2026 Agenda
9:00–10:00
Registration
James Moore Theater
Live Music with M’Gilvry Allen
10:00–10:15
James Moore Theater
Welcome
Opening Remarks
Welcome to the Snafu Conference!
Robin Zander, Executive Director
10:15–10:45
James Moore Theater
Opening Session
How to Sell Yourself Without Selling Out
Robin Zander
Executive Director, Snafu Conference
Selling has a reputation problem. For many founders and operators, it feels manipulative, needy, or inauthentic. In this opening workshop, Robin Zander reframes sales as service — a discipline practiced with clarity, courage, and responsibility.
Through guided exercises, reflection, and live interaction, participants will examine their natural posture toward self-promotion and develop a more grounded, service-based approach to influence. If you’ve ever hesitated to speak up, pitch an idea, raise your rates, or claim your work publicly, this session is designed to shift that internal friction — and replace it with something durable.
11:00–12:00
Breakouts
James Moore Theater
Coaching is Selling: How To Unlock Human Potential
Jeff Jaworski, Ex- Sales Executive, Google
Founder, The Shift Coaching
Marie Szuts, Ex- Chief People Officer, Figma
Founder, Marie Szuts Coaching & Consulting
Jeff Jaworski, former Google sales executive turned coach, joins former Chief People Officer turned coach Marie Szuts for a fireside conversation about the intersection of coaching and sales.
Drawing on decades of experience building Google’s global sales coaching program and leading teams to peak performance, they’ll explore how coaching principles apply directly to selling — and why the two disciplines may be more similar than we think.
Women’s Board Lecture Hall
Everything Is Sales: Lessons from Product Development
David Shackelford
Head of Product, Work Management, Asana
David Shackelford, Head of Product at Asana, argues that product, leadership, and sales are built on the same foundation: understanding people, telling clear stories, and doing the follow-through most people skip.
He’ll share how he “accidentally” learned to sell — by asking better questions.
California Room
Is AI Coming For My Job?
Ha Nguyen
Founder, NextStep Consulting
Former Chief Experience Officer, Swimply
As AI reshapes how work gets done, we all find ourselves asking a familiar question: Is AI coming for my job?
Ha Nguyen offers a reframe: What skills make us durable no matter what happens next?
This session is designed for founders and leaders navigating rapid change who want a concrete roadmap for staying useful, in-demand, and grounded over the next 12 months. Participants will explore how to invest in durable skills they can control.
12:00-1:30
Garden
Lunch
Enjoy lunch in the garden, but expect a few surprises!
1:30-2:30
Breakouts
James Moore Theater
Selling in the Age of AI: Selling With Purpose and Authenticity
Dan Cavenaugh, Market Maker, Accenture
Jen Cavenaugh, Cavenaugh Coaching & Consulting
Jackson Cavenaugh, Account Executive, $50B Tech Co
This is a rare cross-generational conversation inside a single family.
Dan Cavenaugh spent 33 years at Accenture building multi-million and billion-dollar partnerships. Jen Cavenaugh is the former mayor of Piedmont turned coach and consultant. Their son Jackson works in tech sales, navigating AI tools, saturated markets, and modern buyer skepticism.
Together, they’ll explore what relationship-based sales looks like across generations — and how authenticity and AI can coexist.
Women’s Board Lecture Hall
How To Raise Money: Systems, Stories, and Relationships
Eric Bahn
Co-founder and General Partner, Hustle Fund
Eric Bahn, Co-founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, pulls back the curtain on fundraising as a sales discipline. He’ll walk through the tactical systems he uses to raise capital from LPs, recruit team members, and convince startups to partner with Hustle Fund — all while keeping relationships human and high-performing.
Attendees will gain a rare look at venture capital as sales in practice, learning actionable techniques for pitching, relationship-building, and consistent follow-ups.
California Room
Navigating Uncertainty: A Founders’ Fishbowl
Komal Ahmad
Founder & CEO, Copia
Forbes 30 under 30
Niels Hoven
Founder & CEO, Mentava
Patrick Thompson
Co-founder & CEO, Clarify.ai
Max Marchione
Founder, Superpower.com
Startup founders Patrick Thompson, Komal Ahmad, Niels Hoven, and Max Marchione will explore how founders navigate uncertainty.
The session is interactive: three founders will rotate ideas and experiences while a fourth “open seat” allows attendees to join the conversation, ask questions, and contribute in real time.
Participants will walk away with strategies for leading in ambiguity, making better operational decisions, and applying AI tools to streamline business and growth processes.
2:45-3:45
Breakouts
James Moore Theater
Founder-Led Sales in the Age of AI
Gagan Biyani
Co-founder and CEO, Maven
Robin Zander
Executive Director, Snafu
Gagan Biyani, co-founder of Udemy and CEO of Maven, sits down with Robin for a candid conversation on building, failing, and rebuilding in public.
Consumer tech is notoriously difficult - crowded, capital-intensive, and unforgiving - and Gagan has lived through its extremes: the rapid rise of Udemy, the hard lessons of Sprig’s shutdown, and the deliberate design behind Maven’s success. He’ll unpack what made the previous era of “growth hacking” and why that playbook no longer works in a saturated, AI-accelerated market.
The conversation will explore how Gagan thinks about AI today and the role it should play in founder-led sales. At a moment when attention is fragmented and trust is scarce, this session examines what actually compounds: clarity of positioning, distribution ownership, and founders who know how to sell their own vision.
Women’s Board Lecture Hall
Venture 3.0: Trust, Story, and Selling in Complex Ecosystems
Robby Peters
Co-founder, SemperVirens Venture Capital
Raquel Scott
Principal, SemperVirens Venture Capital
In today’s noisy, complex markets, having the best product isn’t enough. Growth depends on trust, relationships, and the ability to navigate multi-stakeholder ecosystems.
Robby Peters and Raquel Scott of SemperVirens unpack how venture capital is evolving - from writing checks (VC 1.0), to operational support (VC 2.0), to what they call Venture 3.0: an ecosystem-driven model that helps founders go to market through trust, relationships, and distribution.
California Room
Authenticity at Work: Lessons from Experience
Mandy Mooney
Vice President, Internal Communications, Prologis
Mandy Mooney, the VP of Internal Communications at Prologis and author of Corporating: 3 Ways to Win at Work, will explore how authenticity, creativity, and strategy intersect within large organizations.
Through personal anecdotes, interactive discussion, and her signature theatrical flair, Mandy demonstrates how authenticity, creativity, and strategy intersect to unlock engagement and accelerate careers. Attendees will leave with practical tools to communicate more effectively, build stronger relationships, and start thinking about navigating their careers with confidence and purpose.
4:15-5:00
James Moore Theater
Closing Session
How To Tell Your Story in a Noisy World
Robin Zander
Executive Director, Snafu Conference
Why do some ideas stick while others fade?
In this closing session, Robin Zander explores what makes stories move people in an era of infinite content and collapsing attention spans. Drawing on a decade studying the future of work and time spent alongside Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, he unpacks the mechanics behind attention, influence, and decision-making.
This workshop isn’t just about sales. It’s about understanding the forces that shape what people notice, remember, and act on — and learning how to tell your story in a way that earns trust in a noisy world.
5:00-7:00
Mad Oak Bar and Grill