CSAE 2026: ANCHORED brings Canada's association community to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, from October 27 to 30. The program is built primarily for association CEOs, executive directors, and senior leaders, with content relevant to finance spread across several tracks. Sessions on financial operations, technology, AI, and revenue bear directly on how financial information is produced and used, which makes them relevant both to finance and operations leaders and to the executives who depend on their numbers.
This guide covers the sessions most useful for that audience, a suggested sequence for the busiest time blocks, the main stage, and the networking calendar. Times and rooms reflect the published schedule. Check the conference app for changes before you finalize your plans.
Two sessions on the program address financial operations and infrastructure directly.
Beyond the Status Quo: Transforming Association Leadership Through Modern Financial Operations Wednesday, October 28, 2:20–3:20 PM | Churchill (Level 3) Omar Visram, Co-Founder and CEO, Enkel
A session association finance leaders will want on their schedule. It looks at how timely reporting, budget-to-actual results, and KPIs such as membership retention, revenue performance, and program impact can make financial information a leadership tool. It also speaks to executives who are not financial experts but need to know which questions to ask, which numbers matter, and when that information should be available.
Your Infrastructure Budget Is a Member Value Strategy Thursday, October 29, 1:00–2:00 PM | Bannerman 3/4 (Level 2) Ashish Malik, Co-Founder and CEO, 108 ideaspace / idealAMS, and Danielle Lamothe, CAE, President and CEO, CCAE
Through a case study, the speakers show how one association recast its technology and operations budget as an investment in member value, moving away from fragmented tools and manual administration. Its premise, that underinvesting in systems shifts costs into manual workarounds and staff time rather than saving money, will be familiar to finance teams working across disconnected systems.
Finance teams have a particular stake in how associations adopt AI: any AI tool working with financial information is only as reliable as the data and controls beneath it. Four sessions stand out.
Beyond the Hype: Where AI Delivers Real Value in Associations Wednesday, October 28, 1:00–2:00 PM | Victoria (Level 3) Tabitha Skolski and Yuliya Fakhr, Alberta Dental Association
Drawing on implementation inside a lean association, this session looks at where AI creates impact, where it falls short, and where it introduces risk. It aims to give attendees a framework for deciding where to invest, experiment, or hold back.
AI Reality Check: What Today's Systems Can't Do and Why It Matters for Associations Wednesday, October 28, 2:20–3:20 PM | Victoria (Level 3) Dr. Laurelle Jno Baptiste and Marcus Thraen, Vocalmeet
Covers what current AI systems cannot reliably deliver, including why many tools generate probable rather than verified answers, a distinction that carries particular weight for financial data. Runs at the same time as the Enkel session.
From Risk to Readiness: Building a Practical AI Governance Framework for Associations Thursday, October 29, 10:35–11:35 AM | Victoria (Level 3) Barry Rooke, Executive Director, NCRA/ANREC and Cider Canada
Finance leaders often enter AI discussions through policy, risk, and board oversight. This interactive session presents an AI code of conduct framework that classifies AI use by content type, level of human involvement, and degree of AI contribution, along with a template attendees can adapt.
Building the Resilient Association: From Service and Governance to Agentic AI Thursday, October 29, 3:40–4:40 PM | Victoria (Level 3) Ashish Malik, 108 ideaspace / idealAMS, and Sylvia Link, CAE, Entente Education Canada
Examines how service, governance, verifiable data, and AI with clear boundaries fit together in a resilient operating model.
What Would Break If You Weren't There Tomorrow? Thursday, October 29, 3:40–4:40 PM | Churchill (Level 3) Travis Allison, Co-Owner, Perception Check
This session addresses operational knowledge that lives with one person. Participants map their own single point of failure and leave with a completed one-page process guide. It is pitched to executive directors, but the question applies equally to finance operations, where steps such as the monthly close can come to depend on one person's knowledge.
The Association Revenue Shift: How Enduring Trust, Impact and Value Will Redefine Growth Wednesday, October 28, 2:20–3:20 PM | Bannerman 3/4 (Level 2) Bill Sheehan, Global Head, Association Strategy, D2L
Makes the case for moving beyond dues dependency toward education, credentials, sponsorships, partnerships, and other non-dues revenue. Each new revenue line also has to be recorded, recognized, and reconciled, which makes this a useful session for finance leaders to hear alongside their CEOs.
2026 Membership Trends and Best Practices: An Update from the Most Recent CSAE Member Survey Thursday, October 29, 3:40–4:40 PM | Pippy (Level 3) Gerald Bramm, CAE, President, Bramm Research Inc.
Updates CSAE's 2023 member research on recruitment, retention, value proposition, pricing models, and AI use. Retention and pricing trends feed directly into dues forecasting.
Wednesday afternoon has the most overlap. One path through it for finance and operations leaders:
Thursday runs more simply: the morning panel, From Risk to Readiness at 10:35 AM, the infrastructure session at 1:00 PM, and the Michael Rossi plenary at 2:20 PM. At 3:40 PM, three options overlap. Choose What Would Break for continuity, Building the Resilient Association for AI, or Membership Trends for revenue planning.
Plenaries take place in the Bowring Ballroom (Level 2).
The program opens Tuesday afternoon at the Delta Hotel, with registration from 3:00 PM and the St. John's Kitchen Party Opening Reception from 5:00 to 7:00 PM, followed by McCarthy's Rally in the Alley from 7:00 to 9:30 PM.
Lunch and CAE Graduation Ceremony, Wednesday, October 28, 11:30 AM–12:30 PM, Bowring Ballroom.
Marketplace Reception, Wednesday, October 28, 4:40–7:00 PM, on the Marketplace floor.
Karaoke After-Party, Wednesday, October 28, 9:00 PM, Cannery Kitchen & Social (Hilton Garden Inn).
Marketplace Lunch, Thursday, October 29, 11:35 AM–1:00 PM.
Closing Night Gala: An Evening at the JAG, Thursday, October 29, 7:00 PM, JAG Hotel.
SoundPost will be at Marketplace pod 13A, near the entrance to one of the main breakout rooms. We are also sponsoring three networking breaks on Thursday, October 29, on the Marketplace floor (Level 2): 10:15–10:35 AM, 2:00–2:20 PM, and 3:20–3:40 PM. Each falls between sessions on the suggested sequence above.
SoundPost, part of the Blue Cypress family of companies, automates association accounting so finance teams have data they can trust, analyze, and act on. SoundPost Bridge connects revenue systems to the accounting system, and SoundPost Copilot answers natural-language questions about financial data, grounded in the underlying transactions.
If there is a finance process you would automate if you could, stop by and say hello. We would like to hear about it.
CSAE's annual conference brings together the people who set direction for Canadian associations. For finance and operations leaders, that makes it a useful setting to hear how executives are thinking about technology, AI, and revenue, and to bring a financial perspective into those conversations. For executives, the sessions above offer a view into the infrastructure behind the numbers they rely on.
Vous serez à St. John's? Plusieurs séances offrent la traduction et le sous-titrage en direct grâce à Wordly. Passez nous voir au kiosque 13A, que ce soit pendant la réception du mercredi ou lors de l'une des pauses du jeudi. Au plaisir d'échanger avec vous en français.