From the moment Gilbert “Gil” Villegas and Karina Neff took the stage, the room leaned in. This was not a theory talk about technology. It was a working session on how cities and service companies can use tools, data, and common sense to serve people better. Villegas arrived with the perspective of a Marine Corps ...

When Yigal Adato walks onstage, he does more than tell stories—he polishes the lens through which leaders see themselves. An entrepreneur-turned-leadership coach based in San Diego and the founder of Leaderato, Adato spent decades building and scaling service businesses, leading hundreds of employees and generating tens of millions in revenue. Today, he helps owners and ...

Rebecca Contreras did not come to VEO with a tidy origin story. She came with the kind of journey that makes a room go quiet. Contreras is the president and CEO of AvantGarde (AG), the women-owned human capital, IT, and strategy consulting firm she co-founded in 2011 and scaled across multiple states. Before joining AG, ...