HubSpot retired a 15-year-old word, and George B. Thomas wanted to be a fly on the wall in the room where it got decided. In this episode, he and Chad Hohn get the next best thing: a sit-down with Kat Tooley, HubSpot's VP of Global Events and Experiential Marketing and the architect behind turning INBOUND into UNBOUND.

This is the untold origin story, the internal fears, and what UNBOUND 2026 actually means for the humans who built their businesses on the word INBOUND.

In this episode:

• UNBOUND started as a half-joke at an internal kickoff, then survived a multi-year planning cycle that could have killed it
• Why Yamini stayed the path: "We have conviction and we know this name feels right. We've done the testing."
• HubSpot didn't bury inbound. It outgrew the word. The methodology is still alive.
• The thread tying Tom Brady, Cynthia Erivo, Mel Robbins, and Suni Williams to "unbound"
• How HubSpot runs the whole event out of its own portal, with Breeze and a full ROI model: "its own little HubSpot within
HubSpot"
• Kat's two-rule discipline for a rebrand that lands: evolution, not revolution
• What's new for 2026: the Exchanges, the Spotlight keynote, and a new CPO on stage

Register for UNBOUND 2026 (September 16 to 18, Boston): https://unbound.hubspot.com

Read the full recap: https://sidekickstrategies.com/podcast/hubheroes-inbound-to-unbound-origin-story

The UNBOUND 2026 agenda just dropped, and after picking it apart live with Max Cohen and Chad Hohn, here's the short version: this year's lineup rewards humans who chase signal over hype. The sessions that matter most aren't the ones with the loudest titles. They're the ones that fix something specific in your business, deliver real ROI, and shift the way you think about HubSpot, AI, and the way humans actually buy.

If you're going to UNBOUND and you're chasing the title, you're doing yourself a disservice. Go for the perspective shifts, the leverage moves, and the sessions that send you home with something you can ship Monday morning. That's the lens we used on this episode, and it's the lens we think every HubHero should use when building their personal agenda.