Why technical excellence is the foundation of GIS leadership — not the ceiling Have you ever walked out of a meeting knowing your GIS program delivered exactly what was needed — and still left with nothing approved? Have you ever been the most technically knowledgeable person in the room and somehow still not been in the room where your program's future got decided? Have you ever been promoted into leadership and realized — quietly, privately — that nobody actually prepared you for this part? Have you ever felt like you are the only one carrying the weight of this work alone? If any of those landed, you are not alone. And you are not the only one who has been carrying them. Who is Izabela? I spent 20 years in GIS — from intern to IT Director — before I started asking the question that eventually became a book. Why are technically brilliant GIS professionals still invisible in the rooms where their programs get decided? To find out, I interviewed 60+ GIS leaders across government, enterprise, and consulting. What I found confirmed what I had quietly suspected: the challenge most GIS professionals face is not technical. It never was. I wrote The Science of GIS Leadership to close that gap. I founded Growing Curiosity to keep closing it. And on July 12th in San Diego, I am bringing that conversation into this room. What is this conversation all about? 3S Framework diagram from The Science of GIS Leadership book Three patterns show up across GIS leaders regardless of organization size, sector, or years of experience. I call them the GIS Leadership Gap — and they are worth naming out loud. The Translation Gap. GIS value is obvious to us. It is not always obvious to the people who fund it, support it, or depend on it. We speak the language of data, accuracy, and infrastructure. Executives speak the language of risk, cost, and outcomes. Until we close that translation gap, the most technically sound work in the building can still be overlooked. The Isolation Gap. GIS leadership can feel like you are the only one carrying the map. You sit between the technical world and the executive world — and sometimes you belong fully to neither. That isolation is real. It is common. And it stalls programs. The Leadership Practice Gap. We invest constantly in technical training. Certifications. Software. New tools. But leadership? We mostly improvise. We watch how other people do it and hope our instincts are right. Most GIS professionals were never given the tools to lead — they were simply given the title. These gaps are not personal failures. They are systemic ones. And they are completely solvable.  Why is it important, especially NOW? The GIS field is at a turning point. Spatial data is embedded in enterprise decision-making, digital twins, AI systems, and infrastructure at a scale that would have seemed remarkable ten years ago. The demand for geospatial capability has never been higher. And yet the leadership gap — the distance between what GIS delivers and what organizations understand about its value — persists. Not because GIS professionals lack ambition or capability. Because the field has consistently invested in technical development and almost nothing in leadership development. This session is not about soft skills. It is about the specific, practical conversations that change how GIS programs are funded, supported, and led. Sunday, July 12th | San Diego | GIS Leadership Summit 2026 Izabela Miller Author, The Science of GIS Leadership | GIS Leadership Coach | Founder, Growing Curiosity growingcuriosity.com ... View more

This is a story about a GIS professional that shared advice with the community, to help others, and how that led to an opportunity to present these ideas and more to hundreds of people at a live GIS leadership event. ... View more

Turning geospatial capability into trusted, enterprise decision-making How to win executive trust and scale geospatial into everyday decision-making Hello, I'm Lorin Liliko'i Lima, Geospatial Manager at Kaingaroa Tipu in Aotearoa New Zealand. At the GIS Leadership Summit 2026, I'll share how I have socialised strategy, championed prioritisation, and secured geospatial investment through modernisation and capability uplift. About the speaker I learned GIS in Redlands, at the heart of the geospatial industry, and later deepened that foundation through Johns Hopkins University’s Advanced Academic Programs. I bring more than two decades of experience building enterprise geospatial capability across government and industry. My work spans crisis response, transport, research, and forestry, focused on bridging technical capability and business strategy to enable confident, data-driven decision-making. Geospatial delivers the most impact when leaders trust it enough to act on it. What I’ll cover Reframing GIS for executive audiences Shifting the conversation from tools and data to decision confidence, risk, and productivity Building trust through governance Ensuring clear ownership, standards, and consistency to create reliable decision environments Scaling enterprise capability Moving from project-based delivery to a trusted, organisation-wide decision platform Make value visible. Why this matters now Across every environment I’ve worked in, from national crisis response to operational forestry systems, the pattern is consistent. Technology alone does not drive adoption. Trust does. This session focuses on how to lead decision-makers through that digital leap, aligning geospatial to business priorities, building trust through governance, and designing for scale so it becomes embedded in how organisations operate, make decisions, and prioritise investment. ... View more

Other than my incredible colleagues at Esri, and our distributors and partners, here are 16 amazing reasons to attend the 2026 Esri GIS Leadership Summit. These are the remarkable speakers that will be sharing their 300+ years of knowledge and guidance with a select number of attendees. ... View more

from Adam Carnow – Just over a month ago, over 450 GIS leaders from 51 countries and 54 industries got together in San Diego, California, for a day of inspiration and empowerment.  426 attendees, 11 panelists and presenters, and dozens of Esri staff gathered on July 12, 2025 for the 13th annual GIS Managers Summit, the day before Esri’s User Conference kicked into full gear. ... View more