Ask most MSP owners what they were doing five years ago, and they’ll tell you a version of the same story. They were the best tech in the building. Nobody else could solve the escalation they picked up. Clients asked for them by name.
That instinct is what got the business off the ground.
Somewhere between $2M and $10M in revenue, the job quietly changes underneath you. Running the business calls for an entirely different set of skills. Most owners feel this shift long before they name it. They just call it something else: exhaustion, a team that can’t seem to run without them, a calendar that has no room left to think.
This gap between what built the business and what the business needs next is one of the most common identity crises in the MSP space, and almost nobody names it out loud. The operators who make this shift well figure out what to let go of and who to hand it to.
This is exactly what Build IT LIVE 2026 is built to work through, August 3 through 5 at the Hyatt Regency in Jersey City. The Leadership track runs across both days, and each session tackles a different piece of the shift:
Day 1, August 3
- Where Risk Actually Shows Up: Leading at the Intersection of People, Process, and Technology, with Jill Silman Chapman. The risk that hides in the handoffs between people and systems.
- Building a Culture That Attracts and Retains Great People, with Mark Kovacevich, Michael Deutsch, and Serge Bukhar. What it takes to build a team good enough to run without you.
- Difficult Conversations: Handling Staff Issues, Client Escalations, and Vendor Disputes, with Lisa Shorr. The conversations most owners avoid until they can’t anymore.
Day 2, August 4
- For MSP Founders, Owners, and Executives Drowning in Data but Starving for Insights, with Joshua Oakes. Turning the data you already have into decisions you can act on.
- Leading Through AI Disruption: How to Communicate Change to Your Team and Your Clients, with Jeremy Williams. Bringing your team along instead of leaving them behind.
- Strategic Planning for MSP Owners: Setting a 3-Year Vision Without Losing This Quarter, with Ahmed Fadili. Thinking years ahead while still running the business today.
- Building an Advisory Board That Actually Helps You Grow, with Denis O’Shea. Getting outside perspective without giving up control.
- Financial Literacy for the Technical MSP Owner: Reading Your Numbers Like a CEO (speaker to be announced). Reading the numbers the way a CEO does.
- The Leadership Legacy: Building a Business That Runs Without You (speaker to be announced). What you leave behind once the day to day no longer depends on you.
You’ll be in the room with 45+ platform CEOs and MSP operators running $10M+ businesses. No stage pitches, no theory. Just people who have already made this shift, telling you what actually worked.
The rest of the week builds on the same idea. The AI Accelerator on Day 3 gives owner-operators and senior executives a working session they can turn into a plan on Monday morning. Coaching Corner puts you across the table from an operator who has already solved what you are working through, in a thirty minute one on one. And the week closes with a Great Gatsby themed evening on the NYSE trading floor, benefiting the American Heart Association, capped at 300 seats.
Registration is $1,495 for all three days, including the new AI Accelerator on Day 3 and the Great Gatsby closing night on the NYSE trading floor. The Hyatt room block closes July 13, and the NYSE evening fills on a first confirmed basis.
Becoming a CEO is about building something that doesn’t need you in the room. Three days in Jersey City with people who have already figured out how is a good place to start.
Register at itbd.net/live
