FORUM PROGRAM

Eduardo P. Braun Leadership expert, consultant and author (Conference Chair)

Gary Hamel Director, Management Lab; Visiting professor, LBS
John Ferriola CEO (Retired), Nucor
Jos de Blok Founder, Buurtzorg
 

Tracey Davidson Deputy CEO, Handelsbanken Plc; Chair, Handelsbanken Wealth and Asset Management
Florent Menegaux CEO, Michelin
Kevin Nolan CEO, GE Appliances
Michele Zanini Co-founder, Management Lab

THINKERS CORNER #1

The AI Power Shift
 

Moderator
Jacob Haesler Serial entrepreneur

Speaker
Léa Steinacker Chief Strategy Officer, ada - a learning initiative focused on the future of work and socio-technological change
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Léa Steinacker argues that to reap the benefits of AI -- and avoid harmful outcomes -- we must understand how its applications shift power in industries, societies, and human relationships. In this dialogue, she and Jakob Haesler explore why leaders must pay attention to AI's "code capital."

THINKERS CORNER #2

Peter Drucker: Leadership from the viewpoint of a conservative christian Anarchist
 

Moderator
Timo Meynhardt Professor for Business Psychology and Leadership, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management

Speaker
Peter Paschek Management Consultant
—
The discussion will center around basic questions: Why is managerial work also a social task? Is there a useful distinction between management and leadership? What would Peter say about digitization?

THINKERS CORNER #3

Leadership and Lovemarks in a Crazy World

Moderator
Bernhard Kerres Former Opera Singer & Silcion Valley Entrepreneur

Speaker
Kevin Roberts Founder Red Rose Consulting; former CEO Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi
—
“In crazy times, everyone must lead” wrote Kevin Roberts in his latest book, "64 Shots" in 2016. Facing the world after Supervuca, with the COVID19 crisis bringing unimaginable challenges to leaders around the world, Kevin Roberts and Bernhard Kerres will jam on the question, if leadership is still possible or if it is just survival.

THINKERS CORNER #4

The Imperative for Delivering Value Across Society

Moderator
Curtis R. Carlson Distinguished Executive in Residence Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Former CEO of SRI International

Speaker
Ya-Qin Zhang Founder and Chairman of Blue Entropy LLC.; former President of Baidu Inc.
—
Value Creation is a mindset and a set of skills. We will discuss fundamental value creation concepts that apply across society and suggest ways we can improve, whether as a researcher, company CEO, university, or government official.

Moderator
Michael Fleischhacker TV Anchor and Journalist

Speakers
Radoslaw Kedzia Vice President, Huawei CEEN Region
Fleur Pellerin Founder and Chairwoman, Korelya Capital; Former minister for SMEs, Innovation and the Digital Economy
Margaret Heffernan Entrepreneur; Professor, University of Bath School of Management England
Dinesh Paliwal Board member Bristol-Myers Squibb, Nestlé and Raytheon Technologies Corporation and Harman
Peter Williamson Professor of International Management, University of Cambridge & Judge Business School

—
Organizations value certain qualities and actions in leaders when times are good. Do the needs fundamentally change when times turn bad? How should leadership teams adapt to business environments transformed by pandemic, protest, and intense politics?

Moderator
Marie Ringler Ashoka Europe Leader

Speakers
Roger Martin Strategy Advisor, former Dean Rotman School, top ranked management thinker, T50
Paul Polman Co-Founder, IMAGINE; former CEO Unilever
Isabelle Spiegel Director Environment, Vinci
Sara Mathew Chair of the Board, Freddie Mac
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp Executive Chairman, LEGO Brand Group

—
In the midst of turmoil, it’s all some organizations can do to deal with immediate threats to business viability. How do some leaders maintain a focus on longer-term and larger-scale imperatives while also weathering the storm of the moment?

Moderator
Andrew Hill Management Editor, Financial Times

Speakers
Donna Flynn VP, Global Talent at Steelcase
Guy Ben-Ishai Head of Economic Policy Research, Google
Tammy Erickson Leadership Advisor; top ranked management thinker, T50
Ashok Krish TCS Global Head, Digital Workplace

—
Even when it seems that old ways of working are being upended, evolving businesses, as Drucker pointed out, are always a mix of continuity and change. How will remote and office work settle into a new balance and what does this mean for leadership?

Moderator
Julia Kirby Senior Editor, Harvard University Press

Speakers
David Weinberger Senior researcher, Harvard’s Klein Center for Internet & Society
Miriam Meckel Founding publisher of ada, the platform for digital life and the economy of the future, at Handelsblatt Media Group
Charles Édouard Bouée Founder and Managing Partner, Alpha Intelligence Capital; former CEO, Roland Berger
Alex Adamopoulos Chief Executive Officer, Emergn Limited

—
Covid-19 has been an exceptional event, but at the same time an eye-opening case study for organizations that rely on models and expect decisions to be dictated by data. Will we ever get to the point where we can truly “follow the science”—and if so, what’s the role of the leader?

Moderator
Aaron De Smet Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company

Speakers
Alain Bejjani CEO Majid Al Futtaim Group
Tiffani Bova Chief Growth and Innovation Evangelist, Salesforce
Steven Baert Chief People & Organization Officer of Novartis
Amy Edmondson Professor of Leadership & Management, HBS

—
The theme of this year’s Forum—Leadership Everywhere—suggests a distribution of leadership, with more people involved and in some way taking charge. But if everyone leads, is anyone following? What if we thought of “leadership” as a set of activities rather than a group of executives?

Moderator
Raymond Hofmann Management & Organisation Designer

Speakers
Santiago Iñiguez President IE University
Julia Middleton Founder & Innovation Officer, Common Purpose
Vikram Mansharamani Lecturer, Harvard University
Maelle Gavet Tech executive, Author
Claudia Crummenerl Managing Director People & Organization globally and Head of People and Organization CE, Capgemini Invent

—
For Drucker the only mark of a leader was that he or she had followers. He didn’t see leaders as defined by certain common traits. Yet, if we want to develop more leaders for rough times ahead, should we not have a clear idea of the strengths to build?

Developing Exceptional Leaders at the Top

Moderator
Amy Bernstein Editor, Harvard Business Review & VP and Executive Editorial Director, Harvard Business Publishing

Speaker
Claudio Fernández-Aráoz Executive Fellow, Harvard Business School
—
In this session, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz and Amy Bernstein will explore the exact type of leaders we need in today's extreme VUCA moment, discuss groundbreaking research on the staggering costs of poor succession planning, and share powerful best practices in the areas of governance, succession, and development—all with the goal of helping organization achieve exceptional leadership at the top

Moderator
Sarah Green Carmichael Editor Bloomberg Opinion

Speaker
Michael J. Gelb Author, Executive Coach and Management Consultant
—
What if your business could be come a place of healing for employees and their families, a source of healing for customers, communities and ecosystems, and a force for healing In society? Join us to explore the leadership competencies needed to translate this idealistic vision into practical reality.

Moderator
Art Kleiner Editor and author

Speaker
Sally Helgesen Author and leadership advisor
—
For ideas to have an impact, others must encounter them, embrace them and act on them. None of this happens as it did in the industrial eara of mass publishing and (more) honest brokers. How do we build the next-level wave of business ideas: the communities of insight we need today.

THINKERS CORNER #8

The Leader as Coach

Moderator
Deepa Prahalad Design strategist and Social InnovatorEditor and author

Speaker
Marshall Goldsmith Executive Educator and Coachr
—
Leadership requires an understanding of how our behaviors and decisions impact our stakeholders and teams. How can leaders create and sustain positive, lasting behavior change in themselves and in their organizations?

THINKERS CORNER #9

Powerful Leaders Pose the Most Powerful Questions

 
Moderator
Julia Kirby Senior Editor, Harvard University Press

Speaker
John Hagel Consultant & Author
—
The most effective leaders of the future will be those who have the most powerful and inspiring questions and who are willing to acknowledge they don't have the answers and that they need and want help in finding the answers. It's in sharp contrast to the conventional view of leaders as the ones who have the answers to all the questions.

THINKERS CORNER #10

Frontier Technologies Startups vs. Big Tech

Moderator
Angelica Kohlmann Chairman & CEO, Kohlmann & Co AG

Speaker
Antoine Blondeau Co-founder and managing partner of Alpha Intelligence Capital
—
Can the disruptive, transformational, power of deep technology startups change the established Big Tech order?

THINKERS CORNER #11

Crisis of Leadership

Moderator
Arne Gast Leader Organization Practice Asia, McKinsey

Speaker
Simon Sinek Optimist
—
What happened to all the great leaders? For the past 30-40 years there appears to be a trend away from good leadership that has wreaked havoc with our businesses, economies and politics. How did we get here and what can we do about it?

THINKERS CORNER #12

Design Thinking in Crisis

Moderator
Bettina Rollow Organisational developer, Executive coach

Speaker
Tim Brown Chair, IDEO
—
Can design thinking help leaders navigate the current crisis? If so, then how is design thinking as an approach evolving to meet the needs of the moment?

Moderator
Alexandra Borchardt Journalist, Journalism professor, Adviser, Book author

Speakers
Megan Reitz Professor of Leadership and Dialogue, Hult Ashridge Executive Education
Rahaf Harfoush Digital Anthropologist
Mathis Bitton Student of philosophy and political theory, Yale University
Gianpiero Petriglieri Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, INSEAD

—
Most leadership issues are perennial, but this one feels starkly new: To degrees never seen before, employees are organizing to hold their own organizations’ feet to the fire on social issues, taking their grievances to the airwaves and summoning pressure through social media. How should leadership respond?

Moderator
Johan Roos Chief Academic Officer, Hult International Business School

Speakers
Darja Isaksson Director General, Vinnova, The Swedish Innovation Agency
Alex Osterwalder Entrepreneur and Business Model Innovator, Co-Founder Strategyzer
Yoshikuni Takashige Chief Strategist, Global Marketing, Fujitsu Limited
Howard Yu LEGO professor of management and innovation, IMD Business School and director of IMD’s signature Advanced Management Program
Falco Weidemeyer Senior Partner and Head of EY Parthenon EMEIA

—
The classic literature on leadership is a legacy of the industrial age, with its emphasis on setting high-level strategy and translating it into marching orders delegated down the ranks. A new era of leadership theory puts the emphasis on cultivating creativity at all levels. How are leaders doing that in the most innovative organizations?

Moderator
Rainer Münz Expert in Demography & Migration

Speakers
Adrian Wooldridge Political editor and 'Bagehot' columnist, The Economist
Katherine Gehl Business leader, author and political innovator
Antonella Mei-Pochtler Special representative of the Austrian Federal Chancellor; Head of Think Austria
Hermann Simon Founder & Honorary Chairman, Simon-Kucher & Partners

—
Leadership is not only within organizations – it also concerns itself with shaping wider systems and networks such as democratic institutions, geopolitical dynamics, and capitalist systems. What leadership is required to  engage with issues on this larger scale, and understand their impacts on leadership and management in organizations?

Moderator
Mark Esposito Professor at Hult International Business School, Co-Founder & CLO, Nexus Frontier, Author, and Advisor

Speakers
Georg Kopetz Co-Founder and member of the Executive Board, TTTech
Helmut Reisinger CEO Orange Business Services
Sabine Herlitschka CEO & CTO, Infineon Technologies Austria
Lukas Mandl Member oft the European Parliament
Muriel Pénicaud French Ambassador to the OECD, former French Labor Minister

—
Europe has enormous strengths in industries that are the basis of our daily lives (chemical, pharma, automobile, banking, and more). How do we ensure that well-intentioned efforts to regulate these sectors do not undermine firms' ability to compete globally and create value for the world?

Moderator
Stefan Pickl Professor; Chair for Operations Research, Department of Computer Science, Bundeswehr University Munich

Speakers
Lisa Hershman Chief Management Officer, US Department of Defense
Erich Vad Former General of the Bundeswehr; Founder, Erich Vad Consulting
Stanley A. McChrystal General (ret.); Founder, McChrystal Group
Rita Gunther McGrath Professor, Columbia Business School

—
The world’s militaries tend to be leadership gurus’ favorite villains—they paint them as caricatures of rigid, rank-obsessed bureaucracies, full of soldiers told to salute and not question. Yet fine leaders emerge from these hierarchies, seemingly full believers in collaborative, inclusive, and agile problem-solving. Are we ignoring the lessons the military can teach today – in particular, about leading through acute crises?

Moderator
Tina Deutsch Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Haufe Advisory

Speakers
Paul Allen Founder, Ancestry.com, SOAR.com
Jon Clifton Global Managing Partner, Gallup
Bart Weetjens Social entrepreneur; Zen priest
Thomas Bubendorfer Solo climber and author

—
Leaders do damage to their organizations if they don’t do development of themselves. Their own capabilities to lead effectively are never perfect, and any investment they make in honing their skills has immediate payoff. How should leaders approach this responsibility in a disciplined way? How can they know if they’re improving?

Moderator
Ania Wieckowski Executive Editor HBR

Speakers
Julia Hobsbawm Honorary visiting professor of workplace social health, The Business School, Cass. London,
Chair of new UK Workshift Commission
Vlatka Hlupic Professor of Leadership and Organizational Transformation, Hult Ashridge Executive Education
Barbara Kellerman Lecturer in Public Leadership, Kennedy School, Harvard University
Ricardo Vargas Executive Director Brightline Initiative

—
The difference between leadership and management was a debate Drucker resisted being drawn into. For him, boosting the quality of management was the biggest factor in maintaining great institutions. Yet the Drucker Forum has made leadership its 2020 theme. As a factor in enterprise success, does it deserve its own category?

Moderator
Avivah Wittenberg Cox CEO of 20-first

Speakers
Pierre Hessler Senior Adviser, Capgemini
Helga Nowotny Professor emerita of Science and Technology Studies ETH Zurich; former President European Research Council
Rosabeth Moss Kanter Professor of Business, Harvard Business School
Alistair McQueen Head of Savings and Retirement, Aviva

—
Today’s societies are trending older, and today’s organizations pull an unprecedented span of generations into workplaces together. The shift toward workers participating longer in the formal economy has been a quiet one, but brings with it some deep changes. What is driving the trend, and what will it drive in turn?