Future Workforce
Summit

Use this time to check in, grab a coffee, and connect with fellow participants before the programme begins. This is your first chance to meet the leaders, coaches, and innovators you’ll be working alongside over the next two days.

Facilitators:

Yasmin Ainkaran – Executive Coach & Facilitator – Grounded Ambition

Dorothée Oung – CEO & Executive Coach – We Are Do. Consulting

Organizations today are navigating unprecedented tension: accelerating technology, shifting workforce expectations, increasing complexity, and leadership models that no longer fully match reality.

In this opening session, Yasmin Ainkaran and Dorothée Oung will set the stage for two days of bold conversations around leadership, organizational transformation, workforce evolution, and the growing gap between strategy and reality.

Blending perspectives from leadership development, neuroscience, human performance, and organizational change, this session invites participants to move beyond familiar frameworks and engage with the contradictions shaping the future of work.

Speakers:

Anke Paulick – PCC, President ICF Germany

Cristina Mühl – PCC, ACTC, President Past ICF Germany

Twelve months ago, many organizations were still experimenting. Today, leaders are facing increasing pressure to translate uncertainty into action.

In this opening reflection, Anke Paulick and Cristina Mühl revisit predictions, assumptions, and signals from last year’s summit and examine what changed faster than expected, what organizations underestimated, and which tensions became impossible to ignore.

Because in the future of work, one year is a very long time.

Speakers:

Anke Paulick – PCC, President ICF Germany

Cristina Mühl – PCC, ACTC, President Past ICF Germany

Christian Lykke

What happens when leadership ideas, workforce trends, AI strategies, and transformation concepts are no longer theoretical, but translated into real organizational decisions?

Throughout the summit, participants will follow the evolution of the fictional company Future Success AG as key themes, insights, and provocations from sessions are continuously integrated into its strategy, structures, workforce decisions, and leadership approaches.

Together with Christian Lykke, the summit will become a live simulation of organizational transformation in real time, revealing not only opportunities, but also unintended consequences, tensions, and trade-offs.

Because in modern organizations, every decision changes the system.

Speaker: Luigia Carlucci Aiello – Professor at Sapienza University of Rome 

Interview: Heike Aiello MBA PCC (President Elect ICF Germany)

Artificial Intelligence is often discussed as a sudden disruption. But its origins go back decades to a small group of researchers bold enough to imagine machines capable of reasoning, learning, and reshaping human work.

In this conversation, Prof. Luigia Carlucci Aiello, one of the pioneers of Artificial Intelligence research in Europe, reflects on the early years of AI, the intellectual courage it took to think beyond convention, and her experience working alongside John McCarthy at Stanford University, the scientist who coined the term “Artificial Intelligence.”

Together, we will explore the breakthroughs, ambitions, assumptions, and contradictions that shaped the field over time and examine the promises and concerns surrounding today’s AI revolution.

Bringing historical perspective into today’s organizational reality, Prof. Carlucci Aiello invites HR leaders, executives, and coaches to reflect more critically and strategically on what it means to lead, work, and make decisions in an AI-driven world.

A rare inside perspective on the origins of a technology now reshaping organizations, leadership, and human potential.

Speaker: Cornel Amariei – CEO & Founder – dotLumen

In a world where organizations increasingly optimize for speed, scale, efficiency, and growth, what happens when innovation begins with human need instead of market opportunity?

In this deeply personal keynote, Cornel Amariei shares the experiences and beliefs that shaped his journey from leading innovation in the automotive industry to building technology designed to empower blind people through AI-powered wearable systems.

Three defining lessons:

• Failure is opportunity in disguise
• Ordinary people, in the right context, achieve extraordinary things
• Make meaning, not money

More than a startup story, this session challenges leaders to rethink what innovation, success, and human-centered technology truly mean in a rapidly changing world.

Speakers: Luigia Carlucci Aiello & Cornel Amariei

Facilitators: Yasmin Ainkaran & Dorothee Oung

Simulation: Christian Lykke

Following the keynote conversations, the live organizational simulation of Future Success AG continues as insights from both sessions are translated into strategic choices, workforce decisions, leadership approaches, and innovation priorities.

Together with Christian Lykke, facilitators, speakers, and participants will explore how purpose-driven innovation, AI, organizational values, and human-centered leadership begin to reshape the company – and where tensions, contradictions, and unintended consequences emerge.

As the simulation evolves, Future Success AG will raise clarifying questions around technology, leadership, workforce expectations, and the future role of humans inside increasingly AI-driven systems – opened to the audience for collective reflection.

Speaker: Dr. Fady Michel – Managing Director ERGO

Strategy defines direction, but execution depends on people.

Organizations everywhere are talking about skills shortages, talent gaps, and future readiness. Yet many continue to rely on static roles, outdated competency models, and workforce structures designed for a far more predictable world.

In this interactive session, Dr. Fady Michel explores why the challenge may not be a lack of talent, but the way organizations design work, capability, and human potential itself.

Introducing the concept of human architecture, the session examines how leaders can move beyond traditional competency frameworks and rethink workforce design in environments increasingly shaped by AI, automation, uncertainty, and constant transformation.

Participants will:

• Identify how key roles are evolving under future pressures
• Explore capabilities beyond technical skills
• Translate strategic priorities into observable behaviors and adaptive patterns
• Redesign workforce thinking around future contribution rather than static job descriptions

Rather than leaving with another theoretical model, participants will develop a practical capability map tailored to their organizational reality.

A hands-on exploration of what future readiness actually requires when the old workforce playbook no longer fits.

Speaker: Rubén Leites García – CEO & Co-Founder – SAPERED GmbH

Facilitators: Yasmin Ainkaran, Dorothee Oung

Organizations are investing billions in learning and development while employees forget most training within days and workforce demands continue to evolve faster than traditional learning systems can adapt.

In a world shaped by AI, constant transformation, and rapidly changing capability needs, a fundamental question emerges:

What if corporate training no longer matches the reality of modern work?

In this fast-paced and provocative panel, Rubén Leites García, together with facilitators Yasmin Ainkaran and Dorothee Oung, challenges long-standing assumptions around learning, upskilling, and workforce development.

A provocative conversation about the future of learning when stability disappears and adaptation becomes a survival skill.

Speaker: Anke Paulick – PCC – President ICF Germany

Organizations everywhere are talking about workforce transformation. Yet many still approach it as an isolated HR initiative instead of recognizing it as a fundamental redesign of how work, leadership, capability, and organizational value creation function together.

As AI, automation, demographic shifts, new workforce expectations, and constant transformation reshape the world of work, organizations face growing pressure to rethink not only roles and skills, but the assumptions underlying work itself.

In this session, Anke Paulick explores why workforce transformation requires more than reskilling programs, flexible work policies, or new organizational charts. It demands a systemic shift in how organizations design collaboration, leadership, adaptability, learning, and human contribution.

A provocative reflection on what organizations must confront if they want to build future-ready workforces in environments where stability is no longer guaranteed.

Start-up pitches and fire side chat with the sponsors

Start-ups:

• Sapericus AI
• CoachBot.ai
• Clarnity (Simulation Future Success AG)
• Calibrate / Leading srl STP
• coachamp
• Prisma
• Findyourvalues.com
• LeaderShift Club
• WayWise / Growth Companion

Innovation rarely arrives fully formed. It emerges through experimentation, bold ideas, unexpected collaborations, and organizations willing to challenge conventional thinking.

This session brings emerging ideas into direct conversation with organizational reality.

But the conversation will not stop at inspiration alone.

As part of the live organizational simulation of Future Success AG, selected ideas, technologies, and approaches emerging from the session will be integrated directly into the evolving organization, influencing strategic choices, workforce decisions, leadership dynamics, and operational realities throughout the summit.

A fast-paced exploration of innovation not only as vision, but as organizational consequence.

Speaker: Jessica Krauter – Founder – buah GmbH

Facilitator: Sandra Mederer – Trainer & (Team-)Coach for productive and mentally healthy work in the digital workplace – MindFarm

When organizations grow, complexity grows with them and leadership becomes less about certainty and more about navigating contradiction.

In this conversation, Jessica Krauter, Founder & CEO of buah GmbH, reflects on the realities of building and scaling a company under competitive pressure while trying to remain deeply human in the process.

From moments of near insolvency to building a profitable 40-person company with more than €25 million in revenue, Jessica shares the tensions leaders rarely speak about openly:

• Driving performance without eroding trust
• Building structure without suffocating autonomy
• Scaling culture without turning it into a slogan
• Leading others under pressure without losing yourself

Facilitated by Sandra Mederer, this session moves beyond idealized leadership narratives and explores what leadership actually looks like when there is no clear playbook, only difficult decisions, competing priorities, and constant adaptation.

A candid conversation about leadership in environments where performance and humanity must coexist under pressure.

Speaker: Armin Hopp – Founder & President – Speexx

This session asks a deliberately relevant question: what happens when AI does not only change work, but also changes how we think, learn and make decisions? Armin explores AI as a cognitive Trojan horse, from automation and agentic AI to skill skipping, real-world work benchmarks like GDPval, the redistribution of work and the risk of losing organizational judgment. The session is not a warning against AI. It is a call for more humanization: using AI boldly where it scales, while keeping responsibility, critical thinking, relationships and meaning firmly human.

The audience will leave with three takeaways: AI replaces activities, not whole people, but work will be redistributed. Skills and judgment must be actively developed, not assumed. And when technology becomes widely available, people development becomes the real competitive advantage.

A real-world organizational case exploring how companies navigate transformation, leadership pressure, workforce change, and AI-driven complexity in practice.

Details will be announced soon as we finalize the session and speakers.

Facilitators: Yasmin Ainkaran, Dorothee Oung

Simulation: Christian Lykke

As the summit progresses, the live organizational simulation of Future Success AG continues to evolve.

Drawing from the ideas, tensions, and contradictions explored throughout the day, this interactive reflection session revisits the key decision points now emerging inside the organization:

• leadership trade-offs
• workforce transformation choices
• capability and learning priorities
• AI adoption dilemmas
• organizational pressures and unintended consequences

Together with facilitators and participants, the simulation examines how earlier decisions begin to reshape the system and which new questions leaders can no longer avoid.

Because every strategic choice creates ripple effects somewhere else in the organization.

Speaker: Chris Mühl – Senior Executive – Ethics, Risk & Compliance

Every organization has a playbook, has policies, frameworks, governance structures, and decision-making processes designed to reduce uncertainty. But eventually, every leader encounters situations where the rules are no longer enough.

What happens then?

In this closing keynote, Chris Mühl draws on more than two decades of senior leadership experience in Ethics, Risk & Compliance across global organizations to explore the space where formal compliance ends and personal responsibility begins.

Moving beyond traditional governance conversations, the session examines what happens when professionals face decisions that are technically acceptable, strategically beneficial, and operationally possible yet remain ethically uncomfortable.

Together, participants will reflect on:

• Why compliance defines the floor, not the ceiling
• How hidden ethical differences inside teams create organizational risk
• Why organizations often discover ethical misalignment too late
• and how leadership increasingly requires navigating ambiguity where no clear playbook exists

A provocative closing reflection on leadership, responsibility, and decision-making in environments where complexity moves faster than certainty.

Following the closing keynote, participants are invited to stay for an informal evening of dialogue, reflection, and connection with speakers, facilitators, innovators, and fellow participants.

A space to exchange perspectives, challenge ideas, revisit contradictions, and continue the conversations that emerged throughout the summit.

Because some of the most important insights happen after the official program ends.

Grab a coffee and reconnect with the people you met yesterday before we dive into Day 2.

Facilitators: Yasmin Ainkaran, Dorothee Oung

Yesterday, we explored the tensions reshaping organizations: leadership under pressure, workforce transformation, AI acceleration, ethical ambiguity, and operating models struggling to keep pace with change.

But transformation does not pause overnight.

As Day 2 begins, Yasmin Ainkaran and Dorothee Oung invite participants to reconnect with the contradictions, questions, and insights that emerged throughout the summit and reflect on what is beginning to shift both inside organizations and within ourselves as leaders, professionals, and humans navigating uncertainty.

Speaker: Lise Bruynooghe – Executive Coach, Master Certified, Chair of ICF Global Enterprise Board, TEDx Speaker, Founder of the Lise Bruynooghe Academy

Organizations increasingly operate in a state of continuous transformation. AI acceleration, workforce redesign, shifting expectations, new technologies, and constant reinvention have turned adaptation into a permanent condition rather than a temporary phase.

But what happens to people when organizations never stabilize?

In this session, Lise Bruynooghe explores the human reality behind ongoing transformation and why many organizations underestimate the emotional, cognitive, and relational cost of constant change.

Moving beyond traditional resilience narratives, the session examines:

• Why transformation fatigue is becoming systemic
• How uncertainty reshapes trust, collaboration, and motivation
• What leaders misunderstand about human adaptability

And why sustainable performance may require organizations to rethink not only how people work, but how change itself is designed and understood

A reflective exploration of leadership, transformation, and human sustainability in environments where the pressure to adapt never disappears.

Speakers:

Cristina Mühl, CEO LevelUp GmbH

James E. Varnham, GM EMEA, Sarder

In this joint session, James E. Varnham and Cristina Mühl explore the gap between AI ambition and organizational readiness.

Drawing on current market insights and emerging adoption data, James E. Varnham examines how organizations are currently adopting AI, where adoption is creating operational impact and why many initiatives struggle to move beyond isolated use cases or innovation theater.

Building on these insights, Cristina Mühl introduces the Four Levels of AI Adoption, a framework developed together with Daniel Hommel to explore how organizations evolve from experimentation toward systemic integration.

The session challenges the assumption that AI success depends primarily on technology and argues instead that sustainable adoption requires foundational organizational conditions across: leadership, workforce capability, strategy and organizational structure.

Because AI transformation does not fail only through poor tools.

It often fails because organizations are not yet designed to absorb the change they are trying to create.

A strategic exploration of what organizations must rethink if AI is to become operational reality rather than isolated experimentation.

Facilitators: Yasmin Ainkaran & Dorothee Oung

Simulation: Christian Lykke

The latest insights from the summit now place Future Success AG at a critical turning point. Following the discussions around AI adoption, organizational readiness, workforce transformation, leadership pressure, and human sustainability, the simulation enters a new phase: moving from experimentation into operational reality.

As new technologies, workforce expectations, strategic priorities, and transformation initiatives begin interacting simultaneously, the organization must confront increasingly difficult questions.

Together with facilitators and participants, this interactive simulation checkpoint explores how accumulated decisions, assumptions, and interventions are beginning to reshape the system itself.

Because scaling innovation also means scaling complexity, contradiction, and consequence.

Facilitators: Yasmin Ainkaran, Dorothee Oung

Beyond discussion and reflection, the summit now moves into application and experimentation.

In these hands-on workshops, participants will work directly with experts, methodologies, technologies, and real organizational challenges connected to the themes explored throughout the summit.

Some sessions will offer deep dives into emerging technologies and AI applications, while others will function as expert consultancy spaces where participants can explore concrete leadership, workforce, strategy, and transformation questions in a smaller and more interactive setting.

Participation is limited to ensure meaningful exchange and practical engagement. Several workshops have already been matched with participants and organizations who submitted real cases in advance, allowing the sessions to move beyond theory into direct experimentation and problem-solving.