About
The very first Global Followership Conference took place July 26–28, 2019 and was hosted by the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship & Business.
Over 130 people attended and it truly was global! We had people attend from China, Australia, Brazil, the UK, Indonesia, and more. They were an inspiring mix of academics, practitioners, thought leaders, trainers, consultants, students, and those new to the concept.
Invited presenters included Austin Agho, Ira Chaleff, Sharna Fabiano, Tim Hurson, Ginny Santos, and conference co-founders Marc and Samantha Hurwitz.
Global Followership Conference Co-Founders:
Marc & Samantha Hurwitz
Followership is personal to us because we used to be bad at it (Marc worse than Samantha, but it impacted both of us). At a crucial time in our corporate careers, the realization that followership was important, meaningful, and developable had a profound impact. Because of this, we had a burning design to grow awareness of followership and have people acknowledge and appreciate its equal importance and value to leadership. This is not only true for careers. We also realized that it is only when all of us recognize the equal value of followership that we can have truly egalitarian organizations, where “leaders” aren’t lauded, they are just fulfilling a (valuable) role, the same as everyone. And that everyone takes on a leading role and a following role from time to time.
Fast forward a decade later, after we attended too many leadership conferences where followership was an afterthought or even a never-thought.
After a number of attempts, we realized the only way to bring the message of followership as an equal partner to leadership was to create more space for the idea. So, we decided to create a followship-focused conference. It was a huge effort, but in 2019 we hosted the first Global Followership Conference to build and develop momentum.
Since then…
After an interruption imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we re-convened for three successive conferences in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
As the community evolved, we realized that a network model was needed to achieve our goals to grow followership in a truly global way. Beginning in 2026, we will produce a variety of different sized events each year, hosted in various parts of the world, both in person and online!
Our ultimate hope is that one day a followership-focused conference won’t be necessary - that everyone recognizes that followership and leadership are equal parts of a partnership, and both influence each other.
Remember: you aren’t leading if no one is following.
