For People & Talent Leaders

HR Leaders Summit

A dedicated program for the people building the teams behind modern tech: Heads of People, Talent, and Recruiting from the companies hiring developers at WeAreDevelopers World Congress.

8–10 July 2026 Berlin, Germany

Get an HR Leaders Pass

Hire And Lead In The Age Of AI

Where People Strategy Meets The Builders.

AI is changing what engineers do, what teams look like, and what it takes to hire and keep them. The HR Leaders Summit brings People, Talent, and Recruiting leaders together with the developer community at the heart of WeAreDevelopers World Congress.

HR Meets Tech
Unlike traditional HR conferences, this format connects HR leaders, talent acquisition experts, and employer branding professionals directly with developers, tech leaders, and product teams.
Actionable Insights
This crossover format breaks down silos between HR and tech, covering topics like recruiting, retention, employer branding, inclusion, wellbeing, AI, and HR tech — all tailored to the tech ecosystem.
Cutting-Edge Strategies
Discover innovative tools and technologies transforming how companies work with tech and people. Explore real-world case studies, sessions, and success stories to inspire your HR, recruiting, and people initiatives.

On Stage

Meet the Speakers.

A first look at the People and Talent leaders confirmed for the program. The lineup grows as confirmations come in.

Sessions Sneak Peek

A First Look at the Program.

An early look while we finalize the program. Tap a row for the full description.

A Dystopian Future for Software Engineering

George Hantzaras · Director Engineering, MongoDB

In 2030, we don’t "write" code anymore, we orchestrate it. The massive adoption of agentic AI has transformed the SDLC into a high-fidelity assembly line. We have "Architect Agents" drafting design docs, "Reviewer Agents" enforcing linting and security, and "Coder Agents" generating 99% of production PRs. In this "dystopian" (or utopian?) future, the role of the Software Engineer has evolved into a conductor. To get these agents to work perfectly, together the human must possess a god-tier level of experience, knowing exactly when to demand an interface over a class, how to prevent leaky abstractions in generated code, and how to debug logic they didn't technically type. But there is a catch: if the machines do all the typing in the world of proprietary software, where does the next generation of senior conductors come from? In this session, we will explore: - The Agentic SDLC: A technical deep dive into a multi-agent world, where specialized agents handle specific lifecycle stages. - The "Expert Paradox": Why AI-driven development actually raises the bar for seniority and architectural knowledge, making "Junior" a disappearing job title in proprietary software. - Open Source as the training ground: Why FOSS is becoming the only place where humans still "hand-craft" code, not out of necessity, but for mastery and passion, and how this makes Open Source the ultimate training ground for future engineers.
AI in Recruiting: What Works, What Fails - Real Lessons from Office & Volume Hiring

Barbara Kryslak · Associate Director, Redcare Pharmacy

AI has huge potential in recruiting - but implementations vary widely. This talk breaks down what worked, what didn’t, and why, across both office (professional) and volume (high-velocity) hiring environments. In this practical session, you’ll hear real, data-backed lessons from multiple AI introductions we led at Redcare Pharmacy and evaluated in both office hiring and volume recruiting. I’ll cover: - Successful patterns - where AI improved work of the recruiters / candidate experience. - Unsuccessful rollouts - where tools underperformed and what were the reasons. - Human + machine workflows - what roles remain human-centric, and where AI delivers the most leverage. - Ethics and bias safeguards - real examples of how bias surfaced, and practical guardrails to address it. - Metrics that matter - what to measure when you deploy AI so you know you’re improving, not guessing.
Angstfreude - AI and Corporate Culture - The Thrill and the Threat

Karin Krobath · Founding Partner, identifire , Axel Ebert · Founding Partner, wortwelt®

AI delivers in three minutes – and suddenly you’re not sure whether to feel impressed or obsolete. We hired an AI employee named Ada, sent ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to 2035, and compared their view with People & Culture leaders already shaping this transformation. The result is provocative, funny, and uncomfortably familiar. Why is everyone suddenly a manager? Why can measuring culture destroy it? And why might Europe’s biggest weakness become its advantage?
Behind the Curtain: How Recruiters Shortlist Devs in an AI-Driven Market and How You Stand Out

Mina Golesorkhi · Founder, Hi Remi

The job market is tougher than ever. Developers are applying everywhere, but many get ignored, skipped, or never approached. At the same time, recruiters are drowning in AI-generated applications and struggling to spot the right talent for their teams. Both sides need to adapt. In this talk, a recruiter spills the tea: - how to identify the RIGHT developers in an AI-driven market - what signals actually matter - how Dev's can adapt to be seen Developers will learn how recruiters think, how AI shortlisting works, and how to position themselves so they get seen and receive more positive responses. Recruiters will walk away with a clearer playbook on hiring real talent.
Building Organizations That Can Actually Adapt

Claudia Tattanelli · Founder and CEO, C-YourCulture , Kerstin Wagner · EVP Talent Acquisition, Deutsche Bahn , Anastasija Removic · Senior Talent Manager, Liberty Global , Nazim Ünlü · Strategic Advisor, allygatr

In a world defined by constant disruption, from AI-driven transformation and shifting workforce expectations to economic uncertainty and rapid technological change, organizational adaptability has become a critical competitive advantage. Yet many companies still struggle to move beyond agility as a buzzword and build the structures, cultures, and leadership practices that enable real, sustained adaptation. Join Claudia Tatanelli as she moderates an engaging discussion with Kerstin Wagner, Anastasia Removic, and Nazim Ünlü, three leaders at the forefront of organizational transformation. Together, they will explore what it takes to create organizations that can continuously evolve, learn, and thrive in times of change. The panel will examine how leaders can foster resilience, empower teams to make decisions, balance stability with innovation, and build cultures that embrace experimentation without losing focus. Attendees will gain practical insights into the strategies, mindsets, and operating models that help organizations respond effectively to today's challenges while preparing for tomorrow's opportunities.
Cognitive Debt - Why AI makes human judgment the bottleneck

Elisa Schön · Senior HR Business Partner, Tagesspiegel

AI is not just changing how developers write code. It is changing where the work of thinking happens. Code generation, test creation, documentation search, debugging suggestions, and architectural options can now appear within seconds. But these outputs still need to be checked, interpreted, integrated, and owned by a human. The task shifts from producing work to evaluating it. That shift has a cognitive cost. In many teams, AI increases output while also increasing review work, context switching, decision load, and mental fragmentation. Research already suggests that developers can feel faster with AI while slowing down on complex, familiar tasks. The question is no longer whether AI is useful. It is whether teams understand the hidden load it creates. This talk connects stress research and software engineering to examine what happens when chronic work stress meets AI-assisted development. Prolonged stress affects attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, and learning — the very capacities developers need as their role moves from execution toward supervision, problem framing, and accountability for machine-generated work. Participants will learn how to identify hidden cognitive load, decide what should be automated or protected by human review, and build work habits that support focus, recovery, and decision quality. In an AI-saturated workplace, the most valuable developers will not be those who produce the most code. They will be those who can stay clear under pressure, evaluate complexity, and use AI without surrendering their own judgment.
Cultural Intelligence: How to Build Teams That Work Anywhere Building belonging, not just headcount.

Renita Käsper · Co-founder, Recruitment Thursday

In today’s borderless world, technical excellence isn’t enough — cultural intelligence (CQ) has become the real differentiator. This keynote unpacks how CQ helps global teams communicate better, collaborate smarter, and perform stronger across time zones and cultures. You’ll walk away with fresh insights and practical tools to build teams that don’t just work everywhere — they thrive anywhere.
Debugging Humans: How MBTI Helps Engineering Teams Communicate Better

Hazel Wat · Analyst and Consultant, Schwarz IT

Software teams spend enormous effort on codes - yet many of the biggest productivity issues are not technical at all. They come from miscommunication, mismatched expectations, and avoidable friction between equally capable engineers. In this talk, I will explore how MBTI - a 16 personality assessment - can be used as a practical communication framework for engineer teams - not as a personality label or hiring tool, but as a shared language to understand different working and communication preferences. I will share how small adjustments in communication can dramatically improve team effectiveness. This session focuses on actionable, engineer-friendly techniques to reduce friction, improve collaboration, and build high-performing teams.
Decode Your People: Using PCM to Build High-Performance Teams

Chris Redmond · Founder, RedOwl Talent

Only 23% of employees globally are engaged in their work. Burnout has hit 66%, and the average age for experiencing it is now just 32. On top of that, only 44% of managers have ever been trained in how to lead people, despite being directly responsible for 70% of team engagement outcomes. We don’t have a productivity crisis, we have a leadership crisis. In this 20-minute keynote, I share how the Process Communication Model (PCM), a behavioural tool originally developed for NASA, helps founders and managers lead people the way they’re actually wired. This is not a PCM training session. It’s a practical, story-led talk designed to shift how leaders think about performance: not as something to push for, but something to unlock through smarter communication, deeper understanding, and earlier stress recognition. Using PCM as a lens, I’ll walk the audience through: Why people disengage (and how to see it coming) Why one-size-fits-all motivation fails modern teams How to recognise when a communication style is misfiring Audience members will reflect on their own teams in real-time, explore the gap between how they lead and how people want to be led, and leave with a clear insight: you don’t manage performance, you manage people.
Engineering/Manager Pendulum: Generating compound interest on your career

Marcin Olichwirowicz · Engineering Manager, Netflix

Most career advice tells you to climb the ladder, one step at a time. I'm going to tell you why I jumped off it - and why that "demotion" became the best decision of my career. I started as an engineer in startups, then moved into management at a large company, leading around 40 people. But I had never been an engineer at that scale myself, and it showed. So I did something that surprised everyone: I swung back to an individual contributor role. It wasn't free. I reported to managers with less experience than me, so I had to keep my ego low. And a zig-zag CV made recruiters suspicious, which made offers harder to get. But the return was bigger than I expected. My years as a manager made me a sharper engineer - I knew which fights were worth having and which to drop. And when I swung back to management, I didn't start from zero. I came back with fresh technical confidence and real empathy for my team, because I had just lived their reality. I'll show you why the pendulum isn't really a back-and-forth motion. Done right, it's a curve that keeps going up.
Fireside Chat - Why the future is built on “AND”

Rudi Bauer · CCO, WeAreDevelopers , Jürgen Hartwig · CHRO, Daimler Truck

From AI to hybrid work to organizational culture, the most important breakthroughs happen when we stop thinking in opposites. The tech industry loves binaries. Remote OR office. Build OR buy. AI replaces humans, OR AI empowers humans. And social media makes it even worse, because nuance doesn’t trend very well. But maybe the future belongs to people who can think in terms of combinations rather than opposites. So today is really about one question: How do we move from ‘either/or’ to ‘and’, as leaders, developers, organizations, and society?
Five Ways to Break Silos in Your Engineering Organization

Daniel Schniepp · Chief Architect, Mercedes-Benz Group

Large or fast-growing engineering organizations often foster silos, separating teams, hindering collaboration, and reducing the impact of collective knowledge and opportunities for technology sharing. But you don’t need a management mandate or a big budget to start breaking them down. I’ll share five approaches I’ve successfully used that can be used by individual contributors and managers to bridge gaps between different parts of your organization. From fostering intrinsically driven grassroots communities of practice and running internal tech conferences or hackathons to encouraging cross-team code contributions and rotating engineers between products, each approach is designed to be flexible, scalable, and low-cost. I’ll also share personal experiences and the impact these approaches had on the organization. Whether you're an experienced individual contributor or a manager, this talk will offer practical ideas and inspiration to drive change and encourage you to not give up, even when you experience setbacks.
From conversational job search to AI agents, must we reinvent recruitment?

Robindro Ullah · CEO, Trendence Institut

The recruitment market is changing dramatically — again — and those of us in HR are barely noticing. Rather than addressing and adapting to these significant changes, we are ignoring them completely. The shift to conversational job searching alone is turning our recruitment process on its head. With the addition of AI agents, we must rethink our processes and our technological setup. In this lecture, I would like to draw attention to the underestimated changes and highlight the dramatic nature of the situation, so that no one is caught unawares.
From KPIs to KVIs: What HR Leaders Can Learn from Gamers About Energy, Performance & Longevity

Toan Nguyen · Founder and CEO, From The Future

Why measuring output is outdated — and how vitality becomes the ultimate performance metric. KPIs measure one side of the business - the output? But what about the input? KVIs (Key Vitality Indicators) measure whether people can keep performing. In this talk, we explore how leading organizations shift from output tracking to energy intelligence — inspired by gaming systems that balance load, recovery, and progression. Gamers intuitively understand concepts like cooldowns, resource management, and healing phases. Applied to HR, this means designing environments where performance is not extracted, but sustainably generated. The future of HR lies in framing health not as a benefit, but as a strategic performance driver.
Hiring AI Native Talents

Zahhar Kirillov · Delivery Manager, EPAM Systems

Many companies and startups are looking to hire AI Native talent, but only few are experienced how to interview them. If you struggle to define approach and your interview starts with “Have you used Github Copilot?” question – welcome to my talk, where I will share experince I earned in 2025 after interviewing over 100 team members globally for enterprise IT projects. You will learn real-world lessons on how GenAI has reshaped the hiring criteria for developers, QAs, architects and managers, and what are the best practices (including questions and practical tasks) to distinguish vibe-coders from AI-Native software engineers.
Hiring Technical Leaders: Promote from Within or Go External?

Barbara Wilk · Global Head Talent Acquisition, Appfire

Alternative title - Hiring Technical Leaders: Build or Buy? When it comes to (technical) people leaders, should we nurture and promote from within the organization or hire from the outside? What is the not-so-hidden cost of both of those approaches (fresh ideas, different approaches to people and technical leadership, leadership maturity vs organization maturity); technical leadership - building credibility within a team; leading at different sizes and different maturity of organization - the role of a leader in a start-up vs scale-up vs large organization.
How to Attract & Retain in a fast moving environment

Kent Frederiksen · Vice President Reward, The LEGO Group

In this session we will dive into some of the global demographical changes and how it could impact ability to attract & retain talent. The session will then explore how the LEGO Group is navigating these changes and what other companies could be focusing on to mitigate.
How to Build a Culture of Sustainable High Performance

Bianca Errigo · Founder and CEO, HumanOS

What does sustainable high performance really look like in today’s workplace, and how do the best companies actually achieve it? The future of work isn’t coming, it’s here. Only 23% of the global workforce is currently engaged. By 2030, 39% of core work skills will be obsolete, and 170 million new jobs will emerge that don’t exist today. In this interactive session, we’ll unpack the latest research and real-world insights to explore: The #1 predictor of high performance The three biggest drivers of high-performing cultures, drawn from Davos 2026 and World Economic Forum research Practical strategies you can implement straight away to energise your people and improve results You’ll leave with a clearer picture of what a sustainable high-performance culture looks like, and the tools to start building one in your own business.
HR Workshop - The Human Advantage: Storytelling in the Age of AI

Stefan Ganß · Business Trainer, Storytellingtrainer.de

AI can generate code, emails, product descriptions, and pitch decks in seconds. That is powerful. But it also creates a problem: when communication becomes faster, smoother, and more polished, it can also start to sound the same. What still cuts through is a real human story. In this two-hour hands-on workshop, Stefan Ganß shows how storytelling helps position your product, your AI expertise, and yourself with more clarity, trust, and impact. This is not a lecture. The workshop combines practical tools from journalism, live reporting and business storytelling: how to hook an audience in the first 15 seconds, how to turn dry facts into a simple three-act structure, and how to build a personal story file with material no AI tool can invent. The examples range from storytelling classics like Steve Jobs to less obvious cases from Stefan’s work as a journalist and trainer, such as a high-end motorcycle restorer who can earn up to 20% more when he can tell the true story behind the machine. This is where the work gets concrete: you apply the tools to your own context, working on hooks, three-act structures, and positioning ideas for your product, your expertise or your next talk. Ideas are tested out loud and sharpened immediately, with feedback from Stefan’s trained storyteller’s ear and from the room. You leave with concrete results you can use right after the workshop.
HR Workshop - The Human Advantage: Storytelling in the Age of AI

Stefan Ganß · Business Trainer, Storytellingtrainer.de

AI can generate code, emails, product descriptions, and pitch decks in seconds. That is powerful. But it also creates a problem: when communication becomes faster, smoother, and more polished, it can also start to sound the same. What still cuts through is a real human story. In this two-hour hands-on workshop, Stefan Ganß shows how storytelling helps position your product, your AI expertise, and yourself with more clarity, trust, and impact. This is not a lecture. The workshop combines practical tools from journalism, live reporting and business storytelling: how to hook an audience in the first 15 seconds, how to turn dry facts into a simple three-act structure, and how to build a personal story file with material no AI tool can invent. The examples range from storytelling classics like Steve Jobs to less obvious cases from Stefan’s work as a journalist and trainer, such as a high-end motorcycle restorer who can earn up to 20% more when he can tell the true story behind the machine. This is where the work gets concrete: you apply the tools to your own context, working on hooks, three-act structures, and positioning ideas for your product, your expertise or your next talk. Ideas are tested out loud and sharpened immediately, with feedback from Stefan’s trained storyteller’s ear and from the room. You leave with concrete results you can use right after the workshop.
HR Workshop - Vibe:athon: Where HR Goes to Build 1/4

Leandro Gomes da Silva · Founder, The AI Laundry , Joe Atkinson · Co-founder, PromptMates

If you can describe what you want, you can build it. Enough AI talks, this time, you walk out with software you built yourself: a candidate experience tracker, an interview prep tool, that thing you've been asking IT for since 2024. Yes, you. The one who "isn't technical." Everything is handed to you at the door: free credits for Lovable, the AI app builder, and two coaches who do this for a living. Zero setup, zero experience, zero code.
HR Workshop - Vibe:athon: Where HR Goes to Build 2/4

Leandro Gomes da Silva · Founder, The AI Laundry , Joe Atkinson · Co-founder, PromptMates

If you can describe what you want, you can build it. Enough AI talks, this time, you walk out with software you built yourself: a candidate experience tracker, an interview prep tool, that thing you've been asking IT for since 2024. Yes, you. The one who "isn't technical." Everything is handed to you at the door: free credits for Lovable, the AI app builder, and two coaches who do this for a living. Zero setup, zero experience, zero code.
HR Workshop - Vibe:athon: Where HR Goes to Build 3/4

Leandro Gomes da Silva · Founder, The AI Laundry , Joe Atkinson · Co-founder, PromptMates

If you can describe what you want, you can build it. Enough AI talks, this time, you walk out with software you built yourself: a candidate experience tracker, an interview prep tool, that thing you've been asking IT for since 2024. Yes, you. The one who "isn't technical." Everything is handed to you at the door: free credits for Lovable, the AI app builder, and two coaches who do this for a living. Zero setup, zero experience, zero code.
HR Workshop - Vibe:athon: Where HR Goes to Build 4/4

Leandro Gomes da Silva · Founder, The AI Laundry , Joe Atkinson · Co-founder, PromptMates

If you can describe what you want, you can build it. Enough AI talks, this time, you walk out with software you built yourself: a candidate experience tracker, an interview prep tool, that thing you've been asking IT for since 2024. Yes, you. The one who "isn't technical." Everything is handed to you at the door: free credits for Lovable, the AI app builder, and two coaches who do this for a living. Zero setup, zero experience, zero code.
People & Culture Welcome Address

Rudi Bauer · CCO, WeAreDevelopers
Prompt Engineering Your Career: AI Agents for Tech Interview Prep

Ekaterina Kapranova · Backend Engineer, SoundCloud

Preparing for technical interviews has become increasingly complex: fast-changing tech stacks, competitive job markets, and limited time to prepare. In this talk, I’ll show how AI agents can act as a personalized career coach, helping developers prepare strategically for interviews and increase their chances of landing a dream job. We’ll walk through a step-by-step, agent-driven process: 1. Engineer the right query – defining the target role, required skills, and interview expectations 2. Analyze the job market – identifying in-demand skills and aligning preparation with current hiring trends 3. Set a realistic timeline – creating a structured preparation plan based on experience and goals 4. Curate learning resources – using AI agents to gather, prioritize, and adapt resources for coding, system design, and behavioral interviews
Software Engineering for Muggles

Theresa Heine · Software Engineer, ING

Have you ever tried to explain software engineering to someone who’s never written a line of code? It’s surprisingly hard, because unlike building a house, software projects rarely go according to plan. They end up more like… the Weasley house from Harry Potter. What starts as a simple, sturdy home becomes an ever-expanding, slightly chaotic structure of extensions, workarounds, last-minute rooms, and “temporary” solutions that somehow end up permanent. Software engineering isn't about a single big construction project, it's an ongoing journey of planning, building, testing, and fixing. Using the Weasley house as a metaphor, I’ll explain why we’re always “renovating” (maintenance), why swapping out doors (libraries) means checking the versions of the hinges and door frames, and how, in software, we can simply “copy the whole house” to test new windows — without anyone catching a cold. After this session you will never struggle again explaining software engineering concepts to your mum, your non technical friend, or your nephew again. Give it a try!
The 2026 Talent Pivot: Essential Trends for an Evolving Workforce

Bastian Eichler · VP Product / Marketing, WorkMotion

The world of work is shifting faster than most organisations can adapt. Rising costs, demographic change, AI disruption and evolving employee expectations are reshaping talent strategy. In this session, we explore why traditional, location-bound hiring models no longer work - and how leading companies are moving toward borderless, skills-first workforce strategies to stay competitive in 2026 and beyond.
The Agentic Enterprise: Orchestrating People, AI, and European Sovereignty

Sebastian Kister · Chief AI Architect, Volkswagen Group

Enterprises are rushing to build "Agentic AI," but they are falling into a dangerous trap: treating human transformation, platform engineering, and data sovereignty as isolated silos. Join Sebastian Kister to discover how to avoid the "Automation Paradox," architect a zero-hallucination predictability engine, and secure your data against the hidden sovereignty threats of modern AI plumbing.
The AI-Fluent Team: A Playbook for Driving Enterprise AI Transformation

Avani Prabhakar · Chief People and AI Enablement Officer, Atlassian

Enterprises have poured billions into AI, across models, tools, and budgets, but most have almost nothing to show for it at scale. Individuals may be using AI to streamline their own workflows, but widespread adoption at the team level remains elusive. The reason? Most organizations still haven't cracked how to measure AI's effectiveness across an entire enterprise. The missing piece isn’t better technology, it’s a measurement and adoption framework that works at the team level, not just the individual level. Avani Prabhakar, Atlassian's Chief People and AI Enablement Officer, owns both workforce strategy and AI transformation. In this session, Avani will share Atlassian's newly launched playbook for enterprise AI adoption, including data from her Teamwork Lab, and the following takeaways: The #1 mistake organizations make when assessing AI's impact on their workforce How People leaders are best-placed to strategically integrate AI into culture and practice Why you must start with trapped knowledge (the expertise locked in your teams' heads), not technology How Atlassian is measuring the return on investment from AI This session is designed for enterprise AI leaders who are looking for a practical way to measure AI's effectiveness and a repeatable framework with proven ROI, told from the perspective of a leader who has driven it from the inside.
The Future of Knowledge Retention: AI-Driven HR Transformation

Trecilla Logo · SVP People and Culture, Flip

We show how AI and intelligent automation can be used as a digital mentor and efficiency driver to significantly relieve HR burdens while systematically preserving experiential knowledge within the company for the next generation. HR work is currently at a historic turning point. More than 50 percent of HR time is spent on administrative tasks, while a massive loss of knowledge looms by 2035 as a large share of operational specialists retire.
The Great Reskilling - Who Wins in the AI Economy?

Rudi Bauer · CCO, WeAreDevelopers , Daniel Terzenbach · Member of the executive board, Federal Employment Agency , Johannes Kopf · CEO, Public Employment Service Austria (AMS)

For years, the conversation about the future of work was dominated by one question: Will technology replace jobs? Today, a more important question is emerging: How do we ensure people can continuously reinvent themselves in a world where jobs, skills, and industries change faster than ever? Europe faces a unique challenge: AI is accelerating transformation, demographics are shrinking the workforce, skill shortages are growing, and millions of workers may need to reskill throughout their careers. To discuss how we can turn disruption into opportunity, we are delighted to welcome two of Europe's leading voices on labor market transformation... Johannes Kopf and Daniel Terzenbach
The Human API: Designing Organizations for Judgment, Not Just Execution

Manjuri Sinha · VP HR, Miro

Core idea: If AI handles execution, humans become the decision layer. HR’s & Leadership's role is to design for good judgment at scale. Human superpowers highlighted: Ethical discernment Decision quality Systems thinking Trust-building
THE HUMAN OPERATING SYSTEM: Why Organizational Adaptability Will Be the Real Competitive Advantage o

Ute Neher · Principal Talent Intelligence, Indeed , Christian Wastlhuber · Co-founder, The UnleashPeople , Jessie Schofer · Founder, Stakkd , Cole Groom · Co-founder, Balance Breathing , Daniel Mühlbauer · Speaker and Impactor, HR-Daten.Liebe

AI is becoming a commodity. Every organization can access similar technologies, tools, and models. The real differentiator will not be AI itself, but how quickly an organization can adapt to change. As technology evolves faster than ever, competitive advantage shifts from technology adoption to organizational adaptability. The organizations that win won't necessarily be those with the best AI strategy. They will be those that learn, adapt, and evolve faster than their competitors.
The New Org Chart: When AI Joins the Workforce

Avani Prabhakar · Chief People and AI Enablement Officer, Atlassian , Benjamin Mann · CTO, Delivery Hero , Ana Mitrasevic · CPSO, Delivery Hero , Nils Berger · Founder and CEO, Viewpointsystem
Unpredictable costs of AI vs predictable cost of Humans

Hung Lee · Curator, Recruiting Brainfood , Raffi Krikorian · CTO, Mozilla , Meghan Hennessy · Global People Executive, HUMKIND , Leandro Gomes da Silva · Founder, The AI Laundry

For years, organizations have viewed automation and AI as a pathway to greater efficiency and lower costs. But as AI moves from experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment, a new reality is emerging: while human talent comes with largely predictable costs, the true costs of AI, financial, operational, ethical, and organizational, are often far less visible and much harder to anticipate. Join Hung Lee for a thought-provoking conversation with Meghan Hennessy, Rafi Krikorian, and Leandro Gomes da Silva as they examine one of the most important questions facing business leaders today: Are we fully accounting for the trade-offs between investing in people and investing in AI? The panel will explore the hidden costs of AI adoption, including governance, infrastructure, security, compliance, model maintenance, and unintended consequences, while also challenging long-held assumptions about the cost of human work. Together, they will discuss how organizations can make smarter decisions about where AI creates value, where human expertise remains irreplaceable, and how to build sustainable workforce strategies in an era of intelligent machines.
Why Distributed Teams Lose Momentum – Even When Everyone Means Well

Franziska Höhne · Project Manager, ALDI SOUTH

Distributed teams rarely lose momentum because of missing skills, bad tools, or lack of motivation. More often, momentum fades even when everyone is committed, competent, and genuinely trying to do the right thing. Based on nearly two decades of professional experience working with international and distributed teams, this session examines why collaboration slows down in real-world engineering and change environments. Drawing on concrete examples from large transformation initiatives and everyday leadership situations, the talk looks at how communication patterns shape alignment, responsibility, and follow-through in virtual settings. The focus is deliberately analytical and practical. Instead of introducing new frameworks or tools, the session explores recurring dynamics that repeatedly appear in distributed teams: unspoken assumptions, unclear signals, and language that creates activity without direction. Special attention is given to situations where decisions must be made under uncertainty and leadership happens without formal authority. By connecting observed patterns from real projects with a clear analytical lens, the session offers a grounded perspective on why distributed teams lose momentum and what typically goes wrong long before execution begins.
Why workflows beat products

Bill Boorman · Strategic Advisor, VONQ

For twenty years, we organized talent technology into categories. Job boards. Career sites. ATS. CRM. Sourcing. Internal mobility. Matching. Screening. Employer branding. That map no longer explains what is happening. As agents move into production and AI shifts from features to orchestration, competition is increasingly happening between workflows rather than products. The winners may not be the companies with the best destination, but those controlling the moments that determine intent, trust, qualification, and movement. This session looks at what happens when the traditional application journey begins to disappear. We will explore why today’s hiring problems — over-apply, authentication, AI-generated sameness, low-intent applications, and declining signal quality are largely temporary, stemming from immature workflows and beta-era behavior. Many will likely look very different within the next six months. But solving those problems raises harder questions. What happens when candidates are authenticated and screened for baseline fit multiple times before they ever apply? If qualification happens upstream, where does value move? What becomes of the job ad when jobs are increasingly discovered, recommended, and completed through workflows?
You Can't Automate Trust — The Future of Recruiting is Still Human

Mahmoud Aly · TA Business Partner, Semrush

AI is transforming talent acquisition at a speed no one predicted. And yet, candidate experience is declining, and recruiters' productivity is not 'supercharged' yet. Somewhere in the race to automate everything, we forgot about the person on the other end of the process, and we forgot about what talent leaders' true edge is. In this keynote, Mahmoud will make the case for the hardest thing in hiring, and the most overlooked. Trust takes time, intention, and a human being willing to show up. It can't be generated, scaled, or prompted. And in an era where everything else can be automated, it's the only thing that actually wins.
Your Competitors Know Your Skills Better Than You Do

Diana Gehrke · Talent Lead, Stellantis

Most companies track roles and headcount, while competitors target specific skills. This session shows how skill-based talent intelligence reveals capability risk before attrition happens, explains how competitors identify critical skill clusters, and introduces practical ways to turn external market signals into early warnings for workforce strategy.
Your People Are The Future Of Your Brand

Ash Jones · Founder, Great Influence

Trust in brand is declining, with 71% of people saying they trust them less than they did a year ago. In fact, while 90% of executives believe consumers trust their companies, only 30% of consumers actually do. So, who do people trust? People. It has never been more evident that your people are the future of your brand. This session explores how brands can leverage the rise of personal branding to promote the people working within them to drive brand and business growth.

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HR Leaders Summit

Where People Strategy Meets The Builders.

HR Meets Tech

Actionable Insights

Cutting-Edge Strategies

Meet the Speakers.

A First Look at the Program.

Get An HR Leaders Pass.