With the Rocky Mountains as its backdrop, the upcoming MIBE Summit—taking place Jan. 25-27 in Denver—is embracing a theme that feels especially fitting.
“It’s called ‘Unleash Potential,’ and it’s the idea that we’re all summiting our own mountain,” says Anthony Lambatos, the founder of MIBE (Make It Better Every Day), a culture-building and training organization for business leaders. “We all have our own challenges. How are we going to get to the top?”
The three-day leadership event is designed for owners, executives and managers in hospitality and events who want to build stronger cultures, retain talent and lead with intention.
Lambatos frames the Summit as a place to “recalibrate” for the year ahead. “Anyone who attends will be a better leader for having gone through the MIBE Summit,” he says. “They’ll get tangible tools and inspiration for how they can more effectively lead going into 2026.”
A Leadership Event That Grows Every Year
The CEO of Footers Catering in Denver, Lambatos launched MIBE in 2018 with his wife, April Lambatos, Footers’ COO. The couple transformed their own company’s culture into a fun and engaging one that’s been named a Top Workplace by The Denver Post for several years running.
“Our industry has been notorious for not creating great places to work, and we have been so fortunate that we’ve shown that you can do it differently,” says Lambatos. “Our focus on creating a great place to work has actually been what has made us successful. And so we’re on a mission to share that with people from across the country.”
MIBE started out with leadership workshops and immersion programs at Footers’ headquarters, with the Summit launching in 2023 as a standalone event. Since then, the gathering has grown from about 100 participants to an expected 300 to 350 at this year’s event, which takes place at Denver’s Infinity Park.
Motivational Speakers and Top Chef Favorites
The upcoming Summit boasts an inspiring speaker lineup. Highlights include Shawn Achor, a Harvard-trained expert on the connection between happiness and success, who’s known for The Happiness Advantage and a TED Talk with more than 25 million views; and Ryan Leak, a leadership trainer and author of How to Work with Complicated People. Particularly on point for this year’s theme, Luis Benitez, a Lululemon executive who’s climbed the famed Seven Summits, will discuss how taking on personal challenges can help change the world.
Lambatos also expects the Top Chef panel—featuring Jennifer Jasinski, Carrie Baird and Hosea Rosenberg—to be a crowd favorite.
Breakout Groups for In-Depth Discussions
Conferences are notorious for quick conversations that don’t stick. MIBE tries to solve that by anchoring each attendee in a breakout group that stays together for the full three days. The group is designed to go deeper than the keynote. After each session, participants meet with their group to discuss how the ideas apply to their business and leadership.
Those groups are also organized by role—owners with owners, sales with sales, culinary with culinary—so the conversation stays relevant and immediately usable. That’s especially important because the Summit attracts a wide mix of hospitality businesses. It’s primarily caterers, but also restaurant groups, hotels, casinos, breweries, wineries, bridal shops and event planners.
This year, says Lambatos, they’re adding an app to make it easier for attendees to keep in touch long after they fly home—an acknowledgement that the real ROI isn’t just inspiration. It’s the relationships you can call on in the middle of a staffing crunch, or when you’re trying to roll out a new standard and need a reality check.
Friendly Competitions
Facilitators known as “Connection Catalysts” lead each group, curating the experience to the participants and leading them in friendly competitions.
The activities are playful—like identifying baby food flavors and building contraptions to protect an egg—but the point isn’t the game. It’s the metaphor: navigating constraints, handing off projects, presenting work you didn’t start. They showcase leadership dynamics, packaged in a way that makes them easier to see and talk about.
“We like to say we make people mildly uncomfortable,” says Lambatos—because growth often requires doing something you wouldn’t normally volunteer for. “But after you do it, you’re like, ‘That was amazing!’”
Recognizing Leaders Who Are Changing Culture
And then there are the MIBE Awards, presented on the first night of the Summit. The awards “shine the light on the people that are doing amazing things with culture in the hospitality industry,” says Lambatos. This year, for example, the Heart Leader of the Year finalists are Brianna Borin of Snooze in Denver; Hector Boehme of Arthur’s Creative Events & Catering in Altamonte Springs, Florida; Jenn Walker of Charlotte’s Bridal in La Crosse, Wisconsin; Jonathan Darr of Love Catering in Los Angeles; and Robin Selden of Marcia Selden Catering in Stamford, Connecticut.
Attending as a Team
With a Net Promoter Score of 90—a metric that measures customer satisfaction—the MIBE Summit attracts repeat attendees, with some returning every year. Lambatos mentions one company that buys four tickets annually—two for employees who’ve attended the Summit before and two for new attendees. To facilitate such team camaraderie, MIBE offers four registrations for the price of three with the “Better Together Special.”
“If we help people become better leaders, they’re going to create better workplaces,” says Lambatos. “And if they create better workplaces, the people in those organizations ultimately find more fulfillment in their lives. Their whole life is more enjoyable because of where they work. That’s why we do it.”
