CONNECT Marketing Executive Summit Fall 2026: Where Marketing Leaders Stop Chasing Activity and Start Proving Growth
CONNECT Marketing Executive Summit Fall 2026 is not built for marketers looking for another broad industry conference. It is designed for senior marketing leaders who need to connect strategy with measurable growth, keep pace with AI and changing buyer behavior, and strengthen marketing’s influence across the business. Quartz Network positions the event around candid peer conversations, timely sessions, and curated 1:1 meeting with solution providers matched to attendees’ business priorities. (quartznetwork.com)
Taking place from October 5 to 7, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, the three-day event brings together marketing leaders for 35+ sessions, 30 speakers, six networking events, and a series of facilitated business meetings. (quartznetwork.com)
Where Marketing Conversations Get Real
Most marketing conferences still have one recurring problem.
Too much content. Not enough context.
CONNECT is built differently. Quartz Network describes the summit as a place for senior marketing leaders to have candid peer conversations around smarter growth, AI, changing buyer behavior, and marketing’s expanding influence across the wider business. (quartznetwork.com)
That changes the conversation.
The emphasis is not simply on generating more activity. It is on connecting strategy, spend, and execution to pipeline, revenue, retention, and growth. One of the featured sessions says exactly that. (quartznetwork.com)
That is where the real pressure is now.
Marketing has to prove what it does, not just report what it did.
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What to Expect at CONNECT Marketing Executive Summit 2026?
35+ sessions built around current marketing challenges
The agenda includes more than 35 sessions across three days, with topics ranging from proving marketing’s business value to fixing dysfunctional go-to-market silos. The sessions are designed around the problems senior marketers are actively facing rather than broad introductory themes. (quartznetwork.com)
Smarter growth and measurable business value
The agenda opens with ‘Marketing’s New Mandate: Prove Growth or Lose Ground,’ where marketing leaders discuss how organizations are tying strategy, spend, and execution to pipeline, revenue, retention, and growth. (quartznetwork.com)
Breaking down GTM silos
Another featured session, ‘One Revenue Team: Fix Dysfunctional GTM Silos,’ focuses on aligning marketing, sales, and customer teams around shared goals and data to build more unified revenue engines. (quartznetwork.com)
Curated research meetings
The event replaces the usual exhibition-hall wandering with curated 1:1 meeting. Quartz Network says attendees share their current challenges during registration, after which relevant solution providers are selected and matched around those priorities. (quartznetwork.com)
Built-in networking and attendee benefits
Qualified in-person attendees receive hotel accommodations, meals and refreshments throughout the event, access to on-site and off-site networking events, and support from a dedicated event concierge. The agenda also includes a welcome cocktail reception. (quartznetwork.com)
Key Themes Driving the 2026 Program
Proving marketing’s business impact
The clearest theme running through CONNECT is accountability.
The opening general session is centered on proving growth and connecting marketing strategy to measurable business outcomes. That puts revenue contribution at the heart of the conversation. (quartznetwork.com)
Smarter growth in a changing market
Quartz Network describes the event around smarter growth while also highlighting AI and changing buyer behavior as major discussion points. That puts marketers in a familiar but increasingly complicated position. Grow faster while the rules keep moving. (quartznetwork.com)
AI and the evolving marketing function
AI is one of the themes explicitly called out in the event positioning. It is being discussed alongside changing buyer behavior rather than as an isolated technology topic, which reflects how quickly it is becoming part of the broader marketing operating model. (quartznetwork.com)
Cross-functional revenue alignment
The agenda’s focus on fixing dysfunctional GTM silos points to another major theme. Marketing cannot operate independently when pipeline, customer experience, revenue, and retention are interconnected. (quartznetwork.com)
Marketing’s expanding influence
The event explicitly frames marketing as a function whose influence is expanding across the business. That means the conversation goes beyond campaigns and channels into the wider questions of growth, data, technology, and commercial impact. (quartznetwork.com)
Featured Speakers and Industry Voices
CONNECT brings together senior marketing leaders from healthcare, technology, education, financial services, professional services, and other industries. Some of the featured speakers include: (quartznetwork.com)
- Jorge Quant - Global Marketing Director, Carestream
- Andy Garrett - Global Head of Marketing, SitusAMC
- Gerardo Muyshondt - Senior Director of Marketing and Brand Strategy, Driscoll Children’s Hospital
- Mollie Hansen - Chief Marketing Officer, Airstream
- Aparna Sharma - Vice President, Product Marketing, Candescent
This is an operator-heavy room. The people on stage are working inside the same growth, alignment, and transformation problems the event is built around. (quartznetwork.com)
Check out the full speaker list here.
The CONNECT Marketing Executive Summit Experience
CONNECT is structured around interaction rather than passive attendance.
The event combines sessions with six networking events, facilitated peer conversations, and curated business meetings with solution providers. Quartz Network says the matching process starts by understanding an attendee’s projects and challenges, then connecting them with providers that are best suited to address those needs. (quartznetwork.com)
That is an important distinction.
Instead of walking an exhibition floor and hoping to find something relevant, the event brings selected conversations to the attendee.
Qualified attendees also receive hotel accommodations, meals, refreshments, networking access, and event concierge support, making the entire three-day experience more structured from start to finish. (quartznetwork.com)
Why CONNECT Marketing Executive Summit 2026 Matters
Marketing is being asked to prove more while dealing with more uncertainty.
AI is changing workflows. Buyers are changing how they evaluate brands. Revenue teams are expected to work together. And executives want marketing to explain its impact in business language.
CONNECT is built around those realities.
The summit gives senior marketers a space to compare approaches with peers, explore current priorities, and have highly targeted conversations with solution providers based on actual business challenges. (quartznetwork.com)
Attendees walk away with sharper perspectives on growth, stronger peer connections, practical ideas around GTM alignment and AI, and a more focused understanding of the solutions that can support their priorities.
That is the point.
Not another room full of marketing activity.
A room built around proving that the activity actually matters.
Discover more at: www.quartznetwork.com/event/connect-cmo-fall
