NAW’s 2024 Executive Summit was its most well-attended such event in years, and its content delivered in spades. This episode features interviews with attendees on their top takeaways, initiatives & more.

NAW stage

The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) held its Executive Summit on Jan. 31-Feb. 2 in Washington, D.C., serving as a marquee industry event for networking and thought leadership. This was my third time attending the annual summit, and it was great to see it filled to capacity with 430-plus attendees. In fact, the growth of the event has caused NAW to find a bigger venue for it next year after more than 30 years at the Georgetown Fairmont.

As always, NAW Executive Summit had a fantastic lineup of speakers that featured well-known distribution executives addressing how they’ve managed challenges, digital transformation best practices (including AI) and sales model commentary. They were alongside guest speakers that included U.S. Postmaster General and CEO Louis DeJoy, former Secretary of Defense and Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates, ITR Economics’ Alan Beaulieu, New York Times Bestselling Author Daniel Pink, Fox News Sunday Anchor Shannon Bream and former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker.

During the Executive Summit, I was able to wrangle seven attendees for quick interviews that asked about their biggest takeaways from the event; thoughts on market demand; and the biggest priorities they have for 2024.

Our latest MDM Podcast, embedded atop this blog, features those interviews that include four distributor executives, one industry research consultant and two NAW executives. They proceed in the podcast as follows:

Listen to the full episode via the audio player above, and check out our full MDM Podcast library here.

The event was held under the theme of “Agents of Change,” reiterating that distribution leaders are empowered to change not only how their company innovates going forward, but how they will collectively change how the industry at-large evolves in the near future. The tagline aligned with the event’s gala dinner that was held at the International Spy Museum, where attendees could network while browsing the venue’s several floors of exhibits. 

The gala culminated in NAW presenting its top honor — the Distributors Deliver Award — to MDM’s very own longtime owner and steward Tom Gale.

Of course, the event also served as a great way for the MDM staff to discuss NAW’s Jan. 18 acquisition of MDM with attendees, and it was wonderful to hear so much positive feedback about it. For more insights on what that deal mean’s for MDM’s content going forward, check out my Jan. 26 blog that addresses exactly that.

Related Posts

  • The NAW Executive Summit’s marquee of speakers includes Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense…

  • NAW’s Bart Tessel and Applico’s Alex Moazed share thoughts on distribution innovation and technology today…

  • The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and Modern Distribution Management have combined in a move that…

Share this article

Mike Hockett

Mike Hockett

Mike Hockett is MDM’s executive editor, having joined the publication in March 2022. He oversees MDM’s editorial content and direction, coordinates with contributing authors, conducts interviews with executives in the wholesale distribution space and serves as the editorial face of MDM at industry events. He has extensively covered the distribution and manufacturing sectors since 2014. Hockett works from his home in Madison, WI. He can be contacted at mike@mdm.com.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Log In

Read the latest articles and see your reports.

Popular Now

MDM Directories

Sign Up for the MDM Update Newsletter

The MDM update newsletter is your best source for news and trends in the wholesale distribution industry.