2024 LIMRA Annual Conference

Overview

Who Attends

Unable to attend the Annual Conference? Don't want to miss the excitement of our highly anticipated general session speakers? We have an offer just for you.

This year, our Digital Library package will provide access to all general session speaker presentations after the conference. Additionally, the package includes select breakout sessions available on-demand following the event.

You now can catch up on what you missed and provide actionable insights to your staff.

Stay tuned, we will announce the Digital breakout sessions soon.

Click here for access to the in-person LIMRA Annual Conference event page.

Highlights

This year’s theme is Innovate With Purpose and will focus on investing in innovative technologies and developing creative strategies to enhance customer experiences, improve operational efficiency, and ultimately drive the success of our businesses.

Key topic areas include:

Digital transformation – Continued digitization of our business is key. We must continuously explore innovative technologies to meet customer expectations and needs, such as the thoughtful adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Distribution dynamics - Consolidation will drive innovation, yielding numerous benefits including improved competitiveness, growth, and enhanced customer engagement by making it easier to buy, sell and own our products.
Talent strategies - How can we attract the world’s best and brightest to this profession? Our talent strategy requires the same rigor and focus as our business strategy to meet the skill and leadership needs of the industry.
Customer experience - Our purpose is to create positive outcomes –– for our customers and to strive to reach more people who are not making financial progress in their lives.

Our industry’s purpose remains steadfast. We provide security and a commitment to deliver on that promise. In today’s fast-moving environment, it’s incumbent on us to adapt and evolve so that we keep the promise, while realizing the potential.

The LIMRA Annual Conference offers us the chance to come together and discuss the challenges and opportunities we face as our industry looks to the future within insurance, annuities, and worksite benefits.

Keynote Speaker

Trevor Noah

Emmy Award-Winning Comedian
& Bestselling Author

Trevor Noah

Emmy Award-Winning Comedian
& Bestselling Author

Born in South Africa, Trevor Noah is a global comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. Trevor hosted The Daily Show from 2015 to 2022 and has won various awards, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, one of which was for an “Outstanding Talk Series.”.

He was named one of "The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media" by The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, Time magazine named him one of the hundred most influential people in the world. And, in 2023, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize — one of Europe's most distinguished recognitions — for his exceptional contribution to culture and society.

Trevor currently hosts an original Spotify weekly podcast titled What Now? With Trevor Noah. In this new podcast, listeners get a chance to hear Trevor like never before. In each episode, Trevor goes deep with a special guest, including entertainers, CEOs, actors, athletes, and thought leaders. He brings the kinds of conversations that happen behind the scenes to light, full of radical candor, authentic back-and-forths, and honest reactions, with Trevor bringing to bear his classic, effortlessly playful, and equally probing style.

He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. To date, it’s sold over 3 million copies across all formats, and its young readers adaptation also debuted as a New York Times bestseller. His new book, Into the Uncut Grass, comes out in October 2024. It’s a moving modern fable for readers of all ages about forgiveness, acceptance, and the secret to solidarity.

Trevor has written, produced, and starred in 12 comedy specials, including Grammy and Emmy-nominated “I Wish You Would,” which premiered globally in November 2022. His previous special, “Trevor Noah: Son of Patricia” received a NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Variety Show,” as well as a Grammy Award nomination for “Best Comedy Album”.

Trevor's success has also spanned to sold out stand-up comedy shows across 5 continents. His current “Off The Record” World Tour stopped in 28 cities across the US before heading to international destinations, and a set from “Off the Record” became available as his fourth Netflix stand-up special titled Where Was I on December 19th, 2023. Where Was I has recently scored a Golden Globe nomination for “Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television” and a Critic’s Choice Association nomination for “Best Comedy Special.”

Speakers

Carla Harris

Senior Client Advisor, Morgan Stanley

Carla Harris

Senior Client Advisor, Morgan Stanley

Carla Harris has extensive industry experience in the technology, media, retail, telecommunications, transportation, industrial, and healthcare sectors. In August 2013, Ms. Harris was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council.

Carla Harris’s passion lies in helping others. As she says, “we are blessed, so that we can be a blessing to others.” While climbing the corporate ladder, Harris had her own personal missteps amidst numerous victories. She vowed that when she reached senior management and people came to her for advice, she would provide them with the tools, strategies, and pearls of wisdom honed by her own experience.

Harris is responsible for increasing client connectivity and penetration to enhance revenue generation across Morgan Stanley. She formerly headed the Emerging Manager Platform, the equity capital markets effort for the consumer and retail industries and was responsible for Equity Private Placements.

Ashley McBryde

Grammy Award Winner

Ashley McBryde

Grammy Award Winner

GRAMMY, CMA and ACM award winner Ashley McBryde cut her teeth playing country songs in biker bars – and it shows. The Grand Ole Opry member’s 2018 major label debut Girl Going Nowhere (Warner Music Nashville) charmed The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, Paste, The Washington Post and more, all en route to landing a GRAMMY nomination for Best Country Album.

McBryde closed out 2019 with ACM New Female Artist, CMT Breakout Artist, a New Artist of the Year win at the 53rd Annual CMA Awards and two nominations for the 2020 GRAMMYs for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for “Girl Goin’ Nowhere.” Her follow-up Never Will was tagged by Rolling Stone as one of the most anticipated of the year alongside NPR, who also ranked her Top 10 RIAA Platinum-Certified single “One Night Standards” as one of the best songs of 2019. The album earned McBryde a 2021 GRAMMY nomination for Best Country Album, making Never Will the only album nominated for Country Album of the Year by the ACMs, CMAs and the Recording Academy in the same award season.

Her GRAMMY-winning duet with Carly Pearce, “Never Wanted To Be That Girl,” went all the way to No. 1 and earned McBryde and Pearce the ACM and CMA award for Musical Event of the Year. McBryde was also honored with the 2022 CMA International Artist Achievement Award for the most significant creative growth, development, and promotion of the country music industry outside of the United States.

Her collaborative project Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville featuring Brothers Osborne, Brandy Clark, Pillbox Patti, Caylee Hammack, Aaron Raitiere and Benjy Davis earned McBryde her third consecutive GRAMMY nomination for Best Country Album, making her a six-time GRAMMY nominee. The project earned McBryde her second consecutive nomination for CMA Album of the Year, along with Music Video of the Year for “Light On In The Kitchen” from her latest critically acclaimed album, The Devil I Know. McBryde is currently on her headlining The Devil I Know Tour Presented by Ariat and kicked off 2024 with a sold-out run of shows in the U.K., Ireland and Northern Ireland before returning to North America for the second leg in February.

Jon Meacham

Presidential Historian; Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author

Jon Meacham

Presidential Historian; Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author

Jon Meacham is an American writer, reviewer, historian, and presidential biographer, and one of America's most prominent public intellectuals. A former executive editor and executive vice president at Random House, Jon is a contributing editor to Time magazine, and former Editor of Newsweek.

A skilled orator and writer, Jon draws on a deep well of knowledge in politics, religion, and current affairs, giving him the unique ability to bring history to life and offer historical context to current events and issues impacting our daily lives to audiences of all backgrounds and levels of understanding.

In addition to the highly acclaimed podcasts for the History Channel, Jon has authored multiple New York Times bestsellers including His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope — an intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. congressman John Lewis that quickly gained bestseller status.

His presidential biography of George H. W. Bush, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, debuted at Number One on the New York Times bestsellers list. Jon is also a co-author of Impeachment: An American History, revealing the complicated motives behind the three impeachments in U.S. history. His other national bestsellers include Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power; Franklin and Winston; American Gospel; and the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.

His most recent New York Times bestseller, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle, was published in October 2022. Jon’s new work, The Call to Serve: The Life of President George Herbert Walker Bush, was released in May 2024 and once again demonstrates his signature ability to create a brilliant and illuminating portrait of both a man and a president.

Named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum, Jon Meacham is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He is also a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University where he holds the Rogers Chair in the American Presidency.