2026 Agenda

Attracting Talent Through Purpose and Independence: How a long-term, science-driven vision differentiates Boehringer in a crowded talent market.

Turning the People Promise into Tangible Impact: Demonstrating how career growth, opportunity, and patient-centered purpose translate into measurable engagement, retention, and organizational outcomes.

Retention as a Strategic Advantage: How structured development, mentorship, and holistic well-being create lasting loyalty and enable breakthrough scientific contributions.

Human-Centered AI as an Enabler, Not a Replacement: Leveraging AI technology to amplify decision-making, optimize workforce planning, and elevate employee experience while keeping humans at the center.

HR as a Catalyst for Brand and Strategic Alignment: Lessons in connecting people strategy to company purpose and patient impact to strengthen both talent and brand reputation.

As the expectations placed on organizations intensify, the CHRO’s role has expanded far beyond talent management. Today’s CHRO is a steward of culture, architect of leadership capability, and long-term strategist responsible for shaping enterprise legacy. This session explores how forward-thinking HR leaders are redefining influence at the highest levels.

In this session, we will explore:

• Designing the Leadership Architecture of the Future

  How CHROs are identifying, developing, and future-proofing leadership capability aligned to long-term business strategy.

• Embedding Culture as a Strategic Advantage

  Moving beyond values statements to operationalize culture as a measurable driver of performance, resilience, and growth.

• Succession as Enterprise Risk Management

  Elevating succession planning from a compliance exercise to a dynamic, data-informed strategy that protects organizational continuity.

• Partnering with CEOs and Boards on Legacy Decisions

  Advising on executive appointments, transformation strategy, and long-range workforce planning with confidence and business fluency.

• Building a Personal Leadership Legacy as CHRO

  The competencies, courage, and enterprise mindset required to move from HR operator to long-term organizational architect.

This session will equip senior HR leaders with the strategic lens and practical insights needed to shape not only leadership pipelines — but the enduring legacy of their organizations.

• Navigating the workplace in changing times
• The power of the pivot: change brings opportunity to learn new skills, are we ready to learn, grow and change?
• Bridging the gap through an inclusive learning lens
• Tailoring our future through upskilling
• Weaving learning into the fabric of associate development

• Explore why belonging—not just inclusion—is the key differentiator in today’s HR landscape
• Define the Experience Gap and its impact on engagement, retention, and innovation
• Share McCain’s strategic approach to closing the gap through leadership accountability, structural transparency, and employee voice
• Equip HR leaders with practical steps to identify and close experience gaps in their own organizations

• This session is not focused solely on AI in HR or Culture, but how CHROs are at the center of both at the same time. In a year when AI, skills, and employee experience dominate the HR agenda, the toughest question remains: How do we transform at speed without losing the culture that makes us great?
• AI is now part of every talent conversation, but technology alone won’t build a resilient, inclusive, high‑performing organization. That’s the CHRO’s job. In this session, we reframe the CHRO as the architect of trust who aligns culture, capability, and intelligent workflows, keeping humanity at the center and enabling the enterprise to move fast without breaking its people.
• We will discuss how to turn “AI anxiety” into confidence, align your C‑suite and Board, and measure what matters.

Join Pat Wadors and explore the power of storytelling as a catalyst for belonging, employee engagement, and leadership excellence. Drawing on her book Unlock Your Leadership Story: How to Build Understanding and Motivate Teams Using Fables and Folktales, Pat shares how timeless lessons—such as those in The Emperor’s New Clothes—illustrate storytelling’s ability to shape leaders, build trust, and strengthen team connection.

As a renowned international speaker and human resources thought leader, Pat delivers a powerful discussion of the “moral of the story” in well-known fables and folktales, showing how these narratives can help us navigate today’s challenges at work and in life while sparking new possibilities.

Whether you are early in your career or a seasoned executive, Unlock Your Leadership Story offers guidance for all levels, making it a valuable resource for team leaders, HR professionals, sales leaders, and anyone committed to helping others reach their full potential.

• Understand the neuroscience behind how stories influence emotions and actions.
• Explore fresh interpretations of classic stories that inspire growth and self-discovery.
• Examine fables that encourage you to reimagine and challenge the status quo.
• Apply modern leadership lessons from historic tales to your own journey, at work and beyond.

Mergers and acquisitions are among the most complex and high-stakes transformations an organization can undertake — and their success often hinges on how effectively people, culture, and change are managed. In this session, CHROs will explore the critical role HR plays in guiding organizations through M&A, from pre-deal planning to post-integration execution.

Drawing on real-world experience, this discussion will examine how to align cultures across newly combined organizations, support leaders through uncertainty, and maintain engagement and performance at scale. Attendees will gain practical insights into how HR can act as a strategic driver of stability, clarity, and long-term value creation during periods of significant change.

• The evolving role of HR throughout the M&A lifecycle — from due diligence to integration

• Strategies for aligning and integrating cultures across organizations

• Supporting leaders and teams through uncertainty, change, and rapid scaling

• Maintaining employee engagement, trust, and performance during transition

• Lessons learned from navigating complex transformation and integration efforts

For professional services organizations, brand and culture are inseparable—what differentiates in the marketplace isn’t just the work, but how it’s done. Which means creating an inclusive employee experience isn’t just a program—it’s a strategic imperative. Through stories, data, and design principles, we’ll show how listening to employees, understanding business priorities and embedding inclusion transforms culture from an abstract idea into tangible actions.

In this session, get real world examples of:

• Designing with people for people. From inclusion networks to employee surveys and focus groups, strategies for listening to employees, identifying best practices and pain points, and helping leadership understand how decisions impact employees’ experience … and the bottom line.
• Integrating employee experience with strategy. Simplifying committee structures to cut bureaucracy and better align people priorities with business outcomes … and reinforcing the importance of an employee experience function in the process.
• Keeping inclusivity at the forefront: Reframing external pressures as an opportunity to stress test cultural standards and get very strategic about the work of inclusion.