Sistas In Sales (SIS), the largest global community for women of color in professional sales, convened more than 600 sales and revenue professionals for its 9th Annual Evolution Summit in New York City, bringing together leaders, recruiters, founders, and emerging executives around a defining question for the profession: how will artificial intelligence reshape the future of sales?
Held September at The Maison Project in Midtown Manhattan, the event served as the flagship gathering of SIS Week, a broader series of community, recruiting, professional development, and networking activations across New York, the DMV, Atlanta, and London. The Summit’s theme, “The Evolution: AI & the Next Era of Sales,” centered on helping women in sales develop the fluency, visibility, relationships, and leadership skills needed to thrive as AI changes how teams prospect, manage pipelines, serve customers, and build revenue.
A New Era for Sales Leadership
The Summit was designed around the reality that AI is no longer a distant concept for revenue organizations. It is becoming embedded in daily sales work, from research and outreach to customer intelligence, forecasting, content creation, and post sale strategy.
Across three stages, The Frontier, The Build, and The Academy, attendees participated in keynotes, executive panels, recruiting conversations, sponsor activations, peer networking, and hands on AI training. SIS positioned the programming around AI fluency, executive voice, content power, career access, and community, connecting practical upskilling with the larger challenge of expanding leadership pathways for women of color in sales. Review the 2026 Summit agenda and the day of event hub for programming details.
Among the featured discussions was “The Evolution: AI & the Next Era of Sales,” a conversation examining how leading revenue teams are adopting AI, where new opportunities are emerging, and which capabilities are becoming more valuable across the profession. The panel included Latia YoungFountain, Head of Global Accounts, Central at LinkedIn; Reggie Marable, Chief Customer Officer at Sierra; Zach Ciliotta Young, Chief Revenue Officer at Slack; and Kay Malcolm, Vice President of Product Management at Oracle.
Leaders From Across Business and Media
The Summit featured executives and leaders from companies spanning technology, media, retail, advertising, and consumer brands, including Netflix, Sierra, Walmart Connect, The Trade Desk, Slack, Oracle, LinkedIn, Meta, HubSpot, Paramount, Uber, and Reckitt.
The speaker lineup represented 47 leaders across sales, AI, revenue, media, technology, culture, and entrepreneurship. Their conversations connected broad shifts in AI and revenue strategy to the everyday realities of sales professionals: developing stronger business judgment, building trust with buyers, communicating value clearly, and using new tools without losing the human relationships at the heart of selling. View the full 2026 speaker lineup.
Programming also included AI focused learning opportunities such as the AI Sales Literacy Certification led by Alicia Lyttle, CEO of AI InnoVision. The training emphasized practical use cases for AI as a copilot in prospecting, pipeline management, productivity, customer insight, storytelling, and leadership.
Community, Access and Opportunity
For SIS Founder and CEO Chantel George, the Summit continued a nearly decade long effort to create a professional home and career accelerator for women of color navigating sales and revenue careers.
Sistas In Sales now serves more than 20,000 members in 48 countries, offering a global network built around career advancement, skills development, mentorship, recruiting access, and community. The organization works with Fortune 500 companies and high growth startups to strengthen diverse sales talent pipelines while creating spaces where women can exchange knowledge, build relationships, and pursue senior leadership opportunities. Learn more about the Sistas In Sales community.
The New York Summit opened with a welcome reception presented by Netflix and culminated in the Wine Down closing reception. The wider SIS Week format extended the Summit’s momentum through local chapter activations, recruiting events in partner offices, thought leadership sessions, business development opportunities, skill building workshops, and community gatherings.
Closing the Summit
The event concluded with a fireside keynote from Teri Ijeoma and a closing conversation featuring actress, entrepreneur, and media personality Eva Marcille alongside Felecia Hatcher.
At its core, the 2026 Evolution Summit framed AI not simply as a technology trend, but as a leadership and access issue. As sales organizations change, SIS is making the case that the professionals best prepared for the next era will be those who combine technological fluency with strategic judgment, personal brand, buyer trust, and a strong community behind them.
For the women who filled The Maison Project, the message was direct: the evolution of sales is already underway, and they are positioned to help lead it.
