One Day. One Room. The Whole City in It.

On October 3, we joined the 11th Annual OPEN Houston Conference at POST Houston. As a Houston-based agency, this was a meaningful opportunity to spend the day alongside the founders, investors and business leaders shaping the city's future.

The theme was Houston as a growth hub ecosystem. Across energy, healthcare, technology and other industries, the discussions focused on what Houston is building next and the people making it happen.

Where Houston Is Building Next

The day opened with check-in, breakfast and networking before Salim Gheewalla, President of OPEN Houston and CEO & Founder of utilITise, welcomed the room.

Dr. Azam Kundi, Chairman & CEO of Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, followed with the morning keynote, moderated by Dr. Uzma Iqbal of the Houston Center of HOPE. The keynote looked at what's next in healthcare, from a leader helping shape it.

The CEO fireside chat turned to a question familiar to any founder: what does it really take to build a company in Houston? Faisal Naseem, CEO of Sooner Pipe LLC, shared his perspective in conversation with Faisal Bhutto, President & CEO of Alykas.

Then came Panel 01, Zero to 100, presented by Wallis Bank and moderated by Samina Farid, Board Chair of OPEN Houston and Managing Director at Golden Seeds. Aziz Rahim, President of Wallis State Bank, Snehee Chaplot, Founder & CEO of The Food Shop, Joe Alapat, Founder & CGO of Liongard, and Mark Winchester, District Director at the SBA, shared what it takes to go from the first customer to real scale.

From Career Moves to Industries of Tomorrow

After lunch, presented by Modisoft, the focus shifted from building companies to building careers.

Panel 02, The Career Leap, was presented by U.S. Bank and moderated by Mustafa Ali, Head of Growth at Twilio. Atif Riaz, Chief Digital Officer at Murphy Oil, Khurram Agha, CIO of Manzil Invest and formerly of Microsoft and Oracle, and Nada Ahmed, Co-Founder of Energytech Cypher, talked about how to make your next move count.

Panel 03, Industries of Tomorrow, looked further ahead. Presented by Geometris and moderated by Aasher Syed, Product Marketing Leader at HashiCorp and Founder of AngelsRound, it brought together Aater Suleman, Founder of Vixul Studios, Amyn Gillani, VP at Core Tech, and Raazia Ali, Sr. Director of AI at Trajector, to discuss AI, technology and the industries that could reshape Houston over the next decade.

Two very different conversations, both pointing to the same place: Houston's next chapter.

After the Panels

Salim Gheewalla closed the formal program before the room moved into five networking breakouts presented by Gallivant.

Each table focused on one industry: Technology, Startups, Finance, Healthcare and Energy. Mehrab Momin of AiCTO Services led the Technology table, Tanu Jain of FlowCare led Startups, and Omair Mirza of J.P. Morgan Private Bank led Finance.

You picked your industry, sat down and started talking.

For a conference built around Houston's business community, those connections were just as much a part of the day as the keynote and panels.

Thank You to the Partners

A day like this does not happen without the companies and organizations behind it.

Thank you to Alykas, Bridgepointe, Gallivant, Geometris, Golden Seeds, Modisoft, Omar Khawaja Personal Injury Lawyers, U.S. Bank, utilITise and Wallis Bank for supporting the 11th Annual OPEN Houston Conference.

Eleven years in, OPEN Houston continues to bring Houston's builders into the same room.

And we're glad we were there for this one.