Your Business Grows When Your Team Grows: Inside iGROW 2026 in Dumaguete

Every year, there are events that leave a mark, not just on the people who attend, but on the city that hosts them. iGROW 2026 was one of those events. From May 30 to June 6, 2026, the City of Gentle People became the epicenter of something truly special.

WrkPod’s flagship annual gathering brought together 500 participants, 100 business owners and 400 of their Philippine-based Virtual Assistants and Professionals (VA-Ps) for a full week of immersive professional development, strategic team alignment, sporting competition, and genuine human connection. All of it unfolded in the warm, welcoming heart of Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental.

This was not just another conference. It was a homecoming, a graduation, a celebration, and a masterclass all rolled into one extraordinary week.

What is iGROW?

iGROW is a one-of-a-kind immersive experience designed specifically for business owners and their Philippine-based team members. Unlike a typical corporate conference where attendees fly in, sit through presentations, and fly back out, iGROW is built around a far more intentional purpose: closing the distance, both physical and relational between business owners and the virtual professionals who power their operations every day.

The concept is simple but profound. Many of the clients who work with WrkPod run their businesses from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world. Their VA-Ps, on the other hand, are based right here in the Philippines, talented, dedicated professionals who show up every day to support businesses they may never have seen in person. iGROW changes that. It brings both sides of that relationship into the same room, the same city, the same experience and what happens when they finally meet face to face is nothing short of transformative.

This year marked the fourth time WrkPod has hosted this signature event in the Philippines, and with each edition, iGROW continues to grow in scale, depth, and impact. Speaking to media at the conference, WrkPod CEO Kody Thompson reflected on just how far the event has come: “We are here at the 4th iGROW conference that WrkPod has run, here in the Philippines. And we have at the moment inside about 400 virtual professionals that work in our WrkPod sites and we have about 70 of our clients that have flown in from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and other countries from around the world to spend time learning with their team that’s here.”

Thompson also spoke to the deeper mission driving the gathering. “The purpose of the iGROW event is for our clients to come to the Philippines and to experience the talent that is here in Dumaguete and around the Philippines, and to spend time with their local teams that we have built for them at WrkPod. It’s also an opportunity for the virtual professionals to be upskilled in emerging technologies.”

Those words capture the essence of iGROW perfectly. It is not just a conference. It is an investment in people, in relationships, and in the future of work.

The Conference: Two Days of High-Impact Learning

At the heart of iGROW 2026 was a two-day intensive business conference held on June 2 and 3 at Brooke’s Place in Dumaguete. Each day was designed as a full immersive experience, combining expert keynote sessions with collaborative, hands-on workshops built to spark new thinking and drive real change inside businesses.

The speaker lineup for 2026 was nothing short of world-class. Dale Beaumont, Kody Thompson, Luke Chant, David Staughton, Clea Jones, Wally Green, Dean Payn, James Gregors, Nadia Haryanto, Adrian Falk, and Andrew Wadsworth each brought their expertise to the stage covering business strategy, leadership development, team culture, productivity systems, emerging technologies, AI, and the evolving future of remote work. Attendees walked away not just inspired but genuinely equipped: with frameworks, tools, and a renewed sense of what is possible for their businesses and their teams.

What made the conference especially powerful was who was in the room. Business owners sat alongside their VA-Ps, experiencing the same sessions, absorbing the same insights, and building a shared language for growth. Between main sessions, dedicated time windows allowed owners to run their own internal workshops using the momentum of the conference to go deeper into their company’s culture, systems, and processes with their VA teams right beside them.

Pickleball Clinic with Wally Green and Harrison Brown

The excitement surrounding iGROW 2026 was not contained within the conference walls alone. On June 3 and 4, international pickleball champions Wally Green and Harrison Brown opened their exclusive coaching clinics not just to iGROW participants but to the general public as well, making it one of the most accessible and community-facing highlights of the entire week. Anyone with a passion for the sport, or simply a curiosity about it, was welcome to step onto the court and learn directly from two of the best players in the game.

For Dumaguete locals and pickleball enthusiasts across Negros Oriental, this was a rare and remarkable opportunity. Wally Green and Harrison Brown are not names you encounter every day, and having them here, in this city, coaching players of all levels was a gift to the community that extended far beyond WrkPod. Whether participants were seasoned competitors looking to sharpen their game, beginners picking up a paddle for the very first time, or simply curious members of the public drawn in by the buzz, everyone was welcomed with the same energy and enthusiasm.

The clinics were high-spirited, practical, and genuinely fun, a perfect bridge between the professional intensity of the conference and the celebratory spirit of the days that followed. For many local attendees, it was their first real introduction to pickleball at an international level, and by all accounts, it left a lasting impression on the city’s growing sporting community.

Farewell Party: Color Music Festival

June 4 brought the week’s most emotionally charged evening, the iGROW Farewell Party, themed as a Color Music Festival. This grand send-off for all clients and VA-Ps was a celebration in the truest sense: a night filled with music, color, laughter, and the kind of warmth that only comes from a week genuinely well spent together.

It was a moment to honor the growth achieved, the connections forged, and the shared experience that would bond this group of 500 people long after they returned to their respective corners of the world. For many, it was the highlight of the entire week.

WrkPod Pickleball Championship 2026

The final two days of the iGROW week belonged to sports. June 5 and 6 saw the staging of the WrkPod Pickleball Championship 2026 at FKS Gymnasium in Sibulan, a tournament that was open not only to WrkPod Virtual Assistants and professionals but to the general public as well, making it a true community event that extended the spirit of iGROW beyond the conference walls. Prizes awaited the winners, with five hundred thousand pesos on the line and competitive pride at stake for every participant who stepped onto the court.

Until Next Year

iGROW 2026 was more than a conference. It was a living proof that when you invest in your people, everything grows. Businesses grow. Teams grow. Trust grows. Confidence grows. And the connections forged across a week like this become the foundation for everything that comes next.

For the 400 VA-Ps who represented the best of Philippine talent, iGROW 2026 was a moment of recognition, celebration, and genuine professional growth. For the clients who flew in from across the world, it was a reminder of why they chose to build their teams here, in this country, in this city, with these people. And for WrkPod, it was another chapter in an ongoing story of what is possible when community, commerce, and care are brought together with purpose.

Dumaguete delivered, as it always does. We’ll see you at iGROW 2027.