Future: Enterprise & AI 2026

08:00 AM - 08:45 AM CET

Registration and Networking Breakfast

08:45 AM - 09:00 AM CET

Opening & Welcome

Our Managing Director Sara Murray will open the session by welcoming Council Members and senior executives and sharing The Conference Board’s perspective on what lies ahead for European business. Additionally, conference Chair John Metselaar will provide an overview of the event and theme highlights.

09:00 AM - 09:20 AM CET

Audience Pulse. Your Experiences, Your Challenges

Warm-up round table conversations. Sharing key themes with Slido into plenary. Setting the stage for hot topics during the conference.

09:20 AM - 09:40 AM CET

Keynote. Beyond the Industrial Age: Shaping the Future with P.E.A.C.E.

The Industrial Age is over, and that is good news. Drawing on two decades of transformation leadership at Adobe, Google, Novartis, and Schneider Electric, Jennifer explains how today’s AI, geopolitical, and workforce shifts offer opportunities to rethink outdated ways of working. Her proven P.E.A.C.E. approach helps leaders turn uncertainty into action and shape the future.

09:40 AM - 10:00 AM CET

Keynote. AI Project Failure: The 7 Deadly Sins and How to Avoid Them

In the high-stakes world of AI, common pitfalls from poor data practices to ethical blind spots can derail even the most promising initiatives. This session explores the "7 Deadly Sins" of AI implementation and offers practical strategies to avoid them, helping organizations move from experimentation to scalable, high-impact success by aligning AI initiatives with business goals.

10:00 AM - 10:20 AM CET

Panel. Scaling AI Leadership: Speed vs. Accountability

AI leadership mindsets vary across regions, but the central challenge is universal: how to scale AI quickly while maintaining responsible governance. Drawing on research from the US, China, and Europe, this panel explores regional differences in risk appetite, commercialization, and collaboration. It also examines the trade-offs leaders face such as speed vs. governance, access vs. protection, and experimentation vs. proven business impact.

10:20 AM - 10:35 AM CET

Panel. Evaluating Technology by Its Rate of Improvement, Not Hype

This session shows how AI can measure the rate at which competing technologies improve helping leaders identify future winners earlier than traditional market signals. It explores how this approach strengthens technology scouting, guides R&D investment decisions, and reshapes strategic leadership.

10:35 AM - 10:45 AM CET

Wrap-up and Key Insights

10:45 AM - 11:15 AM CET

Networking Break

11:15 AM - 11:35 AM CET

Track I. Thought Starter. The Seven Doors of AI Adoption

Organizations often have valid concerns about AI, but many are excuses disguised as caution. Drawing on more than 100 conversations across The Conference Board’s Councils and private organizations, this keynote challenges six common barriers to adoption and shows how leading companies are already redesigning work at scale. The final barrier is the most important: AI adoption can only go as far as the fluency of senior leaders allows. The session closes with practical steps to raise that ceiling.

11:15 AM - 11:35 AM CET

Track II. Thought Starter. When Employees Become AI Innovators: The Future of Knowledge Work

Innovation often begins with lead users who encounter emerging needs early and develop their own solutions. Open-ended AI agents accelerate this through rapid experimentation, custom tools, and new ways of working. This presentation examines how AI-augmented lead users can reveal the future of knowledge work while creating challenges around cost, quality, verification, scalability, and human overload. It argues that organizations should support safe experimentation, identify and scale effective solutions, and protect the human capacity behind innovation.

11:35 AM - 11:55 AM CET

Track I. Panel. Winning with AI: The Execution Advantage

AI is transforming every industry, but turning its potential into lasting value remains a challenge for many organizations. In this talk, Aditya Raj explores the opportunities, trends, and leadership priorities shaping successful AI adoption. Drawing on real-world business experience across industries, he shares practical perspectives on navigating the next phase of the AI journey and building sustainable competitive advantage.

11:35 AM - 11:55 AM CET

Track II. Thought Starter. Future-Proof AI Governance: Where To, Where From, and How?

This presentation explores how organizations can maximize AI value while managing risk through clear strategy, capability assessment, and effective governance. It addresses three questions: “Where to?” - defining AI ambitions; “Where from?” - identifying capability gaps; and “How together?” - aligning AI governance with evolving privacy, cybersecurity, sustainability, and regulatory requirements.

11:55 AM - 12:15 PM CET

Track I. Panel. Do Your AI Efforts Remain Stuck in Local Pilots? How to Create True Value?

This panel examines the gap between enterprise AI strategy and real-world adoption. It explores why promising prototypes often fail to become part of daily operations and improve workflows. The discussion covers barriers such as executive ownership, operating-model redesign, management systems, and user psychology - offering practical guidance for the future of work in the redesigned enterprise.

11:55 AM - 12:15 PM CET

Track II. Thought Starter. AI Sovereignty and Strategic Resilience

AI is reshaping the cybersecurity landscape but who controls the AI you rely on? In this keynote, we break down the five layers of AI sovereignty, from training data to end-user application, and map the strategic dependencies hidden in each. A sharp, strategic perspective on what it truly means to own or not own the intelligence powering your systems.

12:15 PM - 12:30 PM CET

Wrap Up. Overall takeaways, getting ready for afternoon break-outs

12:30 PM - 01:30 PM CET

Networking Lunch

01:30 PM - 03:00 PM CET

Roundtable Discussions

Join one roundtable of relevance for your role and meet members and guests of The Conference Board to turn the morning’s discussions into concrete practices. Roundtable 1. Leading Innovation Through Inclusion while Riding the Wave of Tech Dedicated to: Chief Technology, Digital, Innovation, and R&D Officers, CEOs, Board Members, General Managers, Chief Investment Officer Moderators: John Metselaar and Anne Stevens Roundtable 2. Combining Urgency with Governance to unleash and Tame AI Dedicated to: General Counsels, Corporate Resilience, Chief Compliance Officers, Chief Audit Officers, Data Protection and Privacy Officers Moderators: Patrice de Hemptine, Ellen Hexter, Frederic Hendrickx, Florian Harms Roundtable 3. Connecting Humans to Execution in the Age of Intelligence Dedicated to: Senior People Strategy & Transformation Executives, Global Business Services, Shared Services Leaders Moderators: Sanja Haas

03:00 PM - 03:30 PM CET

Break and Back to Plenary

03:30 PM - 04:00 PM CET

Closing Keynote. Beyond AI: What Will Make Human Leadership Matter Even More?

The next frontier isn’t technological, it’s human. As AI surpasses many cognitive tasks, the greatest opportunity is to strengthen the qualities that make us uniquely human: intuition, empathy, creativity, and purpose. In Beyond AI: The Human Spark, futurist Christian Kromme explores how technology is reshaping not only what we do, but who we are. Drawing on nature, neuroscience, and innovation, he argues that the future will be shaped not by smarter machines, but by wiser humans.

04:00 PM - 04:15 PM CET

Member Awards

04:15 PM - 04:45 PM CET

Keynote. Trust at Scale: The Human Foundations of Industrial AI

Why Trust is the limiting factor, not the Technology, and how to Build it. Industrial and Physical AI systems in safety-critical environments succeed or fail based on whether the people operating alongside them (engineers, technicians, operators, leaders) genuinely trust them. That trust is not automatic. It is built, or it is not built, through deliberate leadership choices made long before deployment. Key questions explored: · What does trust in AI actually mean in an industrial and safety-critical context? · How do you build it, and how do you destroy it? · How do you lead a workforce that is uncertain, skeptical, or afraid? · What role does transparency play when systems cannot be fully explained?

04:45 PM - 05:00 PM CET

Closing Remarks

05:00 PM - 05:45 PM CET

Networking Cocktail & Close