May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the timing feels right to introduce one of the keynote speakers taking the main stage at CRS Scottsdale this fall: Todd Sale, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience at Corpay.
Todd brings over three decades of operational leadership experience to his keynote, along with a willingness to draw on his own personal journey. His session, Mental Athlete: Leadership in a Dysregulated World, explores the connection between a leader’s mental health and their effectiveness on the job, and offers a framework for thinking about self-regulation as a professional practice.
His central premise is that self-regulation (how a leader manages their own mental and emotional state) is a meaningful and often overlooked dimension of professional performance. He draws on the analogy of an elite athlete, for whom mental conditioning is as deliberate and structured as physical training, and asks what it might look like for leaders to bring that same intentionality to their own well-being.
- Retention and why high performers sometimes leave without explanation
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The relationship between stress, decision-making, and leadership clarity
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How team morale can shift gradually and what leaders can watch for
- And more
Rather than prescribing a single approach, Todd’s goal is to open up a conversation about mental health as a legitimate dimension of leadership, one that deserves the same attention as operational metrics and team development.
Join us at Customer Response Summit at The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Arizona, September 30–October 2, 2026, where Todd will take the main stage alongside today’s most forward-thinking CX leaders. If you’re navigating the evolving demands of leadership, culture, AI, and employee experience, this is your opportunity to step away from the day-to-day, gain new perspectives, and connect with your peers facing many of the same challenges. We look forward to seeing you there!
