For many of us, the question of what comes next in our careers is often not far from our minds—the next job or title change, the next business venture—and, eventually, we start asking ourselves what we will do after our careers. Chip Conley, a leading hospitality entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author, believes we should never stop asking what’s next.


A storied career that has included being one of the first boutique hoteliers and a mentor, or modern elder, to the founders of AirBnB, led Chip to what he calls the “Baja aha” moment. While sitting on a beach in Mexico, he was struck with the realization that maybe he and his peers struggled to navigate midlife because they did not have the proper guidance. This set Chip on a mission to help those transitioning into “second adulthood” to channel their wisdom to discover their purpose that will guide them through their next stage of life.


In this Virtual Gathering, Chip will join Cheryl Rosner, Conscious Capitalism, Inc. Board Chair, for a rich conversation about how he founded what The New York Times calls “the world’s first midlife wisdom school,” MEA (Modern Elder Academy), the questions you should ask to discover your second-phase-of-life purpose, why intergenerational, community-focused connections are key—even in the corporate world, and why Chip believes that life truly gets better with age. 



Chip Conley

Founder & CEO, MEA

Chip Conley is on a midlife mission. After disrupting the hospitality industry twice, first as the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second-largest operator of boutique hotels in the U.S., and then as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy, leading a worldwide revolution in travel, Conley co-founded MEA (Modern Elder Academy) in January 2018 in Baja California, Mexico. Inspired by his experience of intergenerational mentoring as a ‘modern elder’ at Airbnb, where his guidance was instrumental to the company’s extraordinary transformation from fast-growing start-up to the world’s most valuable hospitality brand, MEA is the world's first ‘midlife wisdom school’ and has a campus opening on a 2,600-acre regenerative horse ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico in early 2024. Dedicated to reframing the concept of aging, MEA supports students to navigate midlife with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. A New York Times bestselling author, Conley's 7th book "Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age" is about rebranding midlife to help people understand the upside of this often-misunderstood life stage and he was asked to give a 2023 TED talk on the "midlife chrysalis".

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