-
Signed, Sealed, Inaccessible: Getting Vendors to Fix Accessibility After the Contract
Most procurement advice stops at the VPAT, but the real work starts after the contract is signed and the product doesn’t match its documentation. This session shares lessons from seven years of enterprise accessibility reviews at a large university, including how to turn “we’re working on it” into dated, enforceable remediation commitments. You’ll learn how…
-
Leading Through Change: Driving Accessibility with the Six Sources of Influence
Building a sustainable accessibility program requires lasting behavior change across an organization, especially as rapid technological and operational shifts transform how teams work. While new tools emerge daily, lasting success depends on intentional leadership that motivates and enables people at every level. This session explores how to apply the proven Six Sources of Influence framework…
-
It Takes a Village: What Happened When We Shifted Accessibility Left
Five years ago, Regions started shifting accessibility left. On one digital platform, that work grew into something more: accessibility expertise embedded from design through development, working in step with designers, developers, product owners, publishing teams, vendors, and leadership. The payoff has been real—monitoring scores that have approached 99%, and pages that rarely need accessibility fixes…
-
The day accessibility disappeared was the day it scaled
Accessibility is often seen as a domain requiring advocacy, sponsorship and grass roots champions, while cybersecurity or consumer protection are accepted as fact. What’s the difference? Why is one seen as a “very very good thing to do” while the other is seen as “imperative infrastructure”. We’re going to walk through why infrastructure doesn’t require…
-
Scaling Accessibility Trust: How Enterprise Sales Teams Turn Compliance Questions Into Customer Wins
When a customer asks about accessibility, sales teams often treat it as a legal hurdle to clear rather than a relationship to build. I lead a customer accessibility advisory function that helps account teams find the right ACR or VPAT, frame compliance honestly, and flag risk before it becomes a lost deal, while also monitoring…
-
Sleeves Up. Hearts Open. All In. How Champions Carry Accessibility at the American Red Cross
A blind blood donor recently told us he booked his donation appointment in the Red Cross Blood Donor App for the first time where previously he had to call to schedule. That moment didn’t come from a big-budget overhaul. It came from Accessibility Champions across the organization, making steady improvements, and maintaining a commitment to…
-
Shift-left for Accessibility: The importance of an inclusion-first design approach
More than a billion people globally live with a disability, yet many organizations still struggle to build accessibility and inclusion into products, systems, and environments from the start. Leslie Gordon, Chief Accessibility Officer at Cisco, will explore why teams should “shift left” on accessibility, drawing on Cisco’s accessible and neuroinclusive London office as a real-world…
-
Opening the digital door: What making recruitment digitally accessible taught us about inclusive employment
As part of a transformation of our end-to-end recruitment process, we tested each stage for digital accessibility. Through this work, we discovered that digital accessibility and compliance are only part of creating a truly inclusive recruitment and employment experience. I’ll share how we mapped and tested the recruitment journey, approached the introduction of AI throughout…
-
Accessibility Isn’t Slow. You’re Missing a Catalyst.
Subtitle: Lessons learned from scaling accessibility through governance, enablement, and enterprise risk management. Draft Abstract: Most organizations begin their accessibility journey focused on compliance. While compliance matters, sustainable accessibility outcomes require something bigger: organizational maturity. This session shares lessons learned from helping advance accessibility maturity within a large, highly regulated enterprise. We’ll explore how governance…
-
Building Without Barriers on GitHub
Join GitHub’s Head of Accessibility for a review of GitHub accessibility past, present, and future. You’ll learn actionable tips for accelerating your accessibility practice with AI, automation, and open source.
