34th CHRO Insight Summit

As organizations move toward skills-based talent models, many are discovering that greater visibility into capabilities does not automatically change how talent is developed, moved or deployed. Fragmented skills data, managerial resistance and growing expectations to demonstrate business value continue to complicate enterprise-wide transformation.

Drawing on Pernod Ricard's experience, this fireside chat will explore how internal talent marketplaces and AI-enabled learning can connect employee development with career opportunities and evolving business needs. It will examine the realities of implementation, the role of managers in enabling talent mobility and what it takes to translate skills-based ambition into meaningful organizational impact.

As a continuation of the Catalyst Mission track, these sessions will establish a strategic blueprint to chart the pathway toward identifying a solution.

Track 1: The Skills-Based Organisation: Rebuilding Talent Architecture Around Capabilities, Not Job Titles
Track 2: Workforce Intelligence as a Real-Time Strategic Operating System: From People Analytics to Predictive Organisational Decision-Making
Track 3: Total Rewards Reinvention: Competing for Global Talent in an Era of Pay Transparency, Generational Diversity and AI-Driven Compensation Benchmarking

When Delta set out to prove that coaching works, they weren't thinking about AI. They were thinking about promotion readiness, accountability, and performance. They designed a real study, measured those outcomes against a control group of uncoached peers, and found clear results: coached leaders showed measurably higher promotion readiness, stronger accountability and feedback cultures, and a greater likelihood of exceeding performance goals.

But the data also surfaced something they didn't expect: the capabilities that moved, things like curiosity, discernment, and judgment, are the same ones that make leaders more valuable, not less, as AI reshapes their industry. This is a session about what Delta measured, what they found, and what changed because of it, including a finding nobody saw coming.

As AI reshapes work, workforce risk and organisational performance, the CHRO mandate is expanding far beyond traditional HR leadership. Today’s most influential people leaders are being asked to operate as technology governors, culture architects, risk leaders and growth enablers, while building stronger influence across the C-suite and board.

This keynote will explore how the CHRO role is being redefined in an AI-disrupted world, where decisions about skills, structure, culture, technology and workforce strategy are becoming central to enterprise performance. It will examine why the traditional HR operating model is no longer enough, and what CHROs must do to lead with greater strategic authority as technology, finance and operations increasingly shape the people agenda.

As organizations accelerate transformation, managers are being asked to deliver more with fewer resources, wider spans of control and increasingly complex expectations. Yet the leaders responsible for translating strategy into execution are often struggling with competing priorities, rising workloads and insufficient capacity to develop their teams, creating a growing gap between organizational ambition and operational reality.

This session will explore how CHROs can rethink managerial effectiveness in an environment of continuous change. It will examine whether traditional leadership structures and expectations remain fit for purpose, how organizations can strengthen accountability and execution without increasing managerial burden, and what it takes to build leadership capability that genuinely supports business transformation.

Translating enterprise-wide strategy into consistent execution remains a significant challenge for CHROs, particularly as AI adoption, operating model redesign and organisational transformation reshape how businesses operate. Differences in workforce capabilities, leadership approaches and operational pressures mean that what works in one part of the business may not translate effectively elsewhere.

This roundtable will explore how HR leaders can create greater organisational alignment without imposing a one-size-fits-all approach. Delegates will examine where standardisation creates value, where flexibility is essential, and how to align leadership, workforce capabilities and accountability across different parts of the business to turn enterprise strategy into sustainable organisational performance.

Investment in leadership development, reskilling and AI readiness continues to grow, but the link between workforce development and measurable business performance remains difficult to establish. While employees may acquire new skills and knowledge, translating those capabilities into sustained behavioural change, improved productivity and tangible organisational value presents a more complex challenge.

This executive roundtable will explore what it takes to bridge the gap between workforce development and business performance. Drawing on the experiences of senior HR leaders, the discussion will examine why new capabilities do not always translate into changed behaviours, how organisations can better embed learning into everyday work, and how HR leaders can move beyond traditional development metrics to demonstrate meaningful commercial impact.

AI is enabling employees to produce more in less time, yet many organisations are struggling to translate these efficiency gains into measurable business value. As boards demand evidence of returns, CHROs face a more fundamental challenge: understanding where productivity gains are being lost, how workforce capacity should be redeployed, and whether traditional measures of performance remain fit for purpose.

Drawing on experience spanning successive technological transformations, this fireside chat will explore how organisations can move beyond measuring output to understanding genuine workforce value. It will examine how AI is changing what employees contribute, why work design and human judgement are becoming increasingly important, and what CHROs must do to ensure greater efficiency translates into sustainable organisational performance.

Most employers offer mental health benefits. Yet too often, employees don't engage until they're already struggling. How can organizations move beyond simply providing access to care and create a culture where employees seek support earlier?

Join Journey's Ed Daley and Dayforce's former benefits leader, Tom Armani, for a candid conversation about how Dayforce reimagined its approach to employee mental health, moving from a traditional, reactive EAP to a proactive model built around early engagement, accessibility, and personalized support.

Hear how Dayforce achieved 5x higher clinical engagement in just 90 days and 55% preventive engagement across its global workforce, while navigating organizational change and the complexities of supporting employees across 17 countries.

Through real-world lessons and measurable outcomes, Ed and Tom will explore what it takes to turn mental health benefits from an underutilized resource into a meaningful driver of employee well-being and organizational performance.

Organisations continue to invest heavily in workplace technology, automation and AI, yet employees are often left navigating fragmented systems, disconnected processes and increasingly complex ways of working. Too often, technology decisions are driven by functionality and vendor capabilities rather than the realities of how employees actually work, leaving organisations to address the friction only after implementation.

This roundtable will explore how HR leaders can reverse this approach, using employee insights to shape technology investment decisions rather than expecting employees to adapt to the systems they're given. Delegates will examine how employee research and journey mapping can inform technology selection, how to challenge legacy systems that no longer meet workforce needs, and how HR, IT and procurement can collaborate to ensure digital investments genuinely improve employee experience and organisational productivity.

The decisions facing CHROs are becoming increasingly complex, with competing priorities, contradictory evidence and few straightforward answers. As AI reshapes workforce structures, talent strategies and the role of HR itself, established assumptions about how organisations should operate are being challenged.

This interactive session will bring leaders together across four provocation tables, each centred on a deliberately contentious statement addressing a critical CHRO challenge. Through structured debate, delegates will be confronted with surprising, research-backed market insights that challenge their initial perspectives. Participants will vote before and after each discussion, revealing where opinions have shifted and exposing the strategic tensions shaping the future of work.

Continuing your mission tracks, having built the blueprint we now enter the reckoning – a decisive phase where insights are rigorously challenged and crystallised into solution-led outcomes.

Track 1: The Skills-Based Organisation: Rebuilding Talent Architecture Around Capabilities, Not Job Titles
Track 2: Workforce Intelligence as a Real-Time Strategic Operating System: From People Analytics to Predictive Organisational Decision-Making
Track 3: Total Rewards Reinvention: Competing for Global Talent in an Era of Pay Transparency, Generational Diversity and AI-Driven Compensation Benchmarking

As AI reshapes work and the legal and political environment surrounding inclusion becomes more complex, global organisations face a difficult challenge: preserving the trust and belonging that hold cultures together while making the changes necessary for future performance. Yet inclusion is often assessed through employee sentiment, with less clarity on how it influences decision-making, collaboration, innovation and business value.

This fireside chat will explore how CHROs can position belonging as an enabler of transformation rather than a barrier to change. Drawing on Johnson & Johnson's global experience, it will examine the cultural consequences of AI, the principles that should endure as inclusion strategies evolve, and how leaders can demonstrate meaningful impact while extending inclusion beyond HR into the decisions shaping enterprise performance.

As AI moves across hiring, onboarding, performance and learning, CHROs are under pressure to separate practical value from risk and hype. While some tools are beginning to deliver measurable outcomes, others are creating new concerns around bias, transparency, employee trust and legal exposure.

This session will explore where AI is genuinely working across the employee lifecycle, where organisations are encountering failure or unintended consequences, and what remains more promise than reality. It will examine how HR leaders can assess AI use cases more critically, manage liability in employment decisions and build governance structures that satisfy the board, legal teams and the workforce.