COLUMBUS, Ohio — Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI announced the six speakers scheduled to present at the association’s Strategic Leadership Focus Conference this Oct. 2-4 in Newport, Rhode Island. This conference is intended for executives among HARDI’s membership to develop their leadership and management skills and to provide ideas and information to inspire greater success in their respective companies.
 
Keynote speaker Beth Ziesenis is a technology expert who will lead this fast-moving, entertaining session that takes attendees through a day in the life of a tech-savvy HARDI professional. She’ll show how a professional nerd solves a security crisis before 10 a.m., learns to make more of a lunch hour with an extra set of virtual hands, saves money on software before the staff meeting, and brings the team together online before the day is done. Ziesenis will show you how technology fits into every part of your day, how to use it to streamline projects and tasks, and dozens of low-cost apps and online tools that put the ideas from the conference into action.
 
Bruce Tulgan is internationally recognized as the leading expert on young people in the workplace and one of the leading experts on leadership and management. He is a best-selling author, an adviser to business leaders all over the world, and a sought-after management trainer. Tulgan will discuss what senior management can do to fight low employee morale, productivity and engagement. Drawing on his 20 years of experience advising hundreds of organizations, Tulgan will lay out the steps for leading the leaders of your organization toward the systems, practices, competencies, habits and culture of highly-engaged leadership.
 
Founder of Pricing Solutions, Paul Hunt has specialized in pricing for more than 20 years and has developed a vast array of proprietary methodologies that go straight to the heart of the pricing problem. In his session, Hunt will explore how to dramatically and immediately improve profits through improved pricing and cover some of the most common pricing mistakes, discuss value-based pricing and offer insights on key analytics and tools to turn your pricing into a profit generator.
 
In part one of this two-part session, Jon Melchi, HARDI Vice President of Government Affairs and Business Development, will cover regulatory actions by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and update attendees on HARDI’s legislative priorities and the latest activity on Capitol Hill. In the second part of the session, noted labor attorney Pam Krivda will tackle a host of regulations and policies from the Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board, including major changes to exempt/non-exempt employee status, mandatory sick leave, NLRB’s “persuader rule” and how to navigate items such as non-compete contract clauses. Attendees will learn how these regulatory actions will be impacting your business and how to make sure that your organization is compliant.
 
Several years ago HARDI identified a number of headwinds facing HVACR wholesale distributors. In his session, HARDI CEO Talbot Gee will review those headwinds and examine if and how they have changed, discuss where the industry is likely headed and paint a picture of “HVACR distribution 2.0.” Tapping into his eye-opening experiences with some of the largest leaders in wholesale distribution across many different industries, Gee will give some examples of aggressive tactics distribution giants are using to drive share and profitability growth. Gee will assume a hypothetical position on attendees’ Board of Directors and offer a series of questions he would ask to evaluate their readiness for HVACR distribution’s future.
 
This is the last of HARDI’s four Focus Conferences in 2016. The Focus Conference series will return in 2017. HARDI members can get more information on this and HARDI’s other events at hardinet.org.