The Power of Place: 20 Years of Seeing the World Together
Louie Schwartzberg, Filmmaker & CEO, Moving Art, United States
Louie Schwartzberg shared images of beauty from all 20 summit locations and then played his signature ‘moving art’ from his new project, Hidden Beauty.
What Remains When We Stop Trying to Improve Ourselves?
Ajahn Jayasaro, Buddhist Monk & Spiritual Teacher, Thailand
Buddhist monk Ajahn Jayasaro offered a blunt counterpoint to wellness-as-optimization: why extend life by 10 or 20 years if we never ask what it’s for? Drawing on 48 years of practice, he urged delegates to question their beliefs and values, recognizing that conviction is not proof of truth. Face aging and death honestly, he said, and embrace humanity’s true superpower: our lifelong capacity to learn.
He described two pillars of Buddhist wellness. First, generosity: giving without expecting anything back, and recalling that goodness, which lifts the heart even in illness. Second, ethics: clear boundaries for speech and action that give others the gift of safety. We can’t will away anger, but we can choose not to act on it.
The Hospitality Empire That Refuses to Stand Still
William E. Heinecke, Founder & Chairman, Minor International, Thailand
In Conversation with: Nancy Davis, Chief Creative Officer & Executive Director, Global Wellness Summit and Global Wellness Institute, United States
William Heinecke built his first business at 17, with no degree and plenty of confidence. Today, Minor International operates around 650 hotels in 60 countries and more than 3,000 restaurants, with 85,000 team members. Since opening a single hotel in Pattaya, he says, the company has always been in ‘the experience business’: guests should wake up knowing exactly where they are.
He rejects the risk-taker label, even though the $3 billion USD NH Hotels acquisition in 2018 was followed by COVID and $1 billion USD in losses over eight quarters. Thai service, which he says comes from the heart, remains its competitive edge. His next frontier? Wellness, especially prevention offered while traveling.
Cultures That Flourish in a Fractured World
Renee Moorefield, PhD, Founder & CEO, Wisdom Works Group, United States
In Conversation with: Eva McLellan, Global Healthcare Executive and Co-Founder, Unlocking Eve, Switzerland
Renee Moorefield and Eva McLellan talked about which leadership assumptions have to change if cultures are going to flourish. Renee named the most basic one: we act as if we are separate. “We don’t get any results without each other.” The shift is to see the person in front of us as a collaborator, not a competitor. Eva drew on her time as a country CEO in Slovenia and called for integration. That means having the inner capacity to be proud of what you’ve achieved while staying radically open to community. It also means giving employee engagement the same weight as revenue on the scorecard. In her experience, when you do that, the revenue follows.
Renee closed by coming back to that question. Many of the thousands of leaders she has coached have never asked what kind of leader they want to become. They borrow definitions from their organization, a book, or an MBA. The deeper work is personal: who do I want to be, and how will I use my platform to enable flourishing for all?
Future Wellness Cities: Cultural Capital & Wellness-Led Urban Developments
Moderated by: Heidi Moon, Chief Marketing Officer, Global Wellness Summit and Global Wellness Institute, United States
Participants:
David Delrahim, Founder & CEO, COCUN, United States
Proudputh Liptapanlop, Executive Director, Proud Real Estate, Thailand
Ari Peralta, Director, Arigami, United States
The future of well-being may be less about the clinic or the spa and more about the places where we live every day. Moderator Heidi Moon put it simply: wellness is becoming ambient. It is built into where we live, not something we go and do.
Ari Peralta urged the room to stop asking what wellness looks like and ask what it feels like. He named three things that keep us in a constant fight-or-flight state: design that is out of step with nature’s patterns, information overload, and sensory overload. Wellness is a $7.5 trillion USD industry, he noted, but well-being is a human outcome. His advice to developers was to walk through their projects with their eyes closed.
Proudputh Liptapanlop pointed out that in Thailand, wellness is still largely a luxury and one in five people is over 60. Her answer is to build on wellness wisdom the country already has. Her Bangkok project partners with a BDMS hospital to offer healthcare on site, which keeps wellness viable and more attainable.
David Delrahim asked the room two questions: are we healing, and who are we designing for? Twenty years in the making, COCUN aims to move development from money-led to impact-led, and from silos to ecosystems.
Global Wellness Day: Drumming Up a Movement
Belgin Aksoy, Founder, Global Wellness Day, Turkey
Belgin Aksoy played the drums for the audience and then explained that wellness isn’t always about making life easier, it’s about challenge and stretch. Coordination doesn’t always come easily, but it keeps the brain young and prevents dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Wellness is not a luxury but the inherent right of each individual. This accessibility is at the heart of Global Wellness Day, which promotes small steps toward a healthier life for all.
Thailand’s Vision: Leading the Future of Global Health and Wellness
H.E. Pattana Promphat, Minister of Public Health, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand
H.E. Pattana Promphat, Thailand’s Minister of Public Health, set out the country’s ambition to become the world’s trusted wellness partner, guided by evidence, trust, and inclusion. He linked the summit theme of science, art and soul to Thai identity. Science lives in Thailand’s hospitals and universal health coverage, art in Nuad Thai, and soul in nam jai, or generosity of heart. His message: wellness is a right, not a privilege.
Beyond Longevity: Rethinking What It Means to Live Well
Melodie Nakhle, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Amway, United States
For Melodie Nakhle, healthspan means living better for longer, not simply living longer. Our biology is interconnected, yet the wellness industry has traditionally sorted it into separate categories. A woman entering perimenopause may notice changes in her sleep, energy, skin, and mood, but she’s experiencing one life. The future lies in connecting the science, not in adding more solutions. Tradition can inspire questions, and science must provide the evidence.
The Next Chapter in Global Hospitality
Neil Jacobs, Founder, Wild Origins, United States
In Conversation with: Nancy Davis, Chief Creative Officer & Executive Director, Global Wellness Summit and Global Wellness Institute, United States
Neil Jacobs helped bring wellness into the heart of luxury hospitality. Now he is asking what hotels can bring to wellness. We have never spent more on feeling good, he noted, yet wellness has become overly technical and over-optimized. Sometimes the most valuable thing a hotel offers is the feeling of walking into a place full of life, where people are talking and laughing and you feel part of it.
That thinking shapes his latest chapter: creating a new luxury brand. His research found that guests are bored by the sameness of upper luxury, and 90% of consumers say one luxury brand is indistinguishable from the next. The white space, he believes, is to layer lifestyle energy and a focused wellness program into upper luxury, built on pleasure, tempo, culture, and well-being. Every great hotel has a rhythm, he said, and that energy in the room is also wellness.
A Quiet Revolution: A Case for Putting Hearing on Your Longevity Play List
Nancy Davis, Chief Creative Officer & Executive Director, Global Wellness Summit and Global Wellness Institute, United States
In Conversation with: Julie “DJ Hesta Prynn” Slavin, DJ & Licensed Clinical Therapist, Music Connection Therapy, United States
Julie Slavin failed her first hearing test in kindergarten. Her hearing loss falls in the range of human speech. She was told to fake it rather than wear hearing aids. Through headphones, though, she could hear and enjoy the loud, boisterous DJs on New York’s hip-hop radio station. Music unlocked the world for her, and it became her career.
Years later, when she couldn’t tell her young daughter’s ‘yes’ from her ‘no,’ she finally got hearing aids. In terms of longevity, hardly anyone talks about hearing. Julie pointed to a recent study linking 
regular hearing aid use to a 24% lower risk of death. Yet most people with hearing loss don’t know they have it. It starts slowly, the brain works overtime to fill the gaps, and few of us ever get tested. Her one message: check your hearing.
Julie is also a licensed therapist, and she then got the room on its feet with her music connection therapy. Songs wire pathways between memory, emotion, and movement, she explained. If a song can take you back, can it carry you forward?
Special Presentation: The Woman Who Changed the Wellness World
Presented by: Nancy Davis, Chief Creative Officer & Executive Director, Global Wellness Summit and Global Wellness Institute, United States
With GWS Strategic Partners, Sponsors, GWS & GWI Advisory Boards
The GWS board paid tribute to Susie, who has guided the vision of the Global Wellness Summit and Institute over 20 years and is now stepping down. They spoke of her poise, grace, intention, leadership, vision, and collaboration.
Announcement: GWS 2027
Nancy Davis, Chief Creative Officer & Executive Director, Global Wellness Summit and Global Wellness Institute, United States
Susie Ellis, Chair & CEO, Global Wellness Summit and Global Wellness Institute, United States
With Special Guests
The Global Wellness Summit 2027 is heading to London from October 31 to November 3. As the home of Informa, the Summit’s new parent company, the city sets the stage for a landmark edition – the first with Nancy Davis at the helm of the newly formed Global Wellness Group. While the setting and leadership mark an exciting new chapter for the industry, the heart of the event remains its global community. We look forward to seeing you in London.
By Sara Jones, Editor
