INBOUND Blog

Employee appreciation often looks the same: a catered lunch, a public thank-you, maybe a thoughtful gift card. Those gestures matter and they reinforce culture and signal gratitude, but for high-performing teams, appreciation alone isn’t enough. The most ambitious people on your team are thinking about something bigger as they watch how AI is accelerating the pace of work across marketing, sales, and customer experience. They’re wondering how their role will evolve over the next year and whether they’re staying ahead of it. The leaders who are winning on retention right now are building teams that are adaptable, AI-fluent, and aligned around growth. That's a different kind of appreciation and it starts with a different kind of question. Not "how do I celebrate my team?" but "how do I invest in them?"

If you've ever felt like you need to have it all figured out before you can lead, Glennon Doyle has news for you. At INBOUND 2025, the bestselling author and activist sat down with leadership expert Anne Morriss to share that the strength to lead others doesn't come from perfection, but from the courage to be real about your own struggles while still getting the work done. With nearly 2 billion podcast downloads, millions of books sold, and a community that's raised $56 million for people in need, Doyle has built something extraordinary by doing one simple thing: showing up exactly as she is.

Arjun Mahadevan (Founder and CEO, doola) shares how one pitch changed everything. Now with two INBOUND experiences in the books and HubSpot as a strategic advisor, he shares why INBOUND continues to be part of his journey as a founder.

At INBOUND 2024, AG1 CEO Kat Cole joined Women's Health Editor-in-Chief Liz Plosser for a powerful conversation on leadership, resilience, and the future of health and wellness. Sharing hard-won insights from her one-of-a-kind career journey, Cole offered a roadmap for aligning personal values with professional success and why true performance optimization starts from within.

Venture capital veterans Joel Cutler (co-founder and managing director, General Catalyst) and Paul English (co-founder, KAYAK and Boston Venture Studio) took the INBOUND 2024 stage to break down what AI really means for startups and businesses today: companies that hesitate to adapt are setting themselves up to fail. With Harvard Business School professor Youngme Moon steering the conversation, they encouraged business leaders to rethink their approach before it's too late.

What happens when you combine cutting-edge health technology with authentic marketing and leadership insights? At INBOUND 2024 Will Ahmed founder of wearable tech company WHOOP, sat down with HubSpot co-founder and chairperson Brian Halligan to unpacked what peak performance means and how it extends far beyond the fitness tracker on your wrist.