[Pictured from top left: Alex Akel, President, Akel Homes, Audrey Lam, Market President, Oakwood Homes, David McDonald, President, Defy Investment/Davis Homes, Nikki Pechet, Co-Founder, CEO, Homebound, Wade Jurney, Co-Founder, President, National Home Corp. Illustrations: Maggie Goldstone]

This is not a normal market.

2025 has brought a sharp slowdown in new-home sales, a backlog of unsold inventory, and a buyer base spooked by costs, uncertainty, and shifting economic signals. Margins are tight. Incentives have lost their punch. Financing is expensive and fickle. And on top of all that, climate-driven risk is changing where — and whether — you can build.

In this environment, the leaders who keep their organizations strong do two things at once:

• Run today’s operations with discipline, speed, and focus
• Re-tool for a future where data, digital tools, and customer expectations move faster than ever

That’s precisely why the President’s Power Panel at Focus On Excellence 2025 exists. This conversation will bring together five leaders who have built success in the here and now and are already steering their companies toward the 2030 competitive landscape.

From October 27–29 at the Four Seasons Denver, the Focus On Excellence summit will give senior homebuilding executives a working forum — not a lecture series — to connect, exchange, and walk away with a plan they can use. The Power Panel is the first big anchor session of the event, setting the tone for everything that follows.

Register today.

The Context: Present Pressure, Future Pull

The high-level design for this year’s conference is built around four balancing acts:

1. Maximize revenue today while building capacity for tomorrow
2. Leverage the wisdom of experienced leaders while tapping into emerging talent
3. Manage what you can control while preparing for what you can’t
4. Keep your human systems and business models tuned to evolving market dynamics

The Power Panel will put those tensions on the table from the start. These are not theoretical debates — they’re the real trade-offs presidents face when deciding whether to open a new community, replace a core system, change product mix, or bring in new leadership.

Meet the Five

Each panelist brings a distinct blend of born-legacy operational acumen and future-forward strategic embrace.

Wade Jurney — Co-Founder & President, National Home Corp
A master of operational efficiency and affordability, Jurney has scaled multiple entry-level homebuilding businesses in some of the most challenging cost environments in the country. His focus on return-on-equity, velocity, and disciplined cost control offers a sharp counterpoint to “growth at any cost” thinking. Now at NHC, he’s marrying that model to a broader platform that includes build-to-rent and national market reach.

David McDonald — President, Defy Investments / Davis Homes
McDonald represents the long-term private capital perspective. His acquisition of Davis Homes wasn’t a flip — it was a commitment to modernizing homebuilding through capital stability, operational partnerships, and selective integration of new technologies. He’ll speak about how private capital and homebuilding leadership can align for sustainable growth, even in volatile cycles.

Alex Akel — President, Akel Homes
A second-generation Florida builder, Akel has built his brand on “five-star service” for buyers. His myAkel platform turns the build process into a transparent, tech-enabled experience. He blends family-business heritage with Harvard-honed strategic thinking, proving that customer intimacy and digital execution can scale together.

Audrey Lam — Market President, Oakwood Homes
Lam transitioned from CFO to Market President, bringing financial discipline to the operational core. She leads in a Clayton-owned enterprise that has adopted an asset-light land strategy and build-cycle technologies to maintain focus on customer value, product design, and execution. Her perspective bridges finance, culture, systems, technologies, and thinking, and on-the-ground operations.

Nikki Pechet — Co-Founder & CEO, Homebound
Pechet launched Homebound in the aftermath of California wildfires to reinvent homebuilding as a tech-enabled, vertically integrated service. She combines Silicon Valley scale thinking with the practical realities of entitlements, supply chains, and local market complexity. Her lens on how technology can compress timelines and personalize delivery will challenge traditional assumptions.

From Panel to Workshop: Designing the 2030 Builder

The Power Panel isn’t a stand-alone. It’s the launch pad for a multi-day working process.

After the Monday afternoon session, attendees will take part in a “Gallery Walk” of Today’s Challenges and Tomorrow’s Opportunities, drawn from pre-conference surveys. This will get everyone’s most pressing issues out in the open, organized by themes like:

• Capital and land access
• Talent and leadership pipeline
• Tech stack integration
• Climate and insurance risk
• Buyer confidence and demand shifts

From there, the program moves into scenario planning — mapping U.S. homebuilding’s possible paths to 2030, from “Houston, We Have a Solution” to “The Big Squeeze”. Each scenario tests how your organization might perform under different economic and regulatory conditions, and what you’d need to change now to thrive later.

The capstone comes when participants work in small teams to design — from a blank sheet — a homebuilding organization built for 2030. Using a five-part organization design template, you’ll map:

• Structure: governance, leadership roles, and business units
• Process & Technology: workflows, AI, and digital tool use
• People: talent sourcing, development, and retention
• Culture: values, leadership style, and norms
• Partnerships: suppliers, channels, policy alliances

Why This Matters for Leaders Now

In today’s market, clarity beats optimism. You can’t will the market to turn. But you can sharpen your ability to respond, adapt, and invest with purpose.

The Power Panel is a rare chance to hear — in one conversation — from leaders who are:

• Running profitably in harsh conditions
• Betting on technology and data as force multipliers
• Bridging generational leadership gaps
• Balancing customer experience with operational discipline
• Building optionality into their business models

For presidents, COOs, and strategic executives, the discussion offers both mirrors and windows — a mirror on how your own decisions stack up, and a window into how others are solving the same problems differently.

What You’ll Take Back

By the time the summit wraps on Wednesday, you’ll leave with:

• Three challenges and three opportunities you’ve pressure-tested with peers
• A scenario-based strategy lens for your 2026–2030 planning
• An organization design draft you can refine with your leadership team
• Connections you can call on long after Denver — sounding boards, partners, even future hires

And maybe most importantly, you’ll leave with a renewed sense that you’re not solving these puzzles alone.

The Take-Away

In the next five years, the most successful homebuilding organizations will be those that:

• Run lean and fast without cutting corners
• Use technology to connect — not complicate — their operations
• Attract and keep leaders who can navigate uncertainty
• Align culture, systems, and market strategy
• Turn constraints into catalysts for growth

The Focus On Excellence Presidents’ Power Panel will show what that looks like in practice — from five different angles — and then give you the space, tools, and peers to start building your version.

If you’re responsible for steering a homebuilding enterprise through this market and into the next decade, Denver in late October isn’t just another industry event. It’s the room you need to be in.