite-based versus best-in-breed solutions, explore emerging Agentic and Generative AI tools, and discuss how to assess real ROI, integration, and productivity. Attendees will leave with practical guidance to align technology investments with firm goals.
Randy Johnston, Network Management Group, Inc.
1.8 CPE | Information Technology
3:00 – 3:15 PM | Break
3:15 – 4:15 PM | Member Sharing by Revenue
This structured member sharing session groups firms by revenue size to support candid discussion around firm operations, growth, and leadership challenges. The format allows for targeted conversations and practical insights tailored to firms at similar stages.
Member Facilitators
1.2 CPE | Business Management & Organization
4:15 – 5:30 PM | Free Time
5:30 – 8:00 PM | Reception & Dinner
Enjoy an extended networking reception & dinner.
Location: Nick & Sam’s Steakhouse | 3008 Maple Ave, Dallas, TX 75201
Complimentary for Attendees; Accompanying Person price: $150
Attire: Casual
8:00 – 9:00 AM | Breakfast
Wednesday | October 28
8:00 – 9:00 AM | Business Before Hours: Batten Down the Hatches: Strengthening Your Firm’s Cyber Defenses
Cyber threats are intensifying, and accounting firms remain prime targets for ransomware, phishing, and data theft especially during busy seasons. This session focuses on practical, highimpact steps firms can take to tighten security, reduce risk, and prepare for the inevitable storm. We’ll examine where firms are most vulnerable, common gaps in people, process, and technology, and what “good” security really looks like in today’s threat landscape. Attendees will leave with a clear roadmap for hardening defenses without over-engineering or overspending.
Harrison Schofill, Vice President of Technology, CPAmerica 1.2 CPE | Information Technology
9:00 – 9:15 AM | Break
9:15 – 10:15 AM | Taking Ownership: How A Culture of Responsibility Mitigates Risk
This session addresses key practice issues where affirmative action of taking ownership of client deliverables and firm responsibilities work to mitigate professional liability risks. Topics will include the impact of client selection, independence, private equity, outsourcing, offshoring, changed reporting requirements and other emerging risks.
Steve Platau, University of Tampa 1.2 CPE | Regulatory Ethics
10:15 – 10:30 AM | Break
10:30 – 11:30 AM | Sharing of Issues That Present Liability Risk & Solutions to Mitigate Those Risks
This session will build on the Taking Ownership Theme to address areas where firms can identify “goto” resources to respond to requests for CMMC certifications, altered engagement terms, thirdparty vendors, cooperative service offerings, independence/objectivity challenges and other current changes to the regulatory landscape.
Steve Platau, University of Tampa 1.2 CPE | Regulatory Ethics
11:30 – 11:45 AM | CPAConnect Services Update & Wrap-Up
Chloe Hunt, Director of CPAConnect, CPAmerica, Inc.