Ascent To Mastery
Become the brand builder AI can't replace
Learn from 40+ global brand leaders in a FREE 4-day virtual summit created specifically for designers, creatives, marketers, and entrepreneurs who want to build better brands, elevate their value, and climb higher in their careers.
Trusted & Supported by:
Level up your brand strategy skills with sharper thinking, clearer positioning, practical workshops, and smarter ways to stay valuable as AI changes creative work.
Elevate your brand design craft across identity, print, and web, with practical sessions on brand expression, stronger design systems, and the latest creative tools.
Grow a stronger creative business by attracting better clients, pricing with more confidence, building authority, and selling the strategic value behind your work.
Plus...
Global Brand Leaders
Full speaker line up further below
Here’s a taste of the leading brand minds joining us.
Free Virtual Event — September 8–11, 2026
Join four days of keynotes, workshops, panels, live Q&As, and networking designed to strengthen the way you think, design, market, and grow as a brand builder.
THINK MORE STRATEGICALLY
POSITION BRANDS TO STAND OUT
WIN HIGHER VALUE PROJECTS
SELL STRATEGY CONFIDENTLY
BUILD A STRONGER CREATIVE BUSINESS
ATTRACT BETTER CLIENTS
DESIGN DISTINCTIVE IDENTITIES
TURN YOUR EXPERTISE INTO AUTHORITY
Who is this for?
This is for creative professionals who build, position, and grow brands, and want to raise the value of their thinking, craft, and expertise.
Designers and creatives who want to strengthen their strategy, sharpen their craft, and become more trusted, valuable brand builders.
Freelancers and creative entrepreneurs who want to attract better clients, price with more confidence, and grow a stronger creative business.
Brand strategists who want stronger frameworks, clearer positioning, sharper thinking, and fresh insight from global experts.
Marketers and brand leaders who want to improve positioning, storytelling, visibility, authority, and growth.
Founders and business owners who want to build clearer, stronger, more distinctive brands that customers remember and trust.
Every attendee receives a free 50+ page Ascent Workbook designed to help you capture ideas, reflect on what matters, and turn every session into action.
“100% of attendees would recommend the summit to a friend.”
— 2024 & 2025 SUMMIT SURVEY RESULTS (300+ SURVEYED)
Free Virtual Event — September 8–11, 2026
SPEAKERS
Ascend with global brand leaders
Learn from respected brand leaders who bring proven thinking, real experience and practical tools you can apply to your own work.
Featured Speakers
The full schedule, including session times, will be available after free registration.
Register for your free ticket first. At a later date, you'll be invited to upgrade to the VIP Pass for lifetime replay access, exclusive sessions, and premium speaker bonuses.
All Speakers
LIVE WORKSHOPS & COACHING
Advance your career with our immersive workshops spanning mindset, business, coaching and more.
Mindset Matters
SEP 9 — 8AM CT
JENNY JARVIS
Building a stronger creative business is not just about better offers, sharper strategy, or cleaner design. It also requires the confidence to show up, make decisions, handle uncertainty, and keep moving when self doubt gets loud.
In this live coaching session, Jenny Jarvis will help attendees work through the mindset blocks that hold creatives back, from overthinking and comparison to fear of visibility, pricing resistance, and inconsistent action.
Ideal for designers, strategists, and creative entrepreneurs who want to build more confidence, trust themselves more deeply, and take braver steps in their business.
Launch Your Design Business
SEP 11 — 8AM CT
ALEXIA LYNN
Launching a design business can feel messy, intimidating, and easy to keep delaying. But a strong launch can create momentum, attract the right attention, and turn early visibility into real client opportunities.
In this workshop, Alexia Lynn shares how she launched her business and landed three new clients within the first two weeks.
She’ll break down the practical steps behind a successful launch, from building your brand and portfolio to choosing an incentive offer and staying top of mind after launch week.
Ideal for designers who are preparing to launch, dabbling in freelancing, or ready to finally get their work into the world.
Group Coaching
SEP 10 — 8.15PM CT
JACOB CASS
Sometimes the fastest way to get unstuck is to bring the real challenge into the room. In this live group coaching session, Jacob Cass will help attendees work through brand, business, positioning, pricing, client, and creative challenges in real time.
Expect practical feedback, strategic prompts, honest perspective, and useful takeaways you can apply to your own work, even if your question is not the one being coached.
Ideal for designers, strategists, freelancers, and creative entrepreneurs who want clearer direction, sharper thinking, and a more confident next step.
Plus, your free ticket includes access to:
All Live Q&A sessions
Live Logo Design Session with Jacob Cass & Michael Bruny-Groth
Chart Your Path to Mastery with Jacob Cass
Ask Me Anything with Jacob Cass
Design Battle
Co-working & Networking
and much more!
Become a Better Brand Facilitator
SEP 8 — 2PM CT
ANNELI HANSSON
Great brand facilitation is what turns strategy from a solo exercise into a shared decision-making process. In this session, Anneli Hansson will show how to lead better brand workshops, guide clients through complexity, and create the conditions for clearer thinking, stronger alignment, and more confident strategic decisions. Ideal for brand strategists, designers, and consultants who want to become more trusted facilitators and lead rooms with more structure, confidence, and authority.
How to Position Brands That Lead, Compete, and Win
SEP 9 — 2PM CT
DARRYN LOMBARD
Strong positioning is what helps brands move from competing to leading. In this session, you’ll learn what positioning really means, how to map it visually using spectrums, how to run simple competitor research, and how to recommend a clear position that gives a brand a stronger place in the market. Ideal for brand strategists who want to offer positioning services and brand leaders who want to own their category.
Brand Workshopping with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®
SEP 11 — 2PM CT
RACH DAVIS
Great workshops don’t just ask better questions. They create better ways for clients to think. Inspired by LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, this session explores how hands-on, playful methods can help clients move beyond rehearsed answers and uncover more honest stories, feelings, and insights. Ideal for brand builders who run workshops, or want to, and are ready to bring more creative facilitation into strategy, naming, and brand discovery.
━
Rach Davis is a trained facilitator of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method and materials.
© 2026 The LEGO Group.
LEGO, SERIOUS PLAY, the Minifigure and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this event.
Activate Your Values: Turning what you stand for into memorable client experiences
SEP 9 — 8.15PM CT
YVETTE ENGLISH
Brand values only matter when people can feel them in the experience. This session introduces a practical framework for turning values into action, helping attendees shape client experience, behaviour, and decision making in a more intentional way. Ideal for service based creatives, strategists, founders, and coaches who want their values to become a real point of difference, not just a line on an about page.
Rise Above the Commodity Layer: How to Charge More, Not Less, in the AI Era
SEP 10 — 5.30PM CT
NICI SWEANEY
AI is commoditising the production layer of brand work, from logo iterations and mood boards to copy drafts and deck builds. Instead of racing to lower prices, you’ll learn how to move up the value chain by using AI as an operating system beneath your strategic judgment. Walk away with a clearer way to deliver faster, protect your premium value, and position yourself as the strategist clients need when execution becomes easier to access.
LIVE PANELS
Elevate your career with insight from the world's leading brand experts. Replays included.
The Strategic Shift
SEP 8 — 4.00PM CT
ANNELI HANSSON, MARK POLLARD, BEC HUGHES, SARAH ROBB
A live discussion on how creatives can move from execution to strategic value. We’ll explore how to think more commercially, ask better questions, guide clients with confidence, and become a more trusted brand partner.
Future-proof Your Career in an AI World
SEP 9 — 4.00PM CT
STEPHEN HOURAGHAN, JAMES MARTIN, PETE BRENNAN
A live discussion on how creatives can stay valuable as AI reshapes the industry. We’ll explore the skills, mindsets, and strategic shifts needed to move beyond execution and build a career AI can’t replace.
Deep Shit
SEP 10 — 4.00PM CT
MARTY NEUMEIER, ANDY STARR, SABINE FRIESSER
Join to find out just how deep.
“The camaraderie and inspiration I felt at the Brand Builders Summit has stayed with me since. It was an extraordinary group of thinkers and makers, and I can’t wait until the next one.”
— DEBBIE MILLMAN
2025 Summit Speaker
Different is Better Than Better
SEP 9 — 5.30PM CT
SALLY HOGSHEAD
A special VIP session on differentiation, and why standing apart matters more than chasing generic excellence. Sally Hogshead will unpack how brand builders can create more memorable, distinctive work in a market full of sameness.
Marketing Mastery
SEP 10 — 7.00AM CT
VERONICA FUERTE, KISER BARNES, ILANA GRIFFO
A live discussion on how creative businesses can market themselves with more clarity and confidence. We’ll explore positioning, pricing, visibility, and how to create demand without constantly selling.
Build Brands That "Stand The Flock Out"
SEP 11 — 4.00PM CT
LISA SMITH, CHANEL CLARK, DAN JANSSEN, KRISTY CAMPBELL
A live conversation on how to create brands that are more distinctive, memorable, and commercially relevant in crowded markets.
Mastery is not a destination.
It is a lifelong ascent.
And true transformation happens on the climb.
MEET YOUR HOST
Brand Builders Summit
— Founder, Brand Builders Alliance & JUST Creative
Jacob Cass is a brand strategist, designer, educator and founder of JUST Creative and Brand Builders Alliance. For 20+ years, he has helped designers, strategists and ambitious founders build brands that Stand The Flock Out™, earn trust and drive real business growth.
Through JUST Creative, the JUST Branding Podcast, and Brand Builders Alliance, Jacob has become known for helping creatives move beyond execution and into strategic brand thinking.
His work has supported everyone from global brands like Disney, Nike, and Powerade to startups and growing businesses ready to sharpen their edge.
He created the Brand Builders Summit, now in its third year, to bring together some of the world’s leading brand minds in one place, so creatives can think bigger, build smarter, and ascend toward brand mastery.
Community for Brand Builders
The Brand Builders Alliance (BBA) is a professional membership for designers, strategists and creative entrepreneurs who want to master both the craft and business of branding.
Members get expert coaching, practical workshops, proven frameworks, live feedback and direct support to help them produce better work, attract better clients and build stronger creative businesses.
Because the ascent to mastery is easier when you’re not climbing alone.
FAQ
Yes. The summit is free to attend. You’ll get access to the core summit sessions during the event.
There will also be an optional VIP upgrade for attendees who want extended replays, bonus workshops, and additional resources.
Brand Builders Summit is for ambitious designers, strategists, marketers, founders, freelancers, creative entrepreneurs, consultants, agency owners, and brand builders who want to build better brands and grow more valuable creative careers.
It’s designed for people who want to strengthen their brand strategy skills, improve their creative work, grow their authority, and build a stronger business around their expertise.
Brand Builders Summit 2026 is happening September 8–11, 2026.
It’s fully online, so you can join from anywhere in the world.
You don’t need to attend every session live. Free replays will be available for 72 hours after each session, so you can watch at a time that works for you.
Most live sessions are scheduled between 2:00–9:00 PM CT, with a few early morning CT sessions scheduled to accommodate guest speakers in Europe.
For lifetime access to all session replays, plus exclusive VIP sessions, and premium speaker bonuses, you can upgrade to the VIP Pass after registering for your free ticket.
The summit focuses on building better brands and stronger creative careers, with sessions across brand strategy, brand design, marketing, and business.
Topics include positioning, identity design, creativity, AI, visibility, authority, pricing, client attraction, selling strategy, and business growth.
You’ll learn how to become stronger at brand strategy, build more distinctive brands, grow your creative business, and turn your expertise into authority.
The goal is to help you climb higher in your creative career by becoming more strategic, more valuable, and more confident in the way you build, sell, and lead brand work.
Yes. AI will be part of the conversation, especially around how it is changing creative work, brand strategy, design, marketing and business.
But this is NOT an AI worship event.
We won’t treat AI as the answer to everything, nor ignore the real concerns surrounding its use. The focus is on helping brand builders think critically about where AI is useful, where human judgment still matters and how to use these tools without losing the creativity, craft and strategic thinking that make your work valuable.
You’ll learn how to adapt, make informed choices and become the kind of brand builder AI can’t replace.
No problem. Free attendees get 72-hour replay access to each core presentation during the summit window. For lifetime access, bonus workshops and extra resources, you’ll be able to upgrade to the VIP Pass after registering.
Free attendees will have 72 hour access to each presentation during the summit.
For unlimited or extended replay access, you’ll be able to upgrade to the VIP pass, which includes the full replay library plus extra bonuses and resources. You can upgrade to the VIP pass after registering for your free ticket.
The summit includes a mix of pre-recorded presentations and live experiences.
Most core sessions are pre-recorded so you can watch them during the summit window, while live Q&As, panels, workshops, networking sessions, and community events give you the chance to connect, ask questions, and go deeper.
Yes. Speakers will be active through live Q&As, panels, and inside the private summit community where available. Not every speaker will be available at every moment, but the summit is designed to create more interaction than the usual “watch a video and vanish” event.
Yes. The full schedule will be released closer to the summit. Once available, you’ll be able to choose the sessions most relevant to your goals across strategy, design, marketing, and business.
The VIP All Access Pass is the optional upgrade for attendees who want more access and more value. It includes unlimited replays, bonus sessions, exclusive workshops, downloadable resources, and other extras designed to help you keep learning after the free summit ends.
You can optionally upgrade after registering for your free ticket.
UPGRADE YOUR ASCENT
Accelerate your ascent
Register for your free ticket first. On the next page, you’ll have the option to upgrade to the VIP Pass.
VIP gives you lifetime access to every session, plus exclusive workshops, panels and more than $3,000 in premium speaker bonuses, so you can keep learning long after the live event ends.
Join thousands of brand builders climbing towards mastery
Free Virtual Event — September 8–11, 2026
