The NYBLACKMBA Business + Lifestyle Festival is where business, culture, and innovation converge. Over the course of the Festival, attendees will experience dynamic programming, inspiring leaders, and unexpected moments designed to spark new ideas, meaningful connections, and lasting impact across industries.

This session explores the evolving education landscape and its connection to emerging job trends and career opportunities. Attendees will gain insight into the skills, pathways, and industries shaping the future of work and long term career growth.

This fireside chat with Yvonne McNair explores how the events industry has evolved in response to disruption, highlighting the challenges leaders have faced and the innovative adaptations that followed. Attendees will gain forward-looking insights on how experience design, technology, and creativity are shaping the next era of impactful events.

Honoring Leaders will deliver insights on leadership, strategy, and the forces shaping today’s business and professional landscape. Hear directly from influential voices driving innovation, impact, and meaningful change across industries.

This session explores the intersection of luxury lifestyle experiences and investment, highlighting how travel, real estate, hospitality, fashion, and curated experiences are creating new avenues for value and wealth creation. Attendees will gain insight into emerging trends, consumer demand, and strategies for investing in and building premium lifestyle-driven businesses.

The Business of Being Seen: Influence, Authenticity, and Creative Leadership explores how visibility, storytelling, and purpose-driven leadership shape lasting impact in today’s cultural and commercial landscape. This session examines how creative leaders build influence by staying authentic while navigating brand, performance, and business at scale.

This session helps small business leaders understand how sustainability can be a driver of long term growth resilience and profitability. Participants will explore how integrating sustainable practices across finance operations and strategy can strengthen their business model improve competitiveness and unlock new revenue and partnership opportunities.

 This session focuses on nonprofit management and building a strong, sustainable organization, with practical guidance on governance, strategy, and operational excellence. The discussion will highlight best practices for leadership, fundraising, and scaling impact while remaining mission-driven.

The Technology Forum is a premier platform exploring today’s and tomorrow’s technology landscape, examining how emerging technologies are reshaping industries, fueling startup formation, driving product innovation, and creating competitive advantage across enterprise and consumer markets. This session will focus on technology investment trends, data, AI, automation, and digital infrastructure, while offering practical insights into building, scaling, and investing in high-growth companies amid rapid innovation cycles.

This session focuses on how organizations can secure business contracts as a core growth strategy while diversifying revenue beyond a single client, funder, or income stream. Participants will learn how to leverage procurement and RFPs to build predictable, scalable revenue and reduce financial risk.

This session on the Future of Procurement explores how global organizations are redefining sourcing through innovation, sustainability, and strategic supplier partnerships. Drawing on John C. Foster’s leadership across various companies, this discussion will examine how procurement leaders drive value creation, manage risk, and build resilient, future-ready supply chains at scale.