BLC Schedule
2025 Business & Leadership Conference
Obstacles into opportunities. Problems into possibilities.
NSCA’s Business & Leadership Conference brings the systems integration industry together like no other conference. Build your network Feb. 25-27, 2025, at Ritz-Carlton Dallas Las Colinas in Irving, Texas.
Connecting the Integration Industry
Whether you’re an industry veteran or starting your journey in the industry, BLC offers incredible value for integration professionals who are serious about business.
Top-Tier Networking
This is not a tradeshow—build real relationships with industry leaders.
BLC HomeExclusive Sessions
Find solutions for your biggest business challenges, from labor needs to profitability.
View ScheduleBLC 2025
Schedule of Events
Tuesday, Feb. 25-Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025
Ritz-Carlton Dallas Las Colinas
4150 North MacArthur Boulevard
Irving, TX 75038, US
We’re excited to share our schedule packed with an exceptional lineup of content and speakers.
Explore keynotes on the leadership, culture, detailed breakout sessions on the business of systems integration, and valuable networking opportunities—all included in our event schedule.
BLC 2025 is packed with exceptional content. Here’s what’s on the schedule:
- Enhance project and team stability.
- Use key metrics for informed, growth-aligned decisions.
- Build trust, set expectations, and ensure accountability.
- Overcome decision-making fears that hinder growth.
- Develop high-performance teams and raise performance standards.
- Foster innovation through curiosity, not criticism.
- Minimize chaos and confusion.
View Schedule Below!
7:00 am
1:30 pm
3:30 pm
4:15 pm
5:00 pm
6:00 pm
NSCA Education Foundation: 25th Anniversary Industry Charity Golf Outing
Join the NSCA Education Foundation for its annual Industry Charity Golf Outing to kick off the conference. It takes place at the TPC Las Colinas. Not only will it offer you the chance to meet new BLC attendees and get reacquainted with those you’ve met in years past, but your participation also helps the NSCA Education Foundation raise money to advance programs such as Ignite and PASS K-12 (the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools).
Lunch will be provided; awards will be given during the Opening Night Dinner, which begins at 6pm.
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First-Time Attendee Orientation
If you haven’t attended NSCA’s Business & Leadership Conference before, this orientation is a great way to meet other new people and learn what you can expect. This informal orientation provides examples of how attendees from previous Business & Leadership Conferences have applied concepts they learned to strengthen business operations and profitability.
Opening Night Reception
Reconnect with friends and meet new attendees before the conference officially begins. Drinks and appetizers will be provided.
Opening Night Dinner and Awards
Join us as we honor our Excellence in Business winners: integration firms that experience success in business performance, employee engagement, differentiating strategies, strategic transformation, customer experience, talent development, and more. We’ll also recognize winners from the Excellence in Product Innovation Awards, Randy Vaughan Founder’s Awards, and more.
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7:00 am
8:00 am
9:00 am
9:15 am
10:45 am
11:00 am
12:00 pm
1:00 pm
1:15 pm
2:45 pm
3:00 pm
4:30 pm
5:30 pm
6:30 pm
Breakfast
Start your day with a delicious breakfast designed to fuel meaningful connections.
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Opening Session: Economic Outlook 2025 for Integrators
Speaker: Dr. Chris Kuehl, Managing Director, Armada Corporate Intelligence
NSCA Chief Economist Dr. Chris Kuehl always brings a unique combination of straight talk and dry humor that makes news about our industry more interesting and more palatable. Inflation, tariffs, labor shortages, U.S. engagement in foreign affairs, and the migration toward tech and automation are all factors that could impact your business. As always, Dr. Kuehl will look at these economic issues through the lens of an integration company leader. This vital planning session helps you prepare for what the future will bring. The session concludes with a performance summary of key indicators, including inflation, job creation, housing, and GDP.
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Keynote: Expect the Unexpected (the Oh S#!t Moments!)
Increasing project complexity and skyrocketing labor costs create the perfect conditions for profit killers to appear seemingly out of nowhere. This could mean shifting project schedules, the inability to tap into the skilled labor you need, dealing with technical problems, obtaining owner approvals, and the list goes on. In this session, we talk about how to drive accountability from the boardroom to the frontlines. Discover how to drive predictability and stability with your projects and crew, create accurate reports about WIP and percentage completion, and how to monitor estimated vs. actual gross profit.
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General Session: Making the Tough Financial Decisions
Speaker: Mary Kelly, Commander, U.S. Navy (ret) and CEO, Productive Leaders
If financial health is a top priority, then why is it an afterthought for many business leaders? No matter the people, technology, and clients you have in place, financial health can never be left unattended. Interest rates, credit lines, inventory levels, payment terms, pledged assets, billing and collections, and personal guarantees all play a huge role in success. This session is for the executives who are ready to understand which financial metrics matter most—and what these metrics are trying to tell you so you deliver the best decisions possible. Know where your money is going, eliminate waste, manage your financial metrics, and say “no” when you need to.
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Lunch
Grab a bite to eat and discuss the day’s insights so far with fellow industry professionals. Use this midday break to connect, share ideas, and recharge for the sessions ahead.
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Day 1 Breakouts
Breakout #1
Coming soon!
Breakout #2
From Passion to Profit: Scaling Your Business for Growth
Your business is more than a passion project—it should be a thriving a thriving enterprise. Join this inspiring and informative event where you’ll hear firsthand from three dynamic entrepreneurs who have successfully navigated the journey from lifestyle business to scalable enterprise. This session will equip you with practical strategies and real-world insights to propel your business toward sustainable growth. Learn to leverage pivotal financial and operational metrics to make informed decisions and align your efforts with your expansion goals. You’ll leave with a strategic roadmap to take your business from passion to profit.
Breakout #3
Coming soon!
Breakout #4
Coming soon!
Executive Power Hour: Lightning Round: AI Implementation Success Stories
Speaker: Dale Bottcher, EVP Global Sales & Marketing, AVI-SPL
Integrators that have documented success with AI implementation share real-life stories about how they use artificial intelligence in front-of-house, customer-facing applications and back-of-house operations.
NSCA members describe what prompted them to deploy the technology, the problems it’s solving, problems they’ve encountered along the way, and results they’re seeing.
Hear all about how your peers are using AI to drive:
- Product innovation
- Compliance
- Data management
- Job costing and proposals
- Sales
- System design
- Administrative support
- Marketing
- Remote monitoring
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Reception & Cocktail Hour
Grab a drink and unwind after a day of learning and networking. Join industry peers for great conversations, refreshing drinks, and a relaxed atmosphere to build connections.
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Dinner & Entertainment
Enjoy a delicious meal paired with engaging entertainment as you relax and reflect on the day’s insights. This is designed to inspire and energize attendees for the opportunities ahead on Day 2.
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7:30 am
8:30 am
9:15 am
10:30 am
10:45 am
12:00 pm
1:00 pm
1:15 pm
2:30 pm
2:45 pm
3:45 pm
5:00 pm
Breakfast
Start your day with a delicious breakfast designed to fuel meaningful connections.
NSCA Legislative Agenda and Business Meeting
NSCA is your voice, your business resource, and your trusted advisor. Our annual business meeting covers the state of our industry, the election of our leadership, and our 2025 legislative agenda. This interactive session is led by NSCA and industry leaders who have specific experience and knowledge about codes and compliance, emerging technologies, risk management, industry trends, growth strategies, and running successful integration companies. Make it a top priority to attend and learn what NSCA is doing to support your business, keep you informed, and help you take action.
General Session: Controlling What You Can Control
Speaker: Jeremy Anderson, CEO, The Jeremy Anderson Group
There are four key elements of business that you can control: the people you hire, the clients you work with, the go-to-market strategies you deploy, and the business rules and processes you create. What you can’t control is what your competitors are willing to do or say, what your clients might be willing to risk, and what employees do. When things seem unmanageable, it’s important to know how to control what’s within your grasp—not what’s beyond or beneath it. This means focusing on priorities and opportunities, not outliers and distractions. In this session, you’ll learn how to do this by establishing guardrails based on core values (not just financial metrics), building trust, and holding people accountable based on your expectations.
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Keynote: Are You the One Holding Everyone Else Back?
Speaker: Dr. Ivan Joseph, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Ivan Joseph Leadership, Inc.
Many business leaders put off making decisions because of uncertainty or fear of making the wrong choice. Leaders can unknowingly spur cultures of indecisiveness and inactivity by running from problems and the truth instead of taking challenges head on. This session helps you examine your own behavior to determine how it impacts the people who report to you. Are you afraid your people can’t handle tough decision-making, either, so you try to step in to “help”? As we walk through this conversation together, you’ll think about whether you inhibit growth by spreading fear about making decisions. And if you do face decision-making fears, we’ll explore where this fear comes from.
Presented by:
Lunch
Grab a bite to eat and discuss the day’s insights so far with fellow industry professionals. Use this midday break to connect, share ideas, and recharge for the sessions ahead.
Presented by:
Day 2 Breakouts
Breakout #5
Build a High-Performance Team!
When teams thrive, they bring their members to a level they didn’t know was possible. But when teams struggle, they create dynamics and challenges that limit performance. What does it take for a team to excel? How do you create a culture of excellence? How do you build a high-performing team? In this fast-paced, interactive session, leaders gain insights and techniques to help them articulate common values and a shared sense of purpose, create team cohesion, and set higher expectations to achieve new levels of performance.
Breakout #6
Unlock Success with a Beginner’s Mindset
By exploring some of the key principles from her bestselling book, Beginner’s Pluck: Build Your Life of Purpose & Impact Now, Liz Bohannon challenges you to start with smaller steps so you can start doing instead of dreaming. Discover how curiosity over criticism fuels innovation. During this session, get ready to take a personal journey down the path of success by weaving passion and purpose into your every goal. You’ll leave a problem-finder and problem solver: someone who dreams small but achieves big.
Breakout #7
Overcoming Obstacles
When things go differently than planned, how does your team overcome this obstacle and maintain productivity? This breakout session connects you to valuable insights and practical strategies that help your team surpass challenges and succeed—even during uncertain times.
Breakout #8
Coming soon!
Closing Session: Healthy Habits for 2025: Reduce Chaos and Confusion
We all have more to do than we ever expected, and it seems to be getting worse. This session is a lesson in prioritization and goal setting every day—and then reenergizing and refreshing yourself before the next day begins. It begins with clarity and expectations to reduce daily conflicts that create unnecessary panic and a hectic pace of work. By examining the workflows and constraints that manage you instead of being managed, you’ll uncover ways to overcome bad habits and replace them with healthy, productive practices. This allows you to focus on the very best things you could be doing for your business every day.
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Closing Night Reception & Dinner
Wrap up your experience with great food, drinks, and conversations. Reflect on new insights, solidify connections, and toast to the future of the integration industry!
Register for BLC 2025!
Call our office at 1-(800)-446-6722 to be added to our waitlist for attendees.
Substitutions and Cancellations:
Substitutions may be made at any time. Cancellations are accepted and registration fees refunded (less a 25% cancellation fee) if notice is received in writing at least 30 days prior to the event. If cancellation is received less than 30 days but at least one week prior to the event, registration fees (less a 50% cancellation fee) will be refunded. If cancellation is made less than one week prior to the conference, no refund will be given. NSCA is not responsible for weather-related interruptions that affect connection to the event. By submitting payment, you agree to cancellation terms for BLC.
