Future of Boards & Leadership
Session Overview
Future of Boards & Leadership
Leadership and governance face compounding pressures. AI and emerging technologies like quantum are reshaping competitive dynamics faster than most organizations can adapt. Geopolitics is fragmenting markets and creating new risks. Business models that worked for decades are breaking.
Traditional leadership playbooks—optimize, scale, repeat—don't work when the environment shifts constantly. Leaders need different capabilities: navigating uncertainty, making decisions with incomplete information, building organizations that can adapt rapidly.
Boards face their own challenges. Oversight models designed for stable environments struggle with technological disruption and geopolitical volatility. What should boards understand about AI, quantum, and other emerging tech? How do they assess geopolitical risk? What governance structures work when speed matters as much as control?
This session examines how leadership and governance need to evolve. Two panels cover leadership in rapidly changing environments and board governance for the future. Business leaders, board members, governance experts, and political leaders discuss what's changing and what comes next.
The New Leadership Playbook: Technology, Geopolitics, and Uncertainty
Traditional leadership approaches—plan, optimize, execute—break down when environments shift constantly. AI and emerging technologies are changing competitive dynamics. Geopolitics is fragmenting markets. Business models are under pressure.
Leaders need different capabilities. Navigating uncertainty rather than seeking perfect information. Making decisions quickly with incomplete data. Building organizations that can pivot without breaking. Managing teams through constant change.
How do you lead when the playbook no longer applies? What skills matter—technical fluency with AI, geopolitical literacy, organizational adaptability? How do you balance speed with stability? What's the role of political leadership in shaping business environments?
CEOs, business leaders, political figures, organizational psychologists, and strategic advisors discuss what leadership looks like when the old rules don't work.
Host / Speakers
Dr. Catherine Carlton — Chief Executive Officer, Co-founder The Trust Impact Group
Keyvan Peymani — Chief Strategy Officer Animoca Brands
Marta Paiar — Chairwoman Kuwekeza Holdings, UAE
Laura Anne Edwards — Founder / Lecturer GeoSpace Resources / Oxford Space Initiative
Marlen Estévez Sanz — Partner, Board Member & Head of Innovation RocaJunyent
Sandy Carter — Best Selling Author/ Chief Business Officer / Chairman, Applied AI AI First / Unstoppable / The Digital Economist
Prof. Dr. Anabel Ternès von Hattburg — Futurist & Sustainability Expert | Managing Director Institute for Innovation & Sustainable Management
Philippe Van Caenegem — Co-Founder Operalta
What Boards Actually Need to Know in 2026
Five questions boards can't avoid. Climate and ESG: does disclosure improve decisions or just add compliance costs? Cyber risk: moving from breach response to business continuity planning—what oversight actually requires. AI deployment: governance frameworks for AI decision-making, liability when AI moves into physical operations, and the board skills gap. Value creation versus governance overhead: when does compliance impede competitiveness? Board development: what director education actually works, how to stay current on rapidly evolving domains.
Format is practitioner discussion, not theory. Directors who've navigated these issues share what worked and what didn't. No consultants selling frameworks. The focus is operational reality—time allocation, liability trends, measuring effectiveness beyond attendance, and what boards need to understand without becoming operators.
Host / Speakers
Sandra Trittin — CEO Futurize Energy
Christopher O.H. Williams — Managing Director Custament Partners
Liz Perkins — Night News Editor Sunday Telegraph
Friederike Hoffmann — Partner B2venture
Dr.Milan Kumar — Chief Information Office & Member of the Board SCF
Isabelle Grosmaitre — CEO / Founder Goodness&Co
Future of X
Industries in Transition
Industries are changing faster than incumbents can adapt. This program examines four sectors in transition—education and work, media and news, boards and leadership, entertainment and gaming—looking one year out and three years out.
The audience is deliberately mixed: investors looking for opportunities, startups building new models, scaleups proving what works, service providers enabling change, think tanks researching what comes next, and policymakers trying to keep pace.
The goal isn't just understanding what's changing. It's finding solutions that fit, identifying investable opportunities, and connecting people who can actually move things forward. Each session covers what's deployable now, what's emerging, and where the gaps are between what exists and what's needed.
Come to learn. Come to explore. Come to connect with people building what's next.