We hosted our third annual Disability Leadership Summit on February 24 and 25, 2026. The Summit is designed by disabled professionals, for disabled professionals, to help advance leadership and inclusion within the workplace. During the two-day virtual convening, we heard diverse perspectives, from 15 speakers sharing their experiences serving as changemakers in spaces from Fortune500 companies to leading non-profits to small businesses. Each day we centered on a different theme: the day one theme, “Empowering Disabled Leaders,” focusing on the individual, then the day two theme’s focus, "Strengthening Inclusive Workplaces” focusing on systems.
We are grateful to the speakers and our partners—both funding and technical—who were instrumental in the success of the Summit. More than 75% of attendees identified as people with disabilities and we reached people across the country, from Alaska to Texas, Washington to Maryland—and even globally with attendees from Canada, Nigeria, and Germany. Here are some highlights from the sessions…
Day One Keynote featuring Claudia Gordon
“My disability is not separate from who I am as a leader. It is fully intertwined with my insight, my discipline, my resilience, and my clarity.” - Claudia Gordon
Day one of the Summit began with remarks from our CEO, Emily Blum, introducing the day’s theme, and giving a warm welcome to attendees. Following Emily’s remarks, Claudia Gordon, disability rights advocate, attorney, and accessibility strategist, gave a powerful presentation in sign language supported by an interpreter. Gordon started by sharing the story of when she began to realize she was losing her hearing as a child, and the moment she received a harsh “orientation to the world” as a disabled person. She went on to discuss her experience feeling the need to assimilate and code switch as a student.
Then, when holding senior government roles she noticed an alarming pattern. Access decisions were made about disabled people without their representation. Gordon noted that even “if you are in the room but not shaping the outcome, that isn’t equity.” Those experiences in her legal career taught her another important lesson—the experience navigating spaces that were never designed for you is an asset. The experience of “otherness” instills resilience, clarity, and empathy, a skillset that disabled leaders inherently bring with them. She emphasized that lived experience is not separate from your leadership, rather it is the foundation of it, stating that “what was once treated as a deficit can become your differentiator.”
OWN It: Embrace, Elevate, Empower
“When we speak up for equity, we create spaces to lead that weren't there before.” – Alycia Anderson
Following the keynote, day one started with a session with Alycia Anderson, disability rights advocate, speaker, and CEO introduced her three-part framework. The framework is as follows: embrace, elevate, empower. Anderson started her presentation by taking attendees through her own reluctant journey of self-acceptance and choosing to “show up and roll in,” to every room. She ended her session by reminding attendees that by empowering yourself, you are creating a powerful ripple-effect and paving the way for future leaders to thrive.
Lessons in Leadership (Panel)
For the midday panel, Disability Lead Chief Strategy Officer, Risa Rifkind, introduced the moderator Emily Voorde, founder and CEO of INTO Strategies and panelists Chaz Kellem, Disability Lead Member and program manager at Highmark Health’s Institute for Strategic Social and Workforce Programs. Along with Leah Katz Hernandez, senior management at LinkedIn, and Shannon Fitzpatrick, development manager at Microsoft. During this enlightening panel, they discussed their experience in self-advocacy, disclosure, representation, and their own definitions of leadership. They shared personal anecdotes of navigating the workplace and educational institutions with a disability. The panel ended with advice from each panelist, where each panelist emphasized that there is no “right way” to lead, as the most successful leaders are not the ones who hit every goal, but who make a team feel uplifted and heard.
How to Tell Your Story: Centering Disability in Your Narrative and Leadership
“Your story is yours. How you tell it, when you tell it, where you tell it, and whether you tell it at all is 100% your decision.” – Keidra Chaney
Following the panel, attendees had a choice between structured networking facilitated by Alexis J. Steals or a storytelling session with Disability Lead Member Keidra Chaney. Keidra, program director at Disability Culture Lab, invited attendees to rethink disability storytelling as a leadership practice rooted in choice, agency, and impact. Too often, disabled people are expected to share personal experiences to be believed, understood, or included. Keidra challenged that expectation directly. Instead, she invited attendees to view storytelling as a strategic tool for shaping culture, influencing policy, building community, and strengthening self-advocacy. Drawing from her own experience with vision loss, Keidra introduced a framework for centered storytelling built around identity, purpose, and impact. Identity reflects how disability shapes how we understand ourselves and move through the world. Purpose connects storytelling to a deeper “why.” Impact considers how personal narratives can shift culture, strengthen advocacy, and create change in communities and institutions. Throughout the session, Keidra also spoke candidly about the realities of visibility, especially for multi-marginalized leaders. She ended by reminding attendees that there is no “right” way to tell a disability story, but it matters that the story belongs to the person telling it.
Day One Closing Connection
“We as disabled leaders need to take up more space” - Shannon Parris
At the close of day one, Director of Programs, Clare Killy, thanked attendees for their engagement and welcomed Shannon Parris, Disability Lead Member and the Founder & Principal of Shannon Parris Consulting, to the virtual stage. Shannon provided key reflections on the day and connected the lessons to her own experience, especially as a parent who is teaching her child self-advocacy. She closed the session with a Q & A, and a word encouraging participants to show up energized and ready for day two.
Day Two Keynote featuring Keely Cat Wells
“All innovations that began as solutions for disabled people and went on to change the world.” -Keely Cat Wells
Day two began with reflections from our CEO Emily Blum, followed by an introduction of the day’s keynote speaker, Founder and CEO of Making Space, Keely Cat-Wells. Keely spoke of her experience being hospitalized, disabled, and learning quickly that the world was no longer built with her in mind. She then shares her experience in Hollywood, where she faced disability discrimination in the form of typecasting. In her experience disabled people were casted into three narrow stereotypes: the villain, where disability becomes shorthand for evil; the victim, where suffering is framed as a vehicle for pity; and as the inspiration, where ‘overcoming’ disability is celebrated. This experience led her to create her own talent agency, C Talent, and later Making Space, and her efforts to empower others to create their own opportunities where there are none presented.
In her presentation, Keely explored how the curb cut effect, where an innovation initially from accessibility advocates for wheelchair users now benefits everyone, such as parents with strollers, travelers with luggage, and delivery workers with carts, shows that “making things more accessible for disabled people, ultimately benefits everyone.” She continued by sharing examples on how this applies to the workplace, by sharing examples of tech innovations such as TTY or speech-to-text services initially for Deaf or people with hearing loss have led to innovations that have increased productivity for all. Keely’s presentation reminds us that when society prioritizes the needs of disabled people ultimately, it creates some of the greatest innovations and that when disabled people are “given access, when seen, when hired, when invested in,” inclusive leadership comes naturally.
Building and Sustaining Neuro-Inclusive Workspaces
“Neurodiversity is unity.” – Wesley Wade
Following the keynote, attendees had a choice between structured networking facilitated by Alexis J. Steals or a session about neuro-inclusive workspaces with Wesley Wade. Wesley explored what it means to intentionally build neuroinclusive spaces within organizations. Drawing from both lived experience and professional expertise, Wesley challenged participants to reconsider assumptions about how people communicate, work, and learn. Through a simple but powerful activity, participants were asked to organize a group of cereal boxes with minimal instruction. The responses varied widely, revealing how easily people interpret directions differently. The exercise illustrated a key point: when expectations are unclear, people often struggle in silence rather than ask for clarification. Creating neuro-inclusive spaces requires leaders to recognize these moments and build systems where asking questions and working differently are welcomed. Then Wesley encouraged attendees that instead of defaulting to existing systems, leaders have the opportunity to reflect on what support they once needed and how those lessons can inform more equitable practices today. Central to this work is building climates of diversity and ethics that make true inclusion possible. When organizations recognize intersectionality and remove structural barriers, they create conditions where people can experience belonging and contribute fully. Wesley acknowledged that inclusion is not without challenges as different support needs may sometimes conflict, and navigating those moments requires communication, flexibility, and collaboration. The session centered on a simple but powerful idea. Building neuro-inclusive spaces is not about fixing individuals, but creating communities where different ways of thinking, communicating, and contributing are recognized as strengths.
Digital Accessibility at Work (Panel)
"If disabled people aren’t a part of developing data sets, it creates exclusion at scale." - Nandita Gupta
For the midday panel, our Chief Strategy Officer Risa Rifkind welcomed attendees back and introduced moderator Greg Gulledge, digital accessibility program lead at Healthcare Service Corporation and panelists, Nandita Gupta, senior project manager of accessibility at Cisco, and Crystal Preston Watson, accessibility and quality engineer. The panelists shared their own experiences navigating inaccessible workplaces, which led to their desire to design solutions. Greg led a lively discussion about their journeys in the field of technology, their work in digital accessibility, and the importance of having disabled leaders at the forefront of AI/tech advancement. Crystal, Greg, and Nandita even shared insights , accessibility within the gaming community and how digital accessibility perspectives varies generationally.
Future of Work, Powered by Leaders with Disabilities
“The mainstream AI that we’re used to today was actually built on the back of accessibility.” - Ana Monga
At the close of day two, Ana Monga, Disability Lead Member and leader of Future Work policy at Google led a presentation about how this current moment in technology is similar to the 1990s, when AOL and the internet were new unexplored territory; Ana said that we are in a similar moment now, “the dial up modem era of AI”. She touched on how many factors including a shift towards AI use in everyday life has changed productivity. In her presentation, Ana stressed that there is a lot of natural fear around the advancement of AI—job security and concerns about a lack of inclusivity, and inaccessibility—however we as leaders “need to trade in our fear of failure for a sense of curiosity.” She also emphasized that AI cannot replace human elements such as creativity or passion, but can help with eliminating barriers to entry that many disabled employees and employers face. Even in her own experience, AI enabled tools that support people with hearing loss, such as transcripts, closed captions, etc., more accessible than ever before. Ana shared three questions that can influence an accessible AI future: Data- Are we in the training the set? Bias- Are the filters excluding us? Agency- Are these systems made for us and around us?
Day Two Closing Connection
Our Director of Programs Clare Killy closed the day reflecting on the lessons of the day, leaving attendees with a empowering thought, “If you are here as a disabled professional know this. Your leadership matters. Your ambition is valid. Your contributions are needed. Not someday, now.