Hosted By:
What is Echo?
ECHO is more than a conference — it’s a movement. Each conversation begins with a question, an idea, or a challenge, and its impact reverberates across organizations, communities, and the zoo and aquarium profession. Through digital dialogues, interactive forums, and an annual gathering, ECHO creates space for transformative dialogue, bringing together leaders in our field and visionaries from beyond it to reimagine what’s possible for our organizations and our world.
The ECHO Conference is the centerpiece of this work — a deliberately intimate gathering limited to 30 zoo and aquarium leaders. Hosted in partnership with leading zoos and aquariums across the country, the conference is a curated space to sit in the unfamiliar: three days of candid dialogue, collaborative exploration, and collisions between courageous, creative leaders and provocative thought partners from unexpected fields. Together, participants surface assumptions, wrestle with big questions, and push the boundaries of what leadership can mean and look like in a time of urgent change.
The experience is intentionally small, deeply personal, and designed to send energy and ideas back into the profession — sparking ripples of change that extend far beyond the room.
Hosted by TESSERE | Zoo & Aquarium Division
ECHO26 Theme
Intersections of Impact | Where People, Nature, and Possibility Meet
Zoos and aquariums hold a unique position – at the intersection of mission and margin, people and planet, community needs and global imperatives.
At ECHO26, we’ll step into that tension with voices from beyond our field, pushing past assumptions and asking what becomes possible when we approach these intersections as opportunities – places where purpose drives strategy, resources fuel impact, and today’s choices shape tomorrow for people, wildlife, and our planet.
