At UNITE, a Star is Born

By Day 3, everyone had decided to stay at Kona Kai and form an independent nation of impact businesses. Just kidding, but what if, right? All jokes aside, Day 3 started with a surf session for the daring and a cacao ceremony for the contemplative. A cozy breakfast led to a phenomenal keynote by Tamara Loehr, co-founder of Beusail Academy and Concertina Team. Loehr delved into the strategy for fellow entrepreneurs and CEOs to scale and exit their companies through net-positive business models, scalable lead gen and sales processes, and digital transformation. She left everyone with a gem of a worksheet to work on during their plane rides home that helped them articulate their personal brand. Throughout Day 3, our world-class media team, Carla Kalogeridis and Kathryn Deen, were interviewing CEOs to get their stories into Real Leaders magazine.

Another Series of Difficult Decisions Ensued…

Real Leaders wanted to pack UNITE to the brim with world-class content. Unfortunately, for every speaker to be heard by every attendee, we would need to put on a 10-day conference. To any CEOs reading this, we would never ask you to leave your baby (or fur baby) for that long. Luckily, everything was recorded and will be released soon to be listened and re-listened to your heart’s content. Here’s who spoke during Day 3:

Richard Yelland, Founder and Director of Curtis Birch, Inc. — Turn Your Mission Into A Movement Through Storytelling

Simon Mainwaring, Founder and CEO of We First Inc. — Lead With Impact: How to Elevate Your Business Growth

Kevin Edwards, President of Real Leaders — Be Your Own Media Company

Those lucky enough to attend any of these talks were famished from the pure amount of knowledge consumption and promptly made their way to grab snacks before the final keynote. Shadi Bakour is the 31-year-old CEO of a company that is reimagining how we drink water. PATH Water has been around since 2015 and has seen massive growth over the past nine years. Bakour explained that his secret ingredient for this growth was simple: Collaborate with everyone. Bakour’s talk centered around the importance of co-branding and dispelled the common fear of brand purity in lieu of a cross pollination effect where in one brands customers are shared with the other through the simple act of putting them on their label.

Bakour answered a round of questions and was followed from the stage with resounding applause. Kevin Edwards and Tiffany Saunders, director of member impact of Real Leaders, closed out UNITE with a recap of the event for everyone in attendance, expressing gratitude to our sponsors, Creative Alignments, Sure Call, Salas O’ Brien, Priority Power, Big Path Capital, Central Reach, SVN, and Sunrise Banks, as well as every member of Real Leaders in attendance. With everyone starting to get up to head back to their home and their businesses, a voice called out, “Wait!” What transpired next is something many at a business conference would never expect. Christina Huang, associate principle at Green Dinosaur Inc, took the stage with a flute to perform an original Native American song inspired by UNITE. She serenaded the audience with extreme beauty and grace. What a way to end such a memorable conference.

Just like that, UNITE came to an end, and everyone better off for it happening. Social media posts followed expressing gratitude, joy, and a whole lot of love. We want to take this time to thank everyone who made UNITE 2024 possible and everyone who took valuable time away from their business to attend. We’ll see everyone again in 2025, and we can’t wait to welcome some new faces too.

Add Yourself to the Short List

Thank you for taking the time to read about Day 3 of UNITE 2024. Please consider sharing it with one leader whom you think deserves to be at UNITE 2025. If you would like to be added to the short list to receive first dibs at pre-sale pricing, please add your email below. Thank you again to all of the people who made this community thrive at UNITE 2024. We can’t wait to deliver another incredible experience in 2025.