Kim Minnick is passionate about building People Ops functions and the performance systems that enable teams to do their best work. She helps leaders turn high performance into a habit through clear expectations, strong manager practices, consistent feedback, and thoughtful accountability. After a decade working inside VC-backed startups, Kim developed a reputation for balancing business needs with meaningful employee experiences. In 2023 she launched her fractional business, Code Traveller HR, where she partners with growing companies to build practical, human-centered People practices that scale with the business.

Delayering, player-coaches, spans of control blowing out.

The manager role is being rewritten and nobody agreed on the new job description. Two teams go head to head on one question: do we need managers anymore?

Expect unfiltered positions from people who have added management layers and taken them out again inside real companies, a moderator keeping them honest, and a live audience vote that settles it.

Bring your own view. You'll need it when voting opens.

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What you'll leave with:

1. A working definition of what a manager is actually for in 2026, including where new model holds up (if there is one) and where it falls over.
2. The strongest case from both sides, argued properly, so you can pressure-test your own structure instead of copying whatever the last big flattening announcement did.
3. Practical signals for when to add or strip a management layer, and what you have to fund instead when you take one out.