International. The event organized by HARDI was held in Phoenix, Arizona, and brought together more than 1940 attendees, including 519 wholesalers from 180 companies, 40 solution center providers, 34 sponsors and 250 suppliers.
The organisers announced that this year saw the highest number of participants to date, highlighting their interest in establishing contacts and updating their knowledge.
"We are beyond excited to see members of the HVAC industry come together to collaborate and connect with the hard work of our team. We have prepared a series of specialized conferences and networking opportunities to enable participants to optimize their strategic planning as well as their personal growth initiatives," said Allison Greene, Chief Marketing Officer at HARDI.
Thematic agenda
The Ascend Conference featured six keynote speakers, who made presentations on topics focused on innovation, workforce management, and current geopolitical factors impacting not only the industry but also global affairs.
One of them was Meagan Johnson, who opened the conference with her presentation Zap the Gap: Generational Differences Reexamined, during which she explained the different generational values that impact markets and the workforce.
In turn, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan spoke about demographics, economics, politics and technology in the face of an uncertain future.
The event concluded with a presentation by Olympian and New York Times bestselling author Vince Poscente. The speaker spoke about activating personal purpose and accelerating growth by doing what the competition is not willing to do.
In total, Ascend featured 26 breakout sessions, many of which saw valuable business development insights and benchmarking data shared by HARDI's Market Intelligence team. In addition, four regional forecasting sessions examined the region-specific economic and regulatory factors that will affect the industry in the coming months.
What's new in HARDI
Rhonda Wight, Refrigeration Sales Corp, will end her second term as president of HARDI, welcoming Loran Li as the company's new president. Likewise, it was announced that Brian Blaushild completed his last term on the board. Meanwhile, it has emerged that the newest members of HARDI's board of directors are Todd Shadden and Layne Miller.
Finally, HARDI recognized 16 graduates of its Emerging Leaders program, an initiative that aims to empower the next generation of executives with access to learning and networking platforms.
Next year's Annual Conference will be held in Atlanta, Dec. 7-10.
