Event Details | Agenda | Sponsors & Partners | Community | Hotel | Tickets
Come with a vision. Leave with something your business can use.
Join Black BRAND for three days of practical learning, purposeful connections and opportunities to move your business forward.
Black Diamond Weekend is now Black Diamond Summit.
Building on a decade of connection, learning and opportunity, Black BRAND’s signature event moves into the workweek with a sharper focus on business development, collaboration and growth.
Make time to work on your business. Our new Tuesday-through-Thursday format puts professional development and purposeful networking on your work calendar, with three dedicated days to explore ideas, strengthen relationships and connect with resources for your next stage of growth.
With gratitude to the Commonwealth of Virginia for its support, this year’s theme, Virginia is for Business Lovers, turns support into action through the knowledge we share, the doors we open and the businesses we help move forward.
EVENT DETAILS
You believe in what you’re building. Surround yourself with people who can help you take it further.
Black Diamond Summit brings together more than 500 anticipated business owners, corporate professionals, community leaders and business-support organizations for three days of practical insight, purposeful connection and real opportunity.
Building on the 10-year legacy of Black Diamond Weekend, the Summit opens a new chapter focused on business development, collaboration and growth across Virginia and beyond. It is a place to strengthen your business, share what you know and discover what becomes possible when the right people come together.
LOVE in Action Stations
What does your business need next? A stronger foundation? Greater visibility? A connection that opens a door?
The Summit’s four LOVE in Action Stations help you find the knowledge, expertise and opportunities relevant to your next move. Each connects participation to practical business value.
Explore entrepreneurship, leadership and Virginia business resources. Find insight that helps you sharpen an idea, navigate an opportunity or identify a useful next step.
Give your business the attention behind the ambition. Explore finances, operations and systems, identify areas to strengthen and connect with resources that support a healthier business.
Strengthen how you present, market and sell your business. Gain perspective on your pitch, brand and marketing so the right people understand what you do and why it matters.
Make purposeful connections with potential customers, mentors, suppliers and collaborators. Explore the relationships and opportunities that can help your business grow into something worth passing on.
The Three-Day Agenda
Tuesday
November 2026
10
Start with the forces shaping business in Virginia and the resources that can help companies move forward.
Explore Virginia’s policy and economic outlook, access to capital and community investment, procurement and contracting opportunities, and the paths founders can take toward growth and scale.
Wednesday
November 2026
11
Explore what’s next and how to put it to work.
Discover AI and digital tools for business growth, examine inclusive technology and innovation, consider how to overcome bias in technology, and strengthen the storytelling and pitching skills that help others understand your value.
Thursday
November 2026
12
Celebrate the people, ideas and culture powering Virginia business.
Explore culture as an economic engine, learn from Virginia business success stories and consider how media, influence and brand equity support growth. Connect those ideas to collaboration, leadership and the legacy you want to build.
Virginia Is for Business Lovers
At Black Diamond Summit, business love is something you do.
It is buying from a business you believe in. Sharing knowledge that helps someone move forward. Making an introduction that opens a door. Using Virginia’s resources to build a stronger company. Investing in growth that reaches beyond your own success.
The Black Diamond Summit brings the Commonwealth’s Virginia is for Business Lovers platform to life through those actions.
01
Support entrepreneurship, innovation and the people who see what is possible.
02
Build relationships through networking, mentorship, partnerships and collaboration.
03
Strengthen businesses through marketing, capital, operations, sales and business development.
04
Support businesses that create opportunity, strengthen communities and contribute to Virginia’s economic future.
05
Build lasting value through ownership, investment, knowledge-sharing and generational opportunity.
These five Business Love Languages define what we’re building together. The four LOVE actions help you put that support to work.
The Summit Experience
Build your knowledge. Find your people. Put LOVE to work.
Discover practical learning, purposeful connections and hands-on experiences designed to help your business move forward.
01
Gain useful business knowledge and hear the turning points behind what Virginia businesses have built.
02
Connect with potential customers, partners and resources for buying, hiring, contracting and growth.
03
Turn participation into progress through experiences that build knowledge, strengthen operations, increase visibility and expand your reach.
04
Follow student teams as they tackle a real-world NASA problem, develop solutions and pitch their ideas.
05
Celebrate Virginia business leadership, achievement and the lasting value people create through business.
Community
Past Keynote Speakers
With more than a decade of ideas and inspiration, past Black Diamond Weekend keynote speakers have included John Hope Bryant, Les Brown, Maggie Anderson, Ron Busby and Natalie Madeira Cofield.
Their participation is part of the event’s history of bringing business perspectives and experience together.
Sponsors & Partners
Help turn business ambition into opportunity. Black Diamond Summit invites partners to support the knowledge, connections, visibility and resources that help Virginia businesses grow.
Align your organization with experiences attendees actively use, from purposeful business matching and practical learning to innovation, storytelling and the closing celebration.
Support the Summit. Champion a Business Love Language. Power a Signature Experience.
Our Partners
Working Together
Thank you to our local and regional co-conveners for helping make Black Diamond Summit possible!
Plan Your Stay
Traveling to Virginia Beach for the Black Diamond Summit? Whether you’re from out of the area or even here in Hampton Roads, level up this three-day experience by staying overnight. Select a hotel partner and click the booking link in each listing to reserve your room.
Black Diamond Summit is Black BRAND’s three-day business-development experience bringing together business owners, corporate professionals, community leaders and business-support organizations. It combines practical insight, purposeful connections and opportunities to support business growth across Virginia.
November 10–12, 2026, at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, 1000 19th Street, Virginia Beach, VA 23451.
Yes. The Summit builds on Black BRAND’s annual Black Diamond Weekend. The 2026 gathering is the 11th annual Black Diamond event, presented as Black Diamond Summit: Virginia Is for Business Lovers.
Business owners and entrepreneurs, corporate professionals, community leaders and organizations that support business development will all find opportunities to learn, connect and collaborate.
It means putting support for business into action: sharing knowledge, making useful introductions, buying from and partnering with businesses, and helping more Virginia companies grow.
Choose your ticket on the Summit registration page ↗.
Review the sponsorship deck ↗, then contact Blair Durham at blair@BlackBrand.Biz or 757.288.7400 to discuss a partnership.
