Fifteen years strong and bigger than ever, the 2025 Manufacturing First Expo & Conference returns to Green Bay’s Resch Expo Oct. 29. This year’s event will feature Manufacturing First’s first-ever female keynote speaker, “Destination Workplace” founder Betsy Allen-Manning of Dallas, Texas.
“I think it’s great that we’re having an amazing speaker, regardless if [they are] male or female, but looking at our 15-year history we’ve never had a female keynote,” says Ann Franz, executive director of the Northeast Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance, which works annually with Insight to put on the event. “So I’m excited about that.”
Franz says Allen-Manning was an appealing choice to keynote Manufacturing First 2025 because talent retention is an ongoing theme for both Insight and NEWMA, and NEWMA’s next Future of Work Summit in spring 2026 will focus exclusively on the issue.
“We’re going to be doing several events leading up to the summit, all on retention — and Betsy is really going to be kicking off that conversation,” Franz says. “We work so hard to find somebody, but now you gotta invest even more in keeping the person.”
Allen-Manning says she created her Destination Workplace program to help employers be more than just “pizza parties and ping-pong tables,” and in her consulting and speaking career she focuses on helping leaders navigate the disconnect that has resulted in about 94% of executives being unable to describe their corporate culture in a way that matches the lived experiences of their workforce.
Working with the U.S. Census Bureau and Center for Generational Kinetics, Destination Workplace conducted a national workplace trend study that identified five key employee experiences real employees have said make somewhere a “destination” workplace: supportive leadership teams, career path transparency, purpose-driven culture, sense of team and corporate wellness programs.
The study showed, Allen-Manning says, that “people are wanting to work for a purpose, not a paycheck” and that culture is the number one factor in retaining employees.
“I just thought, this needs to be shared with the world,” Allen-Manning says. “People are desperate right now. They’re not just curious; they are desperate for attracting and retaining good talent. And they just don’t know how to do it anymore.”
In her keynote address Oct. 29, Allen‑Manning will present “How Visionary Leaders Improve Engagement, Develop Talent & Build a Culture That People Love” with the goal of helping attendees take actions that help halt the revolving door that increasingly plagues the manufacturing industry.
“If you’re having any struggles at all, you’ll get some motivation,” Allen‑Manning says of her speech. “But I want to go beyond inspiring; I’m going to give very, very tangible ideas that you can go back, roll up your sleeves and put to work to make it happen.”
Allen-Manning’s keynote will start the day at 8 a.m. and is sponsored by R&R Insurance and Werner Electric Supply.
Registration for the 15th annual Manufacturing First Expo & Conference is open now at insightonbusiness.com/manufacturingfirst.
