Accelerate 2025: A One-Day Conference for CEO Learning and Connection
In September, 10X CEO members and alumni from venture-backed companies gathered in New York City for Accelerate 2025, our flagship event. Our network explored what it truly means to lead in an AI-driven world, sharing hard-won lessons and bold visions for the future of leadership.
The event wasn’t just about theory. It was about real-world transformation. Through inspiring keynotes, demos, and candid peer conversations, CEOs gained the clarity and tools to tackle three essential areas:
Evolving Role of the CEO in an AI Era – Rethinking strategy, workflows, and how to lead organizations where humans and AI work side by side.
CEO Energy – Building the personal discipline and focus needed to sustain performance as a leader, business athlete, and human being.
Right People, Right Work – Ensuring teams are structured for speed and alignment, with the right talent focused on the most critical priorities.
Our goal was simple but ambitious: to provide practical frameworks, peer-driven conversations, and knowledge that our members can take back and apply immediately to their companies.
One CEO summed up the impact of the day perfectly:
“AI: Everything was amazing! I was finally able to see through the AI hype and beyond the cute rewrites by ChatGPT to focus on AI, think about workflows, and implement critical new processes. That was amazing.”
One of our members, Hoala from Paubox, shared his reflections from Accelerate in several blog posts, including CEO Guide to AI: Lessons from 10X CEO Accelerate 2025.
Morning Sessions: Leading as a 10X CEO
The morning focused on the evolving role of the CEO and the skills needed to lead in an AI-powered world:
Requirements for a 10X CEO in an AI World
Mark Helow, Founder of 10X CEO, kicked off the day by reframing the CEO’s job through three critical dimensions: strategy, workflows, and capabilities. His call to action was clear—leaders must shift from managing people to architecting human + AI systems.
CEO Energy: Demand Greatness
Brian Gentile, 10X CEO Coach & Chairman Of The Board at Matillion, shared the CEO Energy framework, urging leaders to constantly evolve into the CEO their company truly needs. His message: “You get what you tolerate—demand greatness from yourself, your team, and your company.”
Right People, Right Work
Meg Scales, Director of Coach & Member Development at 10X CEO, explored how to align talent with business priorities using the Working Genius framework, which can be used to deeply understand leadership teams’ natural strengths. Many of our members are now using this approach to strategically place the right people in the right roles, creating clarity, speed, and alignment as their companies scale.
Afternoon Sessions: From Inspiration to Application
Our final keynote, The CEO’s AI Imperative, delivered by Carl Miller, Founder of The GRIN Labs, was a wake-up call to move beyond AI hype.
Carl outlined three levers for CEOs to pull now:
Experiment personally with AI to shift culture.
Appoint a champion to drive execution.
Rewire one workflow where AI is underutilized to create momentum.
As Carl put it, “AI doesn’t fail because of the tech—it fails because it exposes every organizational blind spot.”
The afternoon panel sessions were all about seeing AI in action, with CEOs and operators sharing real-world examples of AI transforming their companies.
Operational AI for Product & Operations Excellence
Scott Woody, CEO & Founder, & Matthew Park, Head of Design (Metronome), Rohit Choudhary, CEO & Founder (AccelData.io), Prukalpa Sankar, CEO (Atlan), showed how AI-native companies are doubling productivity by rethinking workflows, decision-making, and team structures.
Operational AI for Go-To-Market Greatness
Carilu Dietrich, Founder Hypergrowth Leadership and CMO Advisor (Lovable), Kevin Marasco, Chief Growth Officer (Tebra) Tucker Callaway, CEO (Mezmo) highlighted cutting-edge applications in marketing and sales, from AI-driven SDRs to automated competitive intelligence that accelerates revenue growth.
The CEO Guide to AI
In a fireside chat, Brian Raymond, CEO & Founder (Unstructured), Todd Olson, CEO & Founder and Beth Greenberg, Chief of Staff to the CEO (Pendo), and Deon Nicholas, Founder & Executive Chairman (Forethought) all discussed building a culture of continuous AI upskilling and how agentic AI can revolutionize operations across every department.
Looking Ahead
Accelerate 2025 underscored that AI leadership isn’t a future challenge—it’s today’s imperative. Our CEO network left NYC ready to tackle three essential areas: the evolving role of the CEO in an AI era, mastering CEO energy to lead with focus and resilience, and ensuring they have the right people for the right work to unlock speed and alignment to help their companies
Are you a CEO ready to lead at the next level or a VC looking to equip your portfolio leaders for this new era? Join us at 10X CEO and be part of shaping what comes next.
Email join@10xceo.com to learn more.
