In this Culturati: LIVE, Dr. Joy L. Wiggins explores how leaders can turn cultural awareness into a repeatable capability for stronger decisions, trust, and execution across global and distributed teams. Using her Cultural Agility Change Model, Joy shows how to diagnose whether workplace friction is rooted in process, relationships, or deeper cultural dynamics involving identity, power, communication, and unwritten norms. Through examples from hiring, feedback, negotiation, conflict, and organizational change, she offers practical questions and strategies for making disagreement safer, surfacing hidden assumptions, and adapting leadership approaches without losing sight of the desired outcome.

Neuroscientist Paul J. Zak explores how trust and emotional fitness shape the way people think, connect, and perform at work. Drawing from decades of research on oxytocin, human connection, and organizational performance, Paul explains why emotionally fit teams are better equipped to navigate stress, build trust quickly, sustain engagement, and make sound decisions in complex environments.

In this Culturati: LIVE session, Brian Johnson, founder & CEO of Heroic and author of Areté, explores how leaders can cultivate antifragile confidence: the ability to grow stronger through challenge while strengthening trust, resilience, and performance under pressure. Drawing on ancient wisdom, modern science, and decades of work with elite performers including Olympians, UFC champions, executive teams, and leaders within U.S. Special Operations Command, Brian shares practical frameworks for building disciplined habits, emotional stamina, sustainable energy, and aligned daily protocols. Throughout the conversation, participants explore themes including flourishing versus burnout, mental toughness, purpose, recovery, leadership integrity, and how individuals and organizations can close the gap between who they are and who they are capable of becoming.

In this Culturati: LIVE session, Emily Gupton (COO, SKG), Yael Lawson (CEO, Workforce Solutions Capital Area), and Gilbert Zavala (VP, Opportunity Austin) examined how AI-driven role disruption is shifting reskilling from a future initiative to an immediate operational priority. The conversation centered on a critical insight: employees are not reacting to technology itself, but to uncertainty around their relevance. Leaders who translate roles into tasks—clearly signaling what is automated, augmented, and uniquely human—reduce fear and preserve confidence. The group pointed to a growing mismatch between how organizations design work and how talent systems support it, arguing for tighter integration across employers, workforce boards, and education partners to build fluid, skills-based pathways. Regional collaboration emerged as a force multiplier, with sector partnerships lowering training costs and accelerating access to AI-capable talent. The session reinforced that curiosity is now a workforce capability: organizations that create environments where employees can safely experiment with AI see faster adoption and stronger engagement. The takeaway was direct—reskilling works when it is visible, shared, and tied to real opportunities, turning workforce development from a support function into a competitive advantage.

As AI continues to reshape the landscape of work and society, the debate over its governance has reached a tipping point. What’s required for safety and to foster trust while unleashing the power of innovation? This intimate fireside panel brings together three distinct perspectives on the future of AI regulation: Chris Hyams presenting the pro-regulation position, arguing that government oversight is an essential foundation for public safety and societal trust; Shakeel Rashed advancing the no-regulatory capture position, prioritizing speed and American competitiveness by avoiding the stifling effects of over-regulation; and Professor Craig Watkins introducing the Fathom Proposal, a framework for AI governance through a Federal and State government-authorized marketplace of private, independent auditors known as Independent Verification Organizations. Rev. Steven Tomlinson, PhD will moderate the conversation, drawing on years of exploring the potential, ethics, and constraints of AI as a member of the Seminary’s AI faculty committee. Key Takeaways: - AI governance is becoming a strategic business issue. As AI integrates into core operations, leaders will need clear frameworks for accountability, risk management, and trust. - Innovation and regulation exist in constant tension. Over-regulation risks slowing competitiveness, while insufficient oversight risks failures that erode public trust. - New accountability models are emerging. Proposals like the Fathom framework introduce third-party verification markets, creating independent auditing systems for AI safety and reliability. - Stewardship is a leadership responsibility. Executives will increasingly be responsible for how AI systems are deployed, governed, and trusted inside their organizations.

As AI moves from experimentation to enterprise infrastructure, few leaders bring the execution credibility of Sol Rashidi and Brett Hurt. Sol, the world’s first Chief AI Officer for Enterprise, helped launch IBM Watson’s early commercial applications and has since led 200+ AI deployments inside Fortune 500 organizations, translating ambition into governed, workforce-integrated operating models and documenting those lessons in Your AI Survival Guide. Brett, serial founder, former CEO of data.world, and host of the Love Conquers Fear podcast, has built and scaled multiple data-driven companies, invested in 150+ startups, and is advancing a broader thesis on AI and human flourishing through his forthcoming book Love Conquers Fear: Humanity, AI, and the Age of Abundance for All. Their keynote was recorded live as an episode of Love Conquers Fear, bringing our community into a candid executive dialogue on the defining challenge of this era: as AI becomes ubiquitous, competitive advantage shifts from tools to judgment—where to deploy intelligence, what to automate, what remains human, and how leaders move with speed and discipline without breaking trust while making consequential enterprise and societal bets under uncertainty. Key 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. The organizations gaining ground pair rapid deployment with disciplined oversight—governance models, auditability, and clear ethical boundaries—so innovation advances without eroding employee or public trust.

As AI adoption accelerates, the real challenge for Microsoft HR is no longer access to tools - it’s enabling meaningful, human-centered change at speed. In this session, we share how Microsoft HR is approaching AI as an ongoing change in mindset and behavior, not a technology rollout. Drawing from real-world experimentation and lessons learned, the session explores how HR leaders can approach building confidence, capability, and trust while keeping pace with rapid innovation. Attendees will leave with practical patterns for leading AI change in a way that is grounded in daily work, driven through community, responsive to risk and responsibility, and designed to scale - without losing the human experience at the center. Key Takeaways: - AI readiness is fundamentally a people-and-culture shift; success depends on mindset, confidence-building, and responsible ways of working, not just rolling out tools. - Adoption can be managed in phases as tech and teams evolve (from first use to daily habits to new applications) and benefits from consistently revisiting and reinforcing expectations, community, upskilling, and measurement. - Scaling impact comes from operationalizing enablement – clear leadership vision, strong learning pathways, energized champion communities, and real, high-value use cases that make AI tangible and repeatable.

What enables people to speak candidly, take intelligent risks, and perform at their highest level under pressure? In this interactive keynote moderated by Suraj Hinduja, neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak, story scientist Angus Fletcher, and Areté author Brian Johnson explore the biological and behavioral foundations of courageous leadership and human flourishing at work. Paul introduces the neuroscience of trust, explaining how oxytocin and other neurochemical signals influence cooperation, generosity, and engagement inside teams. Angus shows how story activates the brain in ways that align attention and emotion across groups, creating neural synchrony that strengthens connection and shared purpose. Brian connects these insights to the disciplined practices that build antifragile confidence, helping individuals and organizations grow stronger through challenge Through real workplace scenarios and rapid-fire responses from the panelists, participants will translate science into leadership practice—learning how moments of cognitive hospitality can strengthen trust, invite honest dialogue, and cultivate the courage required for high-stakes decision making and sustained performance. Key Takeaways: - Trust changes how the brain works. Neuroscience shows that environments of trust activate biological signals that increase cooperation, engagement, and prosocial behavior across teams. Story aligns people at a neurological level. Narrative produces neural synchrony, allowing groups to share attention, emotion, and meaning, which strengthens cohesion and commitment. - Confidence can be trained. Leaders build antifragile teams by reinforcing disciplined habits, values clarity, and practices that help people grow stronger through challenge. - Small leadership behaviors create courageous cultures. How leaders listen, respond to dissent, recognize effort, and frame uncertainty determines whether teams default to fear or constructive risk-taking. - Human flourishing drives performance. Organizations that intentionally cultivate trust, meaning, and agency unlock higher levels of creativity, resilience, and sustained execution.

AI will create enormous value. The question responsible leadership must ask is: value for whom, decided by whom, at whose expense? The dominant narrative around AI focuses on tools, policies, and guardrails — as if the challenge is primarily technical. But every major AI failure you can point to wasn't a glitch. The technology worked exactly as designed. The design reflected the values, incentives, and blind spots of the organizations that built and deployed it. This session argues that how your organization uses AI is one of the most revealing culture diagnostics available to leaders today. The people with the most power over AI decisions are rarely the people who bear the most risk from them. The productivity gains will largely flow upward; the displacement risk will largely fall downward. That's not a prediction — it's already the pattern. And it won't change through better technology. It will only change when leaders decide that the people most affected by AI decisions deserve a voice in making them. Key Takeaways: -AI amplifies and encodes existing power structures — it doesn't disrupt them unless leaders actively choose disruption. - Your AI deployment decisions are culture decisions. The question isn't whether your technology is responsible — it's whether your organization is. - Responsible AI requires expanding who has a seat at the table, not just improving the quality of the people already there.

A deep dive on how humans and agents collaborate across three emerging models—from human-led to fully agentic workflows. Together, we will unpack the three critical levers of an agentic organization: talent, operating model, and change management, and what it takes to activate them in practice. Through peer exchange and guided exercises, you will leave with actionable ideas to build the capabilities needed for this transformation. Key Takeaways: - Which skills matter most in AI environments. - How roles evolve alongside AI agents. - How to modernize hiring and upskilling.

What does it mean to lead when humans and AI agents work side by side? Drawing on recent research and real-world examples, McKinsey Partner John Chartier and Associate Partner Charlotte Seiler outline how leaders can redesign roles, elevate judgment, and unlock productivity and innovation—while keeping what is most human firmly at the center. Key Takeaways: - How to redesign work for human–AI collaboration. - Where human judgment creates greatest value. - How to lead hybrid human–agent organizations.

Cognitive Hospitality explores how leaders intentionally design environments where creativity, collaboration, and innovation thrive by placing trust and agency at the center of performance. In this immersive workshop, Prof. Paul J. Zak introduces the human social brain and the role of trust and oxytocin in high-performing teams. Participants engage with the SIX app, synced with smartwatches and fitness wearables, to observe physiological signals in real time, grounding the experience in measurable biology and its link to thriving individuals and organizations. Prof. Angus Fletcher guides a structured storytelling exchange using prompts designed to generate neural synchrony, allowing participants to observe moments of alignment, laughter, and deeper connection as they emerge. He explains how story produces these effects in the brain, translating the experience into practical Cognitive Hospitality practices that strengthen clarity, accountability, cross-difference engagement, and courageous thinking in high-stakes environment Key Takeaways: - Understand the human social brain. Trust and oxytocin are central to teamwork and collective intelligence. - Experience neural synchrony firsthand. See measurable alignment during shared storytelling . - Learn structured narrative prompts. - Activate connection intentionally across differences. - Link story to thriving. Neural synchrony strengthens relationships, happiness, and execution . - Translate neuroscience into leadership practice. Design cultures where trust functions as infrastructure and courage becomes operational.

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.