SERGE 2026 AGENDA
Charleston, SC | The Emeline
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SUNDAY, MAY 31
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2:00–4:00 PM — Registration Table Open
Location: Foyer, The Emeline
6:30–9:30 PM — Welcome Reception, Please join us for an informal gathering which will include dinner & cocktails.
Location: Courtyard, The Emeline
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MONDAY, JUNE 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
6:30–7:00 AM — Back Care Yoga
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Whether you have back problems or just want to stretch, spending 30 minutes with Gyata will make you feel better.
Leader: Gyata Stormon
7:00–8:00 AM — Breakfast
Location: Newhaven, The Emeline
8:00–9:20 AM — Welcome and Introductions
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Get to know your SERGE colleagues in this rapid-fire introductory session. Be prepared to tell your life story and current preoccupations in 90 seconds!
Leaders: Martin Babinec & Mark Zitter
9:20–9:30 AM — Break
9:30–9:35 AM — Centering Exercise
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Following our whirlwind of introductions, Gyata will bring us back to our centers.
Leader: Gyata Stormon
9:35–9:55 AM — Session 1: Intentionality Breakout
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
SERGE attendees say that the quality of participants forces them to be at the top of their game. Elisa will lead us through breakout discussions designed to help us experience the gathering with intentionality.
Leader: Elisa Miller-Out
9:55–10:30 AM — Session 2: Conscious Cocktail Party
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Back by popular demand from his 2024 session, Curt will coordinate dynamic dyads that will help us get to know each other and solve our biggest problems at the same time.
Leader: Curt Cronin
10:30–10:40 AM — Break
10:40–11:55 AM — Session 3: Building a Meaningful Life
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Arun Gupta, CEO of NobleReach, is a venture capitalist, Stanford University lecturer, and Entrepreneurship Professor at Georgetown University. He’s the author of the national bestseller “Venture Meets Mission,” which argues for a new model of mission-driven capitalism that merges private-sector innovation with the scale of government to solve major societal challenges.
His approach aligns people, purpose, and profit to create a more secure, prosperous, and healthy society. Arun will discuss how to build a meaningful life as an entrepreneur and beyond.
Leader: Arun Gupta
12:00–4:00 PM — Afternoon Off-Site Activity
Depart from The Emeline for a short group walk to Palmetto Carriage Works to enjoy a horse-drawn carriage ride through Charleston to the wharf, where we will board the Spirit of Carolina for an afternoon cruise and lunch.
5:45–6:45 PM — Optional Longevity Discussion
Topic: Family Wealth & Raising Kids
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
The spendthrift child of a successful entrepreneur is a timeless story. Those of us raising children all hope they will be “successful.” How do you define success for the next generation? How do you make growing up in an environment of privilege a blessing and not a curse?
We’ll discuss different goals and approaches to raising successful kids, and share what works (and what doesn’t).
Leader: Michael Ryzewic
7:00–9:00 PM — Charleston Dine Around
Split into pre-assigned smaller groups to enjoy local cuisine.
Details for your assigned group are in your welcome folder.
9:00 PM — Optional After Dinner Drink Meet Up
Location: The Den, The Emeline
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TUESDAY, JUNE 2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
6:30–7:00 AM — Gentle Flow Yoga
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Leader: Gyata Stormon
7:00–8:00 AM — Breakfast
Location: Newhaven, The Emeline
8:00–9:25 AM — Session 4: How We Are Using AI
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
SERGErs vary greatly in their daily use of AI, both personally and professionally. Some limit their use to search and editing, while others run multiple agents and code with chatbots.
AI is being employed for an astonishing range of activities, from serving as a personal coach to starting a revenue-generating company. In this session we’ll share our most impactful use cases, tools, and resources.
Leader: Joe DiSorbo
9:25–9:45 AM — Session 5: AI-Proofing Your Life
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
How should you be investing to prepare for an AI bubble that could burst while still capturing the upside? How can you protect your family’s reputation against AI fakes and your wealth against cybercrime? What should you advise your children about their careers? How can you tell fake news from real?
Our resident expert, Chuck, will address some of the worrying new risks that AI is surfacing.
Leader: Chuck Stormon
9:45–9:55 AM — Break
9:55–10:00 AM — Stretching
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Gyata will lead us in some simple stretching to keep both our bodies and minds open and flexible.
Leader: Gyata Stormon
10:00–11:00 AM — Session 6: Changing the World
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Let’s share our lessons and best practices for philanthropy and volunteerism. Giving back to the community is an important tenet of SERGE, whether that’s money, time, nonprofit board service, or some combination of these.
Whether you’re new to philanthropy beyond supporting your buddy’s 5K for charity or running multiple nonprofits, this session is an opportunity to share and learn what’s working, what’s not working, and where we can do better.
Leader: Martin Babinec
11:00–11:45 AM — Session 7: Family Operating System
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Most of us have a complex portfolio and set of needs across investments, real estate, insurance, estate planning, and beyond.
Whether it’s a fully staffed single-family office, a multi-family office provider, financial advisor, or just doing it all yourself (or having AI do it for you), this session will let you share what’s working, what’s not working, and where you’d like to learn what others are doing to take on the challenges you’re facing in operating the business side of your family.
Leader: Rodolfo Paiz
11:45 AM–12:45 PM — Lunch
Location: Newhaven, The Emeline
12:45–1:45 PM — Session 8: Diet/Nutrition
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Is your diet your friend or your foe? Do you know which foods affect your sleep, bolster your performance, or impact your long-term health? Why is it so hard to lose weight — and is it OK to do it with Ozempic or other GLP-1 drugs?
Should you use supplements, peptides, hormones?
Functional Nutritionist Alisa Turner has both a compelling personal story and the answers to your diet and nutrition questions.
Leader: Alisa Turner
1:45–2:30 PM — Session 9: Moving to the Next Act
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
Whether you’re post-exit, a “lifer” at your current company, or a serial entrepreneur thinking up your next idea, we will all transition through many chapters in our lives.
If you sold your company, what did you do next and how has it gone? If you’re still running a company, how do you think about and plan for what’s next?
In an ever-changing world, we all need to be masters of reinvention — let’s sharpen the saw together.
Leader: Niqui Hunt
2:30–2:45 PM — Break
2:45–3:45 PM — Session 10: Mentoring
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
We’ve all had important mentors, and we all mentor others — including our children and other young people in our lives.
The ultimate ROI of a leader’s life is the quality of the people they leave behind, yet mentoring your own children or peers requires a different toolkit than managing employees.
Share and discover “Owner Mindset” strategies for passing on values and wisdom, ensuring your legacy is defined by the resilience and character of the next generation.
Leader: Mike Pavia
3:45–4:30 PM — Needs & Leads / SERGE Feedback and Plans
Location: Williams Hall, The Emeline
A SERGE tradition, Needs and Leads allows us to share needs the group might be able to help with, as well as resources we think our peers may find valuable.
During this session Martin also will discuss plans for SERGE 2027.
Leader: Martin Babinec
4:30 PM — Intentionality Check-In and Adjourn
Gather briefly with your original breakout group to see how well you did with your intentionality goals and recap what you took away from SERGE 2026.
6:20–9:30 PM — Closing Reception
Depart from the Emeline lobby as a group for a short walk (0.3 miles) to enjoy a cocktail hour followed by a closing reception and dinner at High Cotton Restaurant, 199 E Bay St.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONTACT INFO FOR SUPPORT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Emeline
181 Church St
Charleston, SC 29401
Front Desk: (843) 577-2644
SERGE Staff
Mary Lou Herringshaw — (315) 868-6368
Frank Herringshaw — (315) 868-6127
SERGE Organizers
Martin Babinec — (510) 967-3044
Mark Zitter — (201) 403-1666
Elisa Miller-Out — (607) 227-6966
