THE SPARK
Where assumptions break,
and new thinking enters the room.
Founders, leaders, and institutions engage ideas before they harden into answers.
Tuesday, May 12
*Schedule subject to change
8:00 AM – Doors Open
Bold Brew and Books
Main Street Station
Bold Brew and Books is your space to recharge between sessions. Grab coffee, refreshments, and a moment to relax alongside fellow attendees. Featured speakers will have opportunities to sign books during select meet-and-greet sessions.
9:00 AM
Dominion Energy Welcome
Main Street Station
Featured Guest:
Ed Baine, Executive Vice President, Utility Operations and President, Dominion Energy Virginia
BDIS Health + Wellness Breakout Session | 9:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Mind. Body. Money. An Opening Conversation
Main Street Station
Fireside Chat
Most wellness conversations aren't built for people like you. They assume you have more time, fewer stakes, and a schedule you can control. This one doesn't.
Kristin Richardson, Founder and CEO of Sherah, opens the Health + Wellness track in conversation with several of our Wellness speakers about their journey and how the three pillars of Mind, Body, and Money integrate to affect and mold your health, effectiveness, fulfillment, and sustainability as a person and as a leader.
No generic advice. Get ready for an honest exchange over these two days about what it actually looks like to lead well and live well when internal and external pressures don't stop.
Featured Guest:
Kristin Richardson, Founder and CEO, Sherah
9:05 AM - 9:30 AM
Innovators Showcase
Ground Floor
Main Street Station
Founder Interviews
The Spark begins where companies are being built. Founders from Startup Virginia’s high-growth incubator take the stage to share what they are building, the problems they are solving, and what comes next. Real companies, real traction, and a look at companies scaling from Central Virginia.
Why This Room Matters:
Be in the room when the next breakthrough finds its audience
Spot the startups and entrepreneurs worth knowing as they continue to gain traction
Set the tone for three days of building, investing, and thinking differently
Moderator:
Richard Wintsch, Executive Director, Startup Virginia
Featured Guests:
Jamie Christensen, Founder, Civic Vanguard
Nick Mottas, Co-Founder and CEO, HopDrive
Katie Beck Sutler, CEO, Julie
BDIS Health + Wellness Breakout Session | 9:45 AM - 10:45 AM
The Founder's Operating System
Burnout, Boundaries, and the Hidden Dynamics That Shape Performance
Main Street Station
Fireside Chat
Most conversations about founder wellness stay on the surface: more sleep, better routines, a meditation app. The harder conversation is what happens beneath the surface, inside the operating system of the founder and the invisible dynamics that shape how a company actually functions. Stress does not stay where it starts. It moves through an organization, concentrates in leadership, distorts decision-making, and shows up in culture, performance, and growth. Rae Stott brings a practical, non-clinical lens to nervous system regulation, boundaries, burnout, and resilience, translating them into tools founders can use in real time. Drawing on her experience as an operator, ecosystem builder, and advisor to early-stage companies, she names what is happening beneath the surface and offers a clearer way to lead through high stakes, ambiguity, and pressure. The goal is not just successful companies. It is sustainable ones, where performance and well-being are not in conflict.
Featured Guest:
Rae Stott, Co-Founder and CEO, Refraction
9:45 AM - 10:45 AM
Investing at the Intersection
Capital, Conviction & the Next Frontier
Main Street Station
Fireside Chat
What does it look like to deploy capital in a way that delivers both strong returns and meaningful progress? This conversation examines how forward-thinking investment leaders identify opportunity today, including where innovation is emerging, how founders are evaluated, and why some of the most compelling ideas are coming from places the market has been slow to recognize. As capital continues to shape not only companies but entire communities, this discussion explores how investment strategy, innovation, and progress come together and what that means for builders navigating what comes next.
Why This Room Matters:
Understand how the most forward-looking investors are evaluating founders and opportunities differently
Get a clearer view into where capital is flowing and how decisions are being made
Walk away with a sharper lens on the opportunities the market has been slow to see
Moderator:
Jennifer Hunter, Senior Vice President Corporate Citizenship & Chief Sustainability Officer, Altria
Featured Guests:
Erin Harkless Moore, Managing Director, Investments, Pivotal Ventures
11:00 AM - 11:45 AM
First In Command
Leadership, Innovation & Governing What's Next
Main Street Station
Fireside Chat
Virginia's first woman governor reflects on what it means to lead the Commonwealth at the intersection of technology, economic development, and a rapidly changing workforce. Her path to the Governor's Mansion was not conventional, and neither is her approach to governing. This conversation examines what leadership looks like when the stakes are high, the environment is complex, and the decisions you make today shape what a state looks like a generation from now. What does governing for innovation actually require? And what does Virginia's next chapter look like from the seat she now occupies?
Why This Room Matters:
Hear directly from the person setting Virginia's economic and innovation agenda
Understand how state-level policy decisions are shaping the environment every founder, investor, and business leader in this room operates in
Gain rare access to a conversation about leadership, conviction, and what it takes to make history
Featured Guest:
Abigail Spanberger, Governor, The Commonwealth of Virginia
11:45 AM - 12:45 PM
Lunch + Networking
Main Street Station
BDIS Health + Wellness Breakout Session | 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Reset from the Inside Out
An Intuitive Healing and Meditation Experience
Main Street Station
Immersive Experience
You cannot think your way out of burnout. At some point, the body and the soul have to be part of the conversation. This 90-minute immersive experience with Monica Rao is unlike anything else on the Big Dipper program. It is not a talk about wellness. It is a direct, lived encounter with it. Drawing on her own near-death experience and more than 30 years of meditation practice, Monica reframes what becomes possible when we stop managing stress and start actually clearing it. From there, the session moves into a guided meditation and intuitive energy healing designed specifically for high-achieving, high-stress leaders. Attendees are led into a state that quiets the analytical mind, softens the nervous system, and creates space for the body to release what it has been holding. No prior meditation experience is necessary. Come as you are. Leave differently.
Featured Guest:
Monica Rao, MSA, Transformative Energy Healer, Meditation Coach, and Transformational Spiritual Life Coach; Founder, Graphoria
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Legacy, Leadership, and the Next Generation: The HBCU Impact
Main Street Station
Panel Discussion
Virginia's historically Black colleges and universities have shaped generations of leaders, professionals, and change-makers. This conversation brings together the presidents leading these institutions through a pivotal moment: AI is transforming curriculum, workforce demands are accelerating, and the mission of HBCUs has never been more urgent or more relevant. This is a conversation about institutional leadership, student outcomes, and the enduring power of institutions built to serve the people others overlooked.
Why This Room Matters:
Understand the role HBCUs play in building the talent pipeline that powers Virginia's economy
Hear how these institutions are navigating AI, workforce shifts, and the next generation of student needs
Be part of a conversation that centers legacy, leadership, and the future in the same breath
Moderator:
Suzanne Malveaux, Award-winning Journalist, Speaker, Advocate
Featured Guests:
Makola M. Abdullah, Ph.D., President, Virginia State University
Javaune Adams-Gaston, Ph.D., President, Norfolk State University
Hakim J. Lucas, Ph.D., President & CEO, Virginia Union University
Darrell K. Williams, President, Hampton University
2:15 PM - 3:15 PM
The Builder’s Ecosystem
Culture, Capital & the Will to Build
Main Street Station
Fireside Chat
Building something from nothing is hard enough. Building it in an environment that was not designed for you is harder. This conversation examines the ecosystem that makes bold building possible: the capital structures, the communities, the cultural conditions, and the cities that are quietly becoming the next generation of hubs for entrepreneurship and growth. It is a conversation about what founders actually need, what cities actually offer, and why where you build matters as much as what you build.
Why This Room Matters:
Learn what the most resilient builders know about finding capital, community, and momentum in unexpected places
Understand why mid-market cities are becoming the most important geography in the next wave of entrepreneurship
Walk away with a clearer sense of what the ecosystem around you can and cannot do for your company
Moderator:
Garret Westlake, Ph.D., Vice Provost for Innovation & Strategic Design, Virginia Commonwealth University
Featured Guest:
Everette Taylor, CEO, Kickstarter
BDIS Health + Wellness Breakout Session | 2:45 PM - 3:45 PM
The Money Stories We Carry and the Ones We Still Need to Hear
How Money Shapes Our Minds, Our Bodies, and the Generations We Leave Behind
Main Street Station
Panel Discussion
The money conversation most people never had and the one that changes everything.
Kristin Richardson, CEO of Sherah, sits down with certified financial planners Susan Hulcher of RBC Wealth Management and Elliott Warren of UBS to unpack the generational money stories we carry with us that affect our financial reality personally and professionally, the truths about women and wealth that nobody taught us, and what it actually looks like to rewrite our financial narrative - for ourselves and the generations we leave behind.
Moderator:
Kristin Richardson, Founder and CEO, Sherah,
Featured Guests:
Susan Hulcher, AAMS®, APP, CFP®, RBC Wealth Management
W. Elliott Warren, CPWA®, UBS
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
The Future of Virginia’s Flagship Institutions
AI, Innovation & Preparing the Next Generation
Main Street Station
Panel Discussion
Four presidents. Four institutions. An ecosystem of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the communities they serve that reaches across the Commonwealth. And one unavoidable question: what does a university actually owe the people it educates when the world they are being prepared for is changing faster than any curriculum can track? The demographic landscape, the economics of higher education, the technology students will work with, and what employers expect of graduates are all shifting at once. In this conversation, the leaders of Virginia's flagship public universities discuss how they are thinking about workforce readiness, technology integration, affordability, and the value of a four-year degree in the years ahead.
Why This Room Matters:
Understand how the institutions that produce Virginia's talent are adapting to a rapidly changing workforce
Get a first look at the AI integration, research, and workforce strategies being built right now at the highest levels of higher education
Be in the room where the decisions shaping the next generation of leaders are being discussed openly
Moderators:
Joe Benevento, President and CEO, Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority and Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation
Kelly Till, Regional President of Virginia, Lee Enterprises and President, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Featured Guests:
Scott Beardsley, Ed.D, President, University of Virginia
Michael Rao, Ph.D, President, Virginia Commonwealth University
Timothy Sands, Ph.D., President, Virginia Tech
Gregory Washington, Ph.D., President, George Mason University