Six cities, 10 lessons: What business leaders are seeing

Key points:

• • caa’s leadership summits focus on candid, cross-sector dialogue about regional challenges and opportunities.
• • Events emphasize the human element behind economic growth, bringing leaders together for real-time insight sharing.
• • Findings from Q1 2026 highlight key priorities shaping business communities across multiple U.S. markets.

March 2026 — Abby Lindenberg has a habit that tends to unsettle people. Before every leadership summit, before every panel, before the coffee goes cold and the networking turns to attentive listening, she asks a room full of 250-plus industry leaders a question most conference organizers shy away from: What are the hills still left to climb?

Lindenberg, the founder and CEO of B2B multimedia outlet caa, has built a decade-long business on the conviction that the most valuable thing you can do for a business community is tell the truth, about where it’s thriving, where it’s stalling, and what it’s going to take to close the gap.

In the first quarter of 2026, Lindenberg tested that conviction across metros from sunshine-soaked Palm Beach County to the northern reaches of New Jersey. Back-to-back summits, each one drawing hundreds of executives, civic leaders, developers, healthcare executives, and educators into the same room to do the thing Lindenberg believes the business world has quietly stopped doing enough of: talk to each other, face to face, about what’s actually happening. In effect, bringing the human element back to decision-making.

“At caa, we don’t just report on the economics of a region,” Lindenberg said. “We report on the humans behind it. Because we know those two things are inseparable.”

In 2025 alone, CAA hosted hundreds of speakers across more than 50 panels and welcomed over 3,000 attendees across 18 markets. The organization’s research consistently shows that executives who attend its events are more engaged in their local communities, make more economic impact, and carry what Lindenberg calls a growth mindset — “not only for themselves but for their companies and their communities.”

When it comes to the “hills left to climb,” these events yielded numerous takeaways. Download your free Q1 2026 Leadership Summit brief to read the 10 key things these communities said this past quarter, as voiced by the leadership panel members across numerous cities, as well as the data explaining why they matter.

Want more? Read the Invest: reports.