Leadership Starts Before the Title

Leadership doesn’t begin when someone gives you a title.

Long before we become managers, directors, or executives, we’re already developing the habits, values, and assumptions that shape how we work with other people. We learn from the leaders we admire, the ones we struggle with, the mentors who invest in us, the mistakes we make, and the difficult moments that test what kind of colleague—and eventually what kind of leader—we want to be.

Join AMA Boston for a candid fireside conversation with Todd Holloway, founder and president of Avalon Digital Partners, exploring how intentional leaders are made.

Drawing on more than three decades of experience across marketing, technology, organizational transformation, and leadership—as well as 12 years of service in the United States Army—Todd will share lessons from a career spent building teams, developing people, navigating change, and helping organizations turn ambitious ideas into results.

The conversation will explore questions including:

• Which leadership lessons do we inherit, and which should we leave behind?
• How do you adapt your leadership to the individual in front of you?
• What does it take to build a team people genuinely want to be part of?
• How do strong leaders respond when circumstances become difficult?
• And ultimately, what do we leave behind in the people we have had the opportunity to lead?

This won’t be a lecture about becoming “the boss.” It’s a conversation about developing your own approach to leadership—wherever you are in your career.

A significant portion of the event will be devoted to audience Q&A, giving attendees the opportunity to bring their own leadership questions, experiences, and challenges into the conversation.

Whether you’re leading a team today, preparing for your first management role, mentoring others, or simply thinking more intentionally about the kind of leader you hope to become, you’ll leave with ideas you can begin applying long before the next title appears on your résumé.

About the Speaker

As the founder and president of Avalon Digital Partners, Todd has led more than 100 marketing and digital transformation engagements for organizations including Disney, Sony Pictures, Best Buy, Amgen, John Hancock, Point32Health, and Beth Israel Lahey Health. Throughout his career, he has helped marketing leaders navigate successive waves of change—from the early growth of digital channels and marketing technology to today’s rapid adoption of emerging technologies.

His work has involved more than developing strategies or implementing platforms. It has included building teams, aligning people around a common direction, developing future leaders, and creating organizations capable of turning ambitious marketing ideas into measurable results.

Todd’s leadership perspective has also been shaped by 12 years of service in the United States Army, where he learned important lessons about preparation, accountability, trust, and leading people through high-pressure situations.

A former AMA Boston vice president of technology, Todd now writes regularly about the leadership lessons we inherit, practice, and eventually pass on.