2026 Baldrige Conference

The Rhythm of Excellence

Hosted by The Alliance for Performance Excellence and Communities of Resilience & Excellence. Join us in The Big Easy, where we'll BUILD high-performing organizations.

New Orleans, Louisiana October 12–13, 2026

Agenda, session details and registration are managed on the official conference site, baldrigeconference.org.

About the conference

The national gathering for performance excellence

Each year the Baldrige Conference brings together leaders, practitioners, examiners and award recipients from across the country for two days of learning built around the Baldrige Excellence Framework. It is hosted by The Alliance for Performance Excellence, the national network of state, regional, sector and national Baldrige-based programs.

Whatever stage you are at — curious about Baldrige, several years into using the Framework, or preparing an award application — the conference is designed to send you home with practices you can apply immediately. Sessions are led by people running real organizations: hospitals, school districts, manufacturers, city governments, nonprofits and small businesses.

The conference moves to a new host city each year, and the program is refreshed annually alongside changes to the Criteria and the national award process.

What the conference includes

Keynotes from national leaders and recognized practitioners
Breakout sessions led by award-winning organizations
Preconference workshops for deeper, hands-on learning
Examiner and practitioner development tracks
Recognition of role-model organizations
Networking with peers in your sector and your region

Who attends

Senior leaders, quality and improvement professionals, examiners, state and regional program staff, and teams exploring Baldrige for the first time.

What to expect

Keynote speakers

Prepare to be inspired by visionary leaders who will share groundbreaking insights and practical strategies to drive excellence and foster innovation within your organization.

Opening keynote

Michael Gold, Ph.D.

Jazz bassist, organizational development expert, founder of Jazz Impact

Enhance empathySpark creativity

Michael Gold will open the 2026 Baldrige Conference with a keynote experience unlike any other — one that blends leadership, collaboration, innovation and the spirit of New Orleans through the power of live jazz.

For more than two decades he has helped leaders understand what high-performing teams can learn from improvisation: listening, adaptability, trust, creativity and shared leadership. His clients include IBM, Siemens, General Mills, Mayo Clinic, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Accenture and The United Nations.

A visiting lecturer for the Kellogg School of Management's Leadership Development Program since 2007, he is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in Arts-Based Learning for Business and received The Paul D. Fleck Fellow Award from The Banff Centre for Leadership.

For this New Orleans opening keynote, Michael will be joined by members of the acclaimed jazz ensemble Astral Project for an immersive experience that brings organizational excellence to life through live music.

Closing keynote & preconference workshop

Jovan Glasgow

Keynote speaker, performance advisor, founder of Glasgow International

MindsetHeartsetSkillset

Jovan Glasgow will lead a preconference workshop on Monday morning and deliver the conference's closing keynote on Tuesday, combining practical application with transformational insight.

For more than a decade he has partnered with Fortune 500 companies and mission-driven organizations to address the root cause of underperformance — the Belief-Behavior Gap™, the distance between what people believe about themselves and what they are actually capable of doing.

His PX3 Methodology™ integrates three dimensions of lasting transformation simultaneously — Mindset, Heartset and Skillset — producing shifts traditional training often fails to achieve.

Originally from Antigua and Barbuda and now based in Dallas, Texas, Jovan has been recognized as a Top 30 Global Speaker by ChoicePoint and ranked #2 on Yahoo Finance's Top 10 Motivational Speakers list. His work has been featured on NBC, Yahoo Finance and NFL platforms.

Conference archive

Explore past Baldrige Conferences

Themes, speakers and highlights from 2018 to today.

View Past Conferences