Leadership transitions are inflection points. They expose strengths and weaknesses, amplify uncertainty, and test an organization’s ability to move with courage, clarity, and speed. This keynote explores what effective leadership looks like at inflection points—and how HR Leadership can enable traction and avoid disruption in the midst of transition. Learn from NXP’s experience navigating and guiding ongoing culture change during significant leadership transition. Takeaways: - Leadership transitions provide a rare opportunity to reset expectations, focus and momentum at cultural inflection points. - Desired cultural characteristics must be intentionally defined and designed for (vs. simply declared) to become reality. - Momentum comes from a combination of leadership conviction, unrelenting ownership, and connection to individual interests.

Leadership transitions and strategic shifts are inflection points—moments that test an organization’s ability to move with courage, clarity, and speed. Following their keynote conversation, NXP leaders Chris Jensen and Dana Larsen invite a small group of participants into a working session to apply those ideas to real leadership challenges. Rather than theory, this breakout focuses on practice. Participants will reflect on a transition or inflection point they are currently navigating—whether a leadership change, organizational reset, or strategic shift—and examine where momentum is building and where it is stalling. Through structured dialogue and collective synthesis, the group will surface patterns that slow progress, from confidence gaps to decision bottlenecks and legacy assumptions about risk and authority. Takeaways: - Participants will leave with a clearer view of how leadership behavior shapes momentum during periods of uncertainty—and with one concrete leadership move they can take to strengthen courage, clarity, or speed inside their own organizations. - Apply the keynote ideas to a real leadership transition or inflection point they are facing. - Diagnose where momentum is at risk in their organization. Identify one leadership move they can make immediately to increase courage, clarity, or speed.

A conversation with Katy George, CVP, Workforce Transformation, Microsoft, and Matthew Duncan, Head of Future of Work, Microsoft to hear bold perspectives and big ideas that stretch beyond enterprise tech into the future of work, education, and society, and how leaders need to think differently about what it means to lead at the frontier. Takeaways: - AI strategy isn’t just about technology—it’s about reimagining how work gets done, value is created and what it means to lead at the frontier. - Get energized and inspired to challenge assumptions and explore bold moves to transform their organization. - Take one provocative idea or question to spark conversation with your teams about what leading in the frontier really means.

Wyman Howard brings rare leadership experience forged at the highest levels of U.S. special operations, including commanding Naval Special Warfare Development Group, Special Operations Command Central and Naval Special Warfare Command. Across more than three decades in elite military leadership, including five Presidential Unit Citations, the Silver Star and multiple Bronze Star distinctions, Wyman led teams operating in environments where incomplete intelligence, compressed timelines, and irreversible consequences were standard operating conditions where courageous leadership demanded intentional risk, moral clarity, and disciplined action under pressure. Kristen Kavanaugh, CEO and co-founder of The Agency Initiative, a United States Marine and former senior director of inclusion, talent, and learning at Tesla, is the co-author of Courage Over Fear. Moderated by Michelle Gethers, former Chief Diversity Officer and Head of Corporate Responsibility at Visa, their keynote, Courageous Leadership: Agency at the Edge, explores how leaders exercise judgment, accountability, and vulnerability—speakingt ruthfully, admitting uncertainty, and inviting dissent—when stakes are high, information is partial, and the margin for error is thin. Takeaways: - Judgment is the scarce resource. - As AI capabilities commoditize, advantage shifts to leaders who decide where intelligence belongs in the workflow. The defining question moves from “Can we build it?” to “Where should we trust it, where should we supervise it, and where must humans remain accountable?” - Organizations that encode that judgment into clear decision rights and governance move faster with less risk. - AI value appears only when work itself is redesigned. Most AI initiatives stall because they are layered onto legacy processes. Workforce 4.0 requires restructuring how work flows—embedding AI into decisions, automating routine cognition, and repositioning employees as supervisors of systems, interpreters of insight, and stewards of outcomes. - Trust is the operating constraint. - Scaling AI across the enterprise introduces new risks around data integrity, bias, accountability, and transparency.

For CEOs, CMOs, and CHROs, this is a defining moment. The shift from broadcast communication (top down, one to many) to network (many to many) is the most urgent cultural transformation left—and the one with the greatest impact on trust, decision speed, talent, performance, and the future relevance of the organisation. Work has gone digital first, but the way most organisations try to build culture has not kept up. Leadership communication, internal comms, and engagement programmes were designed for an era of hierarchy and broadcast where values are announced and decks shared. In today’s workplace, they are structurally insufficient to create connection, trust, or followership. A generational shift is accelerating this gap. Gen Z employees expect leaders to be visible, human, and direct. They follow people, not institutions. At the same time, a new generation of CEOs is already communicating differently—more openly, more frequently, and in conversation with their workforce. What worked before no longer scales, and organisations that do not adapt are already feeling the impact in trust, engagement, retention, and their ability to attract top talent. This session introduces a new system for culture built for this reality—one that moves organisations from broadcast to network where meaning is co-created, tested, and reinforced through relationships, feedback, and action. In networked cultures, communication flows with clarity and speed with frontline employees included by design. AI also helps cut through everyday friction so that people get answers, take action, and be heard. Takeaways: - How leaders can build trust through direct, human communication that works across generations. - How culture now flows through networks and what this means for including the frontline at scale. - How AI can simplify work and remove friction using a human-first approach that augments existing systems and accelerates participation.

Work has gone digital-first, but most leadership models have not evolved at the same pace. While organizations continue to communicate through hierarchy and broadcast, culture today forms through networks via conversation, visibility, and participation. This executive lab builds on the keynote “From Broadcast to Network: A New System for Culture” and challenges leaders to examine how their own behaviors either reinforce outdated broadcast norms or accelerate a more connected, trust-driven culture. Through structured peer dialogue and guided reflection, participants will diagnose where culture truly forms in their organizations, identify leadership behaviors that must shift, and define visible commitments that signal a move toward network leadership. Takeaways: - A clear understanding of where culture actually forms in your organization, and where leadership influence may be misaligned. - A practical definition of network leadership behaviors at the C-suite level. - One specific leadership behavior to stop, one to start, and a clear plan to visibly signal change.

AI is reshaping how work gets done: changing roles, workflows, and the skills organizations need. But real transformation depends on how people adapt, not just the technology they deploy. In this small-group discussion, leaders will share experiences from their own organizations - what’s working, where challenges remain, and how they’re helping employees build the confidence and capabilities to succeed in an AI-driven workplace. Together, we’ll exchange best practices, discuss common obstacles, and explore how to build the culture and leadership alignment needed to turn AI potential into real impact. Takeaways: - What drives true AI readiness - How culture accelerates AI transformation - How to influence adoption at scale

Would your company change course if you knew China would invade Taiwan by 2028? Over the last year, every business in every industry has been impacted in some way by external factors like the war in Iran, AI’s growing threat to labor, changing trade policy, and many more. As paradigms shift more rapidly than ever before, firms are increasingly differentiated by whether they can take advantage of external shocks across geopolitics, technology, and macroeconomics. In this session, participants will build, strengthen, and apply a skill set that enables their firms to be one step ahead of tomorrow’s headlines. Takeaways: - How to use indicators and warnings to develop conviction about the future. - How to integrate geopolitical scenario planning into organizational decision-making. - Current forecasts of the war in Iran and impacts on oil markets and US business.

A community of leaders who get the power of culture — sharing playbooks and promoting thought leadership in one of the most intimate, candid settings you'll find anywhere in the executive world. Set on the water at Campus on Lake Austin, 2C26 brought together a remarkable mix of voices: AI and data strategists, retired military admirals, Microsoft executives, McKinsey partners, founders, and scholars — all in the same room, having the same honest conversations about where work, culture, and leadership are actually headed.

Frontline employees keep organizations running, yet many remain disconnected from leadership, culture, and opportunity. In this Culturati: LIVE session, Gideon Pridor, CMO & Chief Storyteller at Workvivo by Zoom, walks through insights from the Frontline Gap Report, a global survey of 7,500 frontline workers. The conversation examines the five gaps shaping frontline experience—culture, communication, recognition, technology, and career growth—and highlights practical ways leaders can close them to improve engagement, retention, and operational performance.

Dr. Katie Pritchett explores why transformation often fails under pressure, introducing the Organizational Nervous System lens to show how stress, identity threat, and uncertainty shape culture, decision-making, and change durability—especially as AI reshapes work.

As AI spreads, speed and scale stop being advantages on their own. What replaces them is judgment. Watch Gwen Hammes and Al Dea challenge the assumptions leaders still hold about efficiency, expertise, and accountability in AI-enabled organizations.

In this Culturati: LIVE session, Douglas Ferguson and Erik Skogsberg of Voltage Control demonstrate how AI is reshaping collaboration by acting as an active thinking partner rather than a solo productivity tool. Through a live Miro walkthrough, they show how teams can use AI to surface assumptions, visualize complexity, and move from scattered inputs to shared understanding. The session explores the “personal efficiency trap,” highlights where coordination breaks down inside organizations, and offers practical ways to bring AI into workshops, retros, and strategy work. Leaders will walk away with new language, tools, and mindsets for treating AI as a collaborative teammate—one that accelerates clarity, alignment, and collective problem-solving.

In this interactive session, Geoff Woods, author of The AI Driven Leader, shared a transformative approach to using AI as a strategic partner rather than a tactical tool. He reintroduced the CRIT framework (Context, Role, Interview, Task) as a powerful method for prompting AI to ask the right questions, enabling leaders to think more clearly, creatively, and effectively. Through real-world examples, including resolving board tensions and reimagining impossible revenue goals, Geoff demonstrated how AI can unlock growth, accelerate execution, and align strategy across organizations. The session challenged common assumptions, urging leaders to stop delegating AI adoption to IT and instead lead from the top focusing on enterprise value. Participants left with tangible tools, a shift in mindset, and a renewed sense of how to harness AI not to replace human insight, but to enhance it.

In this Culturati: LIVE session, Chris Jensen, Chief People Officer & EVP of NXP, and Dana Larsen, VP of Global Talent & Organization Development, shared how NXP is transforming its culture to meet the demands of AI at the edge—where speed, safety, and independence from the cloud are critical. They described setting a North Star of becoming “unstoppable,” aligning senior leaders through immersive development, and engaging 120 VPs to shape personal leadership visions across siloes. To guide change, NXP analyzed more than 14,000 employee comments with generative AI and paired survey results with informal feedback to uncover cultural patterns and priorities. The conversation highlighted that courageous leadership today requires linking purpose, clarity, and agency with the execution speed needed to compete in the AI era.

LaToya Collins-Jones suggests we don’t need more rules or another corporate playbook - that leading with clarity and audacity is the way. In this session, LaToya is calling in leaders ready to trust their gut, and create cultures that reflect who they truly are. She'll explore how to build high-performance environments without burning out or selling out—and why the boldest move you can make is to lead from alignment. This conversation assumes leaders are here to shake things up—and ready to start with one powerful, unapologetic step.

In high-stakes environments, leaders often default to control, speed, or detachment—instinctive responses that can erode trust and performance. This session explored the science and practice of Cognitive Hospitality: a leadership approach that helps teams stay grounded, open, and creative under pressure. Rev. Steven Tomlinson, PhD and Dr. Gregory Wallingford shared research and real-world insights on how to shift from reactivity to reflection, creating conditions for emotional safety and clear thinking in crisis moments. Together with the audience, they unpacked the human signals of “code blue” culture, offered language to navigate ambiguity, and outlined actionable strategies to lead with presence, empathy, and steadiness, no matter the situtation.

Description: Learn why strategies to enhance collaboration, connectivity, innovation, mentorship, and skill development are the key to ensure your working model works for your organization and your people. Whether teams are in person, remote, or hybrid, these practices are essential to create a healthy organization with sustained productivity.

Christie Smith PhD, founder of The Humanity Studio, a human leadership company, and Jeremy Tucker, founder of Major Futures, a strategic brand growth firm, discuss the new ways that business leaders can craft strong personal brands built to foster purpose, agency and trust in the workplace, and in the world.

Description: Join us in discussing how gen AI is further accelerating the need for strategic workforce planning. Predicting go-forward talent demand has never been harder – or more important – for organizations to plan for (and realize) the impact of gen AI. Discover how other organizations are leveraging data & automation to plan for their future talent needs, including how McKinsey itself is transitioning to skill-first talent planning,

Embracing a human-centric approach to leadership—one that prioritizes the needs and well-being of employees, fosters inspiration and gives them a sense of purpose—is now more important than ever. Those who invest first in their own inward journey find they can more effectively inspire and empower others. Join a discussion on the qualities that redefine leadership as outlined in McKinsey’s new book, The Journey of Leadership, assess your personal leadership style, and learn practical strategies used by top CEOs.

How can AI transform both employee experience and customer engagement? In this dynamic workshop hosted by Microsoft’s Karan Nigam, trailblazing organizations shared real-world strategies for embedding AI into operations and culture—from self-service agents that empower teams to tools that qualify leads with precision. A must-watch for anyone reimagining the workplace through intelligent design.

Description: Discover insights on organizational culture, leadership, and transformation as Tiffanie Boyd, McDonald's Global Chief People Officer, and Brooke Weddle, a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, delve into the challenges and opportunities of building a resilient, continuously transforming workplace culture in a rapidly changing environment.

The world is heating up and change is accelerating – with extreme volatility and low visibility. Dean Carter, Chief Experience Officer for Modern Executive Solutions, and former head of people and culture for Sears, Fossil and Patagonia, will take us through how even in extraordinarily different companies and cultures you can leverage meaningful purpose and powerful tools to drive sustainable productivity and extraordinary results – even in turbulent times.

In an era defined by unprecedented technological innovation, the rise of distributed teams, and seismic global shifts, traditional leadership models are no longer sufficient. Christie Smith, PhD, founder of The Humanity Studio and co-author of Essential: How Distributed Teams, Generative AI, and Global Shifts Are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership, offers a bold and transformative roadmap for leaders to meet these challenges head-on. With over 35 years of experience advising Fortune 500 companies and spearheading transformative talent strategies at Accenture, Apple, and Deloitte, Dr. Smith presents a vision of leadership that puts humanity at the center—delivering results that benefit both business and society. Drawing on insights from her groundbreaking book, she offers actionable strategies to help leaders align people, purpose, and technology. Attendees will leave equipped to lead with confidence, clarity, and courage in a rapidly evolving business landscape.

How is your commitment to purpose, values, and vision being challenged? What should bend, break, and stand tall in turbulent times.

The 2025 Culturati Summit marked a decade of gathering bold, curious leaders committed to changing the world through the workplace. Held at Campus on Lake Austin, it brought together 150 executives, scholars, and changemakers for two days of real-time benchmarking, candid exchange, and deep inquiry into how we build **purpose, agency, and trust** in an age of institutional breakdown and accelerating AI. The result: a rare space for unfiltered insight and strategic clarity among those shaping the future of work.

Brace yourselves: AI is set to revolutionize the workplace like never before. The integration of AI into business isn’t just an upgrade—it’s a seismic shift that will challenge every norm. No aspect of work, from organizational structures to productivity metrics, will be left untouched. In this workshop you will learn about Microsoft’s latest research and insights from cutting-edge AI-native companies reveal a bold new blueprint for how businesses can thrive, and employees can excel in this AI-driven era. Get ready to confront the future head-on and redefine success.

Learn why strategies to enhance collaboration, connectivity, innovation, mentorship, and skill development are the key to ensure your working model works for your organization and your people. Whether teams are in person, remote, or hybrid, these practices are essential to create a healthy organization with sustained productivity.

Description: Brett, Julia and Omair discuss pioneering strategies and insights as a panel of leading entrepreneurs, sharing their unique experiences and approaches to cultivating a vibrant and innovative organizational culture. Takeaway: We’re reinventing the workplace. It’s not just who we hire but also who we allow to stay. The talent dynamic is shifting.

Description: People are our competitive advantage. There is a high ROI on human capital investment. It also allows us to reach peak productivity and prosperity. Takeaways: - Why is establishing a strong organizational culture critical to performance? - How is culture created and sustained at the organizational level? - How should an organization decide what should be part of its DNA? - What roles should the CHRO, CEO and top leadership team play in establishing, changing, or cementing culture? How about middle managers and first line managers? - What visible actions are you taking to create the climate for your team members to contribute to your organization’s success?

Description: Walter Isaacson, one of the world’s most prolific authors on genius, leadership & entrepreneurship as well as the former editor of Time Magazine, the CEO & Chairman of CNN, and the CEO of the Aspen Institute, discusses the creativity of genius, leadership & culture in our 2C24 opening keynote. Interviewed by our co-founder & CEO, Eugene Sepulveda. Key Takeaways: - Do you have to be a jerk* to be a disruptor? Distinguishing between disobedience and inititative. - How important is the role of risk-taking? - Innovation and technology as a team sport that can transcend generations. - Should cultures blur the lines between disobedience and initiative?

Description: A fireside chat with Michelle Gethers and Brooke Weddle exploring the link between inclusion and performance, as well as ways to foster belonging. Takeaways: - Why should inclusion matter to leaders? - How should leaders design inclusion efforts to reach all employees? - What are the biggest barriers, related to inclusion, that organizations need to address?

Description: The workplace of the future will be remote-first, but not place-less. This means reimagining both our ways of working and the places we work. Organizations that strike the right balance between workplace flexibility and reimagined purpose of the office can achieve speed, sustainable performance, and a distinctive employee experience. No mandates required. Takeaways: - The workplace of the future will be virtual-first, but not place-less - Your organization’s workplace needs a clearly defined and authentic purpose - Purposeful presence and reimagined offices can be used to improve organizational health and employee experience

Description: Generative AI promises to transform work for every role and function. Becoming an AI-Powered Organization will take new leadership, talent and a reimagination of how work gets done. Join Matthew Duncan as he shares an AI-powered approach to unlock productivity, unleash creativity, and uplevel skills for everyone. Takeaways: - AI is not just a tool – it is a new dimension of work - Employees are suffering from a time and energy deficiency and digital debt - Broken work patterns are causing this deficiency – but AI is already showing signs of fixing them - Only businesses that re-allocate refunded time and energy wisely will truly benefit from the new dimension of work

Description: How to create a values-focused culture which aligns with P&L ambitions: strengthening behavior alignment with corporate and individual success metrics. Takeaways: - The senior most leaders must create the culture through values and behaviors. What measures would you put in place to hold management accountable? Review your incentive plans and business goals to see how to embed culture work within those programs. - When creating culture initiatives, know the strategic initiatives that will carry the organization forward and build from there. - It’s true, sustainable change in culture will take several years. - Communicate the values and culture goals in an immersive framework: language, visuals, behavior.

Description: Organizational health, driven by decisive leadership, data-driven innovation, and dynamic deployment of talent, remains the best predictor of value creation and a sustainable source of competitive advantage in today’s global marketplace. Takeaways: - ‘How you run the place’ is both a source and driver of competitive advantage. If it’s not intentional – you’re getting it wrong! - Behaviors are measurable. If you aren't measuring it, you can't manage it! - Great leadership should drive sustainable performance and energy in your people. It's not about happy, it's about healthy!

Description: Managers play a key role in driving organizational value, particularly when it comes to scaling and capturing value from GenAI, making it crucial to accurately define their responsibilities and ensure they receive support. Takeaways: - Managers are more critical than ever before. Organizations need to set the role up for success, by cutting unnecessary administrivia and supporting and empowering their managers - The path is not one size fits all. Organizations need to set up optionality so that being a manager isn’t perceived as the only way to advance, and organizations need to get clear on what they expect of their managers and assess accordingly - Organizations must continuously develop their managers so they are building new skills to deliver in a rapidly evolving world of work.

Description: Mark McClain, CEO & founder of SailPoint, the leading identity security company, discusses the potential benefits and harm of AI technology and its implications on company culture in the workplace. Takeaways: - What history has taught us about technology advancements in the workplace - The potential benefits and harm of AI in today’s workplace - How to proceed aggressively, with caution