Effective leadership evolves, moves and pivots through challenges and adversity. It embraces change and adapts to said change fluidly, navigating difficult situations to find the steady calm needed to move an organization forward.
To that end, the 2024 San Diego State University Leadership Summit will center around the theme “Leadership in Motion.” The 15th installment of the one-day, on-campus leadership conference for college students takes place March 9 throughout Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union.
This year’s conference will feature keynote speakers well-versed in leadership and motion — San Diego County residents Kanten Russell and Amelia Brodka, who are fixtures in the international skateboarding scene.
Russell, who skateboarded professionally, is now an internationally recognized skate park designer. He has led the design process of over 300 skate parks across the country, including the world’s first green skate park in St. Cloud, Minnesota; a skate plaza in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, which converted a brownfield into an active space to help combat childhood obesity; and the Alga Norte Community Skate Park in Carlsbad.
Brodka, also a professional skateboarder, co-founded Exposure, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering women, girls, trans and nonbinary individuals through skateboarding. Exposure’s signature event, called 'Exposure: A Women’s Benefit Event,’ is held at Encinitas Community Park and fields hundreds of competitors annually from more than 20 countries and at one point offered the largest prize purse in women’s skateboarding.
“We have a dynamic and exciting conference schedule that is guaranteed to offer opportunities for reflection, skill building, knowledge sharing and networking,” said Chelsea Lombrozo, the assistant director of the Glazer Center for Leadership & Service, which hosts the summit. “Fitting the theme of ‘Leadership in Motion,’ our keynote speakers are professional skateboarders who will share their leadership successes and lessons learned along their career paths.”