About the Conference

Today’s intense combination of economic, social, and political issues is challenging leadership like never before. Organizations are experiencing significant change and transformation, and pressures have led to an incredible need for human-centered, high impact leadership applications and methodologies. This year’s event will examine the latest best practices, strategies, and success stories for transforming the world of  leadership. This year’s focus will be on innovative and superior practices and mindsets necessary to advance your leadership development into the future. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in a highly interactive and human centered conference experience.

Who Should Attend

• CHROs
• Directors and Vice Presidents of:
  • Leadership Development
  • Executive Development
  • Talent Management
  • Other L&D Functions
  • Centers of Excellence for Learning and Development
  • Corporate Universities
• Diversity leaders
• HR practitioners from: for-profit, not-for-profit and government agencies who are expected to build leadership capabilities and satisfy their organizations’ demands for “ready and able” leaders

Get Involved

If you would like to get involved in this year’s conference, please contact us.

• Sponsorship Opportunities: michael.felden@conferenceboard.org
• Marketing Partnerships: zoyna.dixon-glover@conferenceboard.org
• Group Registrations: ulei.kou@conferenceboard.org 
  

Day One | Thursday, November 19, 2020

11:00 – 11:05 am

Opening Remarks

Audrey McGuckin, Conference Program Director, The Conference Board

11:05 – 11:45 am

Organizational Agility – It’s Not What You Think

Exponential, disruptive change and hyper-competition have left companies searching for a new holy grail – agility, which has ignited a huge uptick in efforts to develop agile leaders and teams. But new research by over 300 global companies show that the conditions which create organizational agility are not what we thought. They don’t focus on driving change, require multidisciplinary teams, or stem from personally agile people. Instead, the most agile companies effectively counter balance the chaos and complexity that disruptive change brings with three key strategies that simplify work, clarify what matters, and focus people’s efforts.

We’ll discuss the vital role leaders play in achieving success.

Elaine Pulakos, CEO, PDRI

Elizabeth Lentz, Managing Consultant, PDRI

11:45 am – 12:10 pm

The New Game for Driving Value Through Leadership

Intel’s Chief Learning Officer, Noah Rabinowitz is breaking barriers in how Intel thinks about people, leadership and learning. At a holistic level, the entire leadership ecosystem must be re-imagined allowing for greater connectivity and integration among siloed functions.

In this session you’ll learn how connecting these functions requires a common data thread that all systems can read, understand, and translate. To get this data thread, an organization must have certain foundations in place, such as an inference of skills, sentiment analysis and cognitive systems. Once the data thread is identified, artificial intelligence can be added to cognitively connect all functions and allow the systems to exponentially learn through the constant flow of data.

This new model provides enhanced value to an organization by proactively driving data and solutions for the business and adopting a professional "talent services" mindset – all while cognitive technology and A.I. drive value to your end users and customers.

Noah Rabinowitz, Chief Learning Officer, Intel

12:10 – 12:25 pm

Panel Discussion; Ask the Experts

Moderator:

Audrey McGuckin, Program Director, Human Capital, The Conference Board

Panelists:

Elaine Pulakos, CEO, PDRI

Elizabeth Lentz, Managing Consultant, PDRI

Noah Rabinowitz, Chief Learning Officer, Intel

Break: 12:25 – 12:45 pm

12:45 – 1:10 pm  

Creating the Leaders Who Create the Networks to Move the World Forward

An ambitious business strategy spearheaded by a newly appointed CEO set the stage for Verizon’s Executive Education Program. The objective was to strengthen Verizon’s leader’s ability and mindset to lead through transformational changes in the business and enable Verizon to maximize digital investments such as 5G to change the way the world communicates and does business.

The talent development team took the challenge as an opportunity to think differently, bring all of their creativity and innovate their way through this invitation. The team ultimately created an award-winning, three-day experience to help leaders imagine, innovate and inspire a new way-forward.

Learn about the program Verizon developed, the impact it had on the business, and ideate with your peers on how you might implement some of these novel approaches to executive education.

Bradley Haime, Head, Executive Education, HiPo Development, Performance Management and Executive Coaching, Verizon

1:10 – 1:35 pm  

Thinking Twice; Being an Inclusive Leader

In this session, you’ll learn how Stryker is encouraging leaders around the globe to give a “second thought” to how they lead with an inclusive mindset. Their “Think Twice” mantra, addresses the disruptive forces of unconscious bias in the workplace and guides leaders through targeted action planning to drive diverse thinking and inclusive behavior that promotes engagement and retention.  

Nancy Stefanick, Learning & Development, Stryker

1:35 – 2:00 pm  

How Does AI Affect Leadership?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can affect nearly every aspect of an organization, including its leaders. But how exactly is leadership changing from the implementation of AI, and should we be concerned or relieved? Learn about new research on the intersection of AI and leadership, including counterintuitive findings, practical insights and challenges that lie ahead.

Rebecca L Ray, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Human Capital, The Conference Board

Break: 2.00 – 2.20 pm

CONCURRENT SESSIONS

2:20 – 2:45 pm  

Creativity – The New Leadership Commodity

The importance of innovation in today’s business setting cannot be overstated. Innovation is what keeps you ahead of the competition and attractive to the best prospects. Most businesses see innovation as the elusive “ah-ha” moment, when the stars align perfectly, and a great idea is birthed. Without intention, these flashes of ingenuity are far too infrequently than we like. Innovation’s fuel is creativity, and yet most companies neglect this valuable resource. In a study conducted by the World Economic Forum, creativity is predicted to be one of the top three most important and in-demand skills in 2020.This session will explore and discuss what creativity means to business, debunk the myths associated with creativity, and examine the necessary components of fostering a creative culture. Creativity is inherent in all of us and simply needs permission and an outlet to flourish. We will discuss how creativity has unintentionally been taught out of all of us, and how to recapture its power for dynamic leadership, business growth, and employee retention.

Scott Docherty, Creativity Lead, P&G

Pushing the Limits: Leadership Development Priorities for Impact

We all know the limits we’re up against: Time. Budget. Competition for leaders’ attention. In today’s world, we’re lucky to have so many options for learning and development at our fingertips. But it’s also become much more important to define and curate leadership development practices to focus on the highest impact experiences.

Join us for an interactive session on making the tough choices about what to prioritize in a leadership development program. We’ll discuss:

• What global research tells us is most in-demand by leaders
• The most critical skills leaders will need
• Practical ways to prioritize and design engaging,

Janice Burns, Principal Consultant, DDI

2:45 – 310 pm  

Creatively Building the Bench

The Adobe team will share how they are redefining success in their culture. Building on their creative strengths by adding more focus on scale and emphasis on people leadership is crucial as the company continues to grow and adapt to new markets.
The team will share the new Adobe Capabilities framework and how it is being used throughout the talent lifecycle to identify, develop and accelerate people through the company.

Danielle Clark. Head of Talent Development, Adobe

3:10 – 3:25 pm  

Panel Discussion; Ask the Experts

Moderator:

Audrey McGuckin, Program Director, Human Capital, The Conference Board

Panelists:

Scott Docherty, Creativity Lead, P&G

Danielle Clark, Head of Talent Development, Adobe

3:25 – 3:30 pm

Closing Remarks

Audrey McGuckin, Conference Program Director, The Conference Board

Day Two | Friday, November 20, 2020

11:00 – 11:05 am

Opening Remarks

Audrey McGuckin, Conference Program Director, The Conference Board

11:05 – 11:35 am

Reimagining Leadership in the 21st Century

Tapping the latest scientific breakthroughs to develop a path to leadership mastery that is authentic, agile and attainable. The world as we know it is changing, rapidly and radically. Leaders are being pushed to drive change without knowing the rules of the new game. Along the way, as established giants fall and new giants arise, leaders are learning a humble truth: to transform their organization and their people particularly during times of change, they need to transform themselves. What are the 20^th-century mindsets, values and behaviors that are holding us back today? How should leadership - and leadership development - be reimagined for the 21^st century?

Prof. Hitendra draws from his research at Columbia Business School, his innovations in digital learning, and his consulting and training work with Fortune 500 corporations to lay out the thesis that leadership in the fast-evolving 21st century will require a new approach that is:

1. Authentic - have our behavior arise from our inner core
2. Agile - allow us to engage in a wide array of behaviors, much beyond the competency models of the past
3. Attainable - radically simplify the different frameworks and tools we have trained leaders on in the past 

The audience will walk away with four learnings:

1. What 21st-century science is revealing about our leadership abilities - and our capacity to change 
2. The five core energies of a leader 
3. A method for gaining mastery across a wide range of leadership behaviors - through a simple set of actions
4. The power of MicroPractice (TM) to close the learning-doing gap

Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa, Professor, Columbia Business School

11:35 am – 12:05 pm

Developing Leaders to Realize the Microsoft Vision

In a world laden with technology Microsoft believes that purpose driven leadership is critical for their business, This means they value some of the critical leadership capabilities like Empathy, Creativity and Innovation, Chris Yates will share with us how they approach developing these critical skills through the leadership programs.

Chris Yates, General Manager Global Learning and Development, Microsoft

12:05 – 12:25 pm

Panel Discussion; Ask the Experts

Moderator:

Audrey McGuckin, Program Director, Human Capital, The Conference Board

Panelists:

Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa, Professor, Columbia Business School

Chris Yates, General Manager Global Learning and Development, Microsoft

Break: 12:25 – 12:45 pm

12:45 – 1:05 pm  

Leadership as A Critical Capability

As one of the 2019 Workforce 100 list, which recognizes companies for its excellence in HR, from workplace culture, diversity and inclusion, to innovation in HR & talent acquisition, Clint Kofford shares J&J’s approach to succession management.

J&J is a 133-year-old organization with a strong track record in developing leaders. In this session you’ll learn about how they work to advance the enterprise talent and leadership agenda by applying a specific strategy known to work best to develop leaders.

Clint Kofford, Head of Talent Development, Johnson and Johnson

1:05 – 1:35 pm

Connecting People to Possibilities: Aligning Purpose, Passion and Profession to Attract Top Talent and Engage Employees

As a global corporation with more than 450,000 employees, FedEx puts its people at the heart of its culture and management philosophy – and that philosophy is brought to life through programs that help make it a best-in-class employer. Join FedEx Vice President of Human Resources Chris Winton as he shares insights into the success of the FedEx people-first philosophy and how the company continues to attract and retain top talent by connecting people to possibilities across the globe.

Chris Winton, VP Global Talent, Fedex

Break: 1:35 – 1:55 pm

CONCURRENT SESSIONS

1:55 – 2:20 pm  

A Leaders Role in Creating Psychological Safety

Psychological safety emanates from the leader of the group through action, speech, dynamics, and culture. While it will vary from time to time, depending on the current work and/or project, it is a necessary component for people to truly excel, feel connected, and to want to go the extra mile for themselves, their team, and an organization.

Jonathan Kirschner, Psy.D. CEO, AIIR Consulting

The Necessary Capability of Leadership Empathy in Today’s World

In an ever-changing world of technology, rapid change and new consumer habits, empathy has emerged as one of the key leadership capabilities needed for leaders to excel. This session will focus on what we can learn from a children’s hospital environment to develop and nurture across multiple levels of leadership in organizations.

Stephanie Waite, Head of Organizational Development, Robert H Lurie, Children's Hospital of Chicago

CONCURRENT SESSIONS

2:20 – 2:45 pm  

Great Leaders are Great Learners: Identifying and Developing Learning Agility in Your Leaders

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? You adapt. In an era of increasing disruption, business leaders are frequently confronted with new problems that appear suddenly and require urgent and effective action. Learning agility is a powerful skill that can help you navigate new situations by pulling from your own experience, even when the task at hand is something you haven’t tackled before.

In this presentation, you’ll learn how to identify and develop leaders who possess the aptitude to learn “on-the-fly,” and how to create a learning environment that encourages this skill throughout your organization. This interactive workshop will help you understand how you can maximize the learning and growth you gain from your experiences and how you can recognize and develop this capability in others.

As a participant, you will learn how to:

• Maximize learning from on-the-job experiences
• Support the development of 4 skills essential to becoming a learning agile leader
• Create organizational environments that engage and leverage learning agile leaders

George Hallenbeck, Director, Center for Creative Leadership

2:45 – 3:15 pm

Build Your Next Generation of Leaders by Leveraging Leadership Development Programs

Understand how your organization can attract, retain and development talent by leveraging rotational Leadership Development Programs.

Learn how Cigna utilizes structured curriculums that are augmented by coaching, experiential learning and various role opportunities to prepare future leaders for a dynamic environment that requires the ability to lead with purpose and embrace innovation with a customer centric mindset.

Nick Wagner, Organizational Development, Cigna

Maggie LaLima, Leadership Development Manager, Cigna

3:15 – 3:30 pm

Panel Discussion; Ask the Experts

Moderator:

Audrey McGuckin, Program Director, Human Capital, The Conference Board

Panelists:

Stephanie Waite, Head of Organizational Development, Robert H Lurie, Children's Hospital of Chicago

George Hallenbeck, Director, Center for Creative Leadership

3:25 – 3:30 pm

Closing Remarks

Audrey McGuckin, Conference Program Director, The Conference Board