Management’s roots are in the industrial age, with its focus on cranking out known solutions with ever greater efficiency. Now that organizational survival demands more creative breakthroughs, how do methods and frameworks have to change?

Chair:
Howard Yu Professor of Management & Innovation, IMD

Speakers:
Jayshree Seth Chief Science Advocate & Corporate Scientist, 3M
Valla Vakili Global Head of Innovation, Visa
Julie Teigland EMEIA  Area Managing Partner, EY
Keiichiro Nishi Senior Vice President, Head of CEO Office, Fujitsu Limited

It’s been twenty-five years since Peter Drucker outlined what he called the greatest challenge facing management in the twenty-first century: improving the productivity of knowledge work. What did he predict would prove hardest, and what did he never imagine?

Chair:
Jenny Darroch Dean & Chair in Business Leadership, Farmer School of Business at Miami University

Speakers:
Karen Linkletter Director of the Management as a Liberal Art Research Institute
Timo Meynhardt Chair of Business Psychology and Leadership, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Mgmt; Managing Director, Center for Leadership & Values in Society, University of St. Gallen
Peter Paschek Management Consultant; Lecturer, Technische Universität München

Drucker once observed that "the greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence itself, but to act with yesterday's logic." As generative AI brings a new wave of disruption, how must—and how can—leaders change their thinking?

Speaker
Brian Solis Head of Global Innovation, ServiceNow, Futurist, Best-Selling Author of Mindshift.
Stephan Balzer thought leader in cultural and technological business innovation

If business history teaches anything, it’s that large organizations struggle to spot and seize on the exciting new opportunities emerging all around them. Is it a problem of who gets hired to work in them—or what the organization does to them once they’re onboard? What can we learn from places where entrepreneurial flames burn bright?

Chair:
Julia Culen Managing & Founding Partner, CCG Conscious Consulting Group

Speakers:
Claire Léost President of Prisma Media and member of the Vivendi Management Board
Hasan Alsuaimi Founder and CEO, Diom Holding Company
Kevin Nolan President & CEO, GE Appliances, a Haier Company

Knowledge workers are decision-makers. But as organizations and economies become more knowledge-intensive, are the people in them getting better at making good choices? How could we help them build that strength? And in an age of increasingly smart machines, should we bother?Knowledge workers are decision-makers. But as organizations and economies become more knowledge-intensive, are the people in them getting better at making good choices? How could we help them build that strength? And in an age of increasingly smart machines, should we bother?

Chair:
Stefan Wolfgang Pickl VP, German Committee for Disaster Reduction; Honorary member, German Society for Operations Research

Speakers:
Peter Kirchschläger Ethics-Professor and Director of the Institute of Social Ethics ISE at the University of Lucerne
Mathis Bitton Ph.D student in the Government department, Harvard University
Liesje Meijknecht Partner McKinsey & Company, Leader Talent & Leadership practices Europe

The conventional wisdom about the rise of artificial intelligence is that it will disrupt knowledge work in the way that industrial technologies of the past disrupted manual labor. Some predict the effects of this whole new toolkit will be even more profound .

Chair:
Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño President, IE University

in coversation with:
David Weinberger Senior Researcher, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University
Andre Reichow-Prehn Managing Partner, Central Europe Unit 42, Palo Alto Networks

Looking for inspiration on how to apply the hottest AI tools in your operations? Here, the focus is on real-world deployments that yielded impressive gains—from R&D and autonomous maintenance to advertising and staffing management. What were the keys to their success? What might be the unintended consequences?

Chair:
Isabella Mader Executive Director, Excellence Institute

Speakers:
John Walsh VP Technology, CTO Fujitsu Europe
Hamilton Mann VP Digital, Thales, Digital and AI for Good Pioneer
Rainer Zahradnik Country Head Switzerland, Tata Consultancy Services
David Beatty Professor Emeritus of strategy and Governance, University of Toronto

Scientists are the quintessential knowledge workers, and their work—from mRNA vaccines to carbon nanotubes—is essential to societal progress. Yet few would tell you their efforts are managed for maximum impact. How could science-based organizations do better?

Chair:
Johan Roos Exec. Director, Vienna Center for Management Innovation (VCMI) think tank; Presidential Advisor, Hult Internat. Business School

Speakers:
Sabine Herlitschka CEO, Infineon Technologies Austria AG
André Loesekrug-Pietri Chair, Joint European Disruptive Initiative (J.E.D.I.)
Francois Grey Nanotechnology scientist and Co-Director of Citizen Cyberlab, University of Geneva
Georg Kopetz Co-founder and member of the executive board at TTTech

As a new generation of knowledge workers bring different expectations to workplaces, leaders should rethink their responsibilities—and that starts with understanding how they work, and what they aspire to achieve in the professional world.

Speaker:
Marine Hadengue Executive Director Higher Education for Good Foundation // Youth Talks
Kristy Anamoutou Chief Products & Technical Operations Officer, bluenove

If your job is to take teams of people to greater heights of achievement, you should be learning all you can about what makes them tick.

Chair:
Julia Kirby Senior Editor, Harvard University Press

Speakers:
Robin Dunbar Professor of Evolutionary Psychology, University of Oxford
Manfred Kets de Vries Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organisational Change, INSEAD
Gianpiero Petriglieri Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, INSEAD

Recent developments on the global political landscape are sending seismic shocks through commercial ecosystems. Will future historians look back on this moment as a catastrophic end of an era, or the turning point toward accelerated progress and prosperity? What key moves by powerful policymakers—and energized citizens—could make all the difference?

Chair:
Monika Rosen VP, Austro-American-Society

Speakers:
Margarete Schramböck Board Member of Aramco Digital; former Minister of Digital and Economic Affairs in Austria
Adrian Wooldridge Global Business Columnist, Bloomberg Opinion
Matthias Berninger Executive Vice President, Public Affairs, Sustainability & Safety, Bayer AG

Broadly speaking, managers know that AI can augment the efforts of knowledge workers—and yield impressive productivity gains. Yet many struggle to deploy it in specific areas. In this session, learn the stories of two smart solutions rapidly applied in businesses, and what they teach about making AI projects deliver.

Speakers:
Ashraf Abushady Senior Advisor on Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
Curt Carlson Distinguished Executive in Residence, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Certain ideas about how to run organizations have been thoroughly contested and disproven, only to rise again and continue wreaking their havoc. In this lively session, management observers who have seen this movie before call out the undead notions that should finally be stopped in their tracks.

Chair:
Bill Fischer Emeritus Professor of Innovation Management, IMD; Senior Lecturer, MIT's Sloan School of Mgmt

Speakers:
Michele Zanini Co-founder, Management Lab
Tammy Erickson Leadership Advisor; Leadership programme Leading Businesses into the Future, London Business School
Lenka Pincot Chief of Staff to the CEO and global executive leader, PMI
Robin Speculand CEO, Bridges Consultancy Int; Co-founder Strategy Implementation Institute

Recent years have seen a surge of social justice activism by organizations. Meanwhile, have employers made progress in their first responsibility, treating their own people with fairness and respect? How can the physical workplace provide an authentic experience for employees, managers and visitors?

Chair:
Ania Wieckowski-Masinter Executive Editor, Harvard Business Review

Speakers:
Sarah Green Carmichael Editor, Bloomberg Opinion
Philip Tidd Head of Consulting Europe, Gensler
Kim Dabbs Global Vice President of ESG and Social Innovation, Steelcase
Amii Barnard-Bahn C-suite Coach, Strategic Advisor

The global pandemic unleashed in 2020 forced workplaces into unplanned experiments with remote and hybrid working models—and now, many are dialing back those arrangements. What did we learn in the process about the conditions people need to do their best work? How does an organization decide what is right for its own workforce?

Chair:
Guillaume Alvarez Director Corporate Development, Peter Drucker Society Europe Strategy, and Development Officer, ThinkYoung

Speakers:
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox Global expert on 21st century leadership, gender and generational balance, longevity and the future of work and careers
Mickael Locoh VP Southern Europe & Africa, Steelcase
Dan Pontefract Leadership and Culture strategist
Christophe Serna Co-founder and Corporate Business Director, Voyage Privé

We hear that new tools, processes, and organizational structures have delivered an explosion of knowledge worker productivity—but is it true? How do we know one way or the other?

Chair:
Anjli Raval Management Editor, Financial Times

Speakers:
Lina Žemaitytė Kirkman Expert on digital wellbeing and workplace productivity
Claudio Fernández-Aráoz Expert on leadership and talent, family businesses, and personal growth; Executive Fellow for Executive Education, HBS
Alexander Alonso Chief Data & Insights Officer at SHRM

A deep dive session for comprehensive exploration of the current state of Generative AI adoption.
Act Vs. Observe / Potential Vs. Potential Pitfalls / Cost Today Vs. Benefits Tomorrow

Chair:
Isabella Mader Executive Director, Excellence Institute

Speakers:
Lalit Karwa Head, TCS PACE, Tata Consultancy Services, Europe
Rainer Kegel CEO, Cortical.io

When talented people combine their strengths, amazing things can happen. But it takes skilled project management to structure productive knowledge work by teams. This session explores the key elements.

Chair:
Ade McCormack Founder, Intelligent Leadership Hub

Speakers:
LuAnn Piccard Chair of the Board of Directors, Project Management Institute (PMI)
Eckart Windhagen Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company
Bernardo Vargas Gibsone  Managing Director, DigitalBridge Group

Some component of any worker’s labor is “uncontracted”—exerted at their own discretion, according to how much they care about the success of the enterprise. For contractors, consultants, and other knowledge workers who work at arm’s length from your organization, that is a very large component indeed. What inspires them to contribute best efforts?

Chair:
Dainius Baltrušaitis Organizational Psychologist and Entrepreneur

Speakers:
Josée Touchette Executive Director, OECD
John Winsor Founder and CEO, Open Assembly; Executive in Residence, Harvard Business School
Asheesh Advani President and CEO of JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide

How must a new generation be equipped to lead in a crazy world?
In this crowd-created session, discuss the unprecedented opportunities and challenges of "The Next Education".

Chair:
Jyoti Guptara Bestselling Author and Business Storytelling Expert

in conversation with:
Chukwuebuka Ozoani (NG) - Bruna Gomes (BR) - Aaron Sanga (TZ) - João Paulo Brainer (BR) - Kateryna Rybalochka (UA)

Organizations do not succeed in isolation any more than individual people do—they are densely connected in webs of mutual dependence and cooperation. Learning to lead beyond the walls of a single enterprise is a next-level capability, but increasingly, demanded of today’s managers.

Chair:
Peter Williamson Professor of International Management, University of Cambridge

Speakers:
Gonzalo Brujó Global CEO, Interbrand
Antonella Mei-Pochtler Non-Exec. Director, Generali Group & Publicis; Vice Chair, European Forum Alpbach; Exec. Vice Chair, Pochtler Industrieholding
Thomas Kirste Director at Bosch Management Consulting Innovation for Business & Digital Strategy

Everyone concerned with talent development agrees that changing conditions require new capabilities in the workforce. But that’s where the agreement ends. Given limited resources and an unpredictable future, which new capacities are most important—and exactly how should they be built? Talent development experts offer competing answers.

Chair:
Alex Adamopoulos CEO and founder, Emergn

Speakers:
Léa Peersman CEO & co-founder of Lign.ai
Iryna Arzner Group Head of Retail Customer Growth, Raiffeisen Bank International
Tammy Erickson Leadership Advisor; Leadership programme Leading Businesses into the Future, London Business School

The aging of the global population is a known trend, and all the more pronounced in the knowledge-based enterprises of mature economies. This focused session explores the implications for leaders and managers as more mature individuals make up greater parts of not only their customer bases but their workforces.

Céline Abecassis-Moedas Associate Professor in Strategy and Innovation Mgmt, Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics
in coversation with:
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox Global expert on 21st century leadership, gender and generational balance, longevity and the future of work and careers