Most leaders can name Gallup’s four Needs of Followers. Far fewer have translated them into the leadership behaviours, communication rhythms, and organisational systems that consistently move the needle on engagement and performance. Awareness without activation is just vocabulary; this session is about the gap in between.

You’ll see how at Disney they diagnosed which of the four needs were being underdelivered, and what they did about it. You’ll explore how to map each need to observable leadership behaviours, align them to competency models and performance expectations, and embed them into communication cadences, particularly during periods of change. The result: improved engagement scores, stronger leader effectiveness ratings, reduced attrition in key roles, and genuine alignment when it mattered most.

Every organisation wants AI upskilling, yet implementation remains challenging.

Join your peers to discuss:

• What skills does the workforce need to use AI effectively?

• How can we uplift these skills at scale across the enterprise?

• How do you ensure people leave training with immediately applicable skills?

• How can we help the business manage risk?

• How can we adapt when tools launch new versions mid-programme?

• What resources are available to support us?

Most organisations invest heavily in learning programs but still struggle to see meaningful behavioural change. Why? Because knowledge transfer alone rarely alters how work actually happens.

This session explores the often-missed link between Learning & Development and Organisational Change Management. While L&D builds capability, change management embeds it into the operating system of the organisation – through leadership and end-user behaviours, decision rhythms, incentives, reinforcement anchors and governance.

Drawing on real transformation environments, this session will explore why learning initiatives often fail to translate into sustained adoption, and how organisations can better connect learning with the systems that make behaviour stick. You’ll will leave with a clearer view of how L&D and change management work together to move beyond training events and deliver measurable business outcomes.

Learning functions face a dual challenge: enabling today’s performance whilst building tomorrow’s careers. Content libraries go unused, adoption numbers stay low, and the fundamental question persists: are we measuring course completions or enabling both in-role excellence and career development? When tech ecosystems haven’t been set up for either objective, transformation becomes essential.

This fireside chat reveals what it takes to redesign learning for both performance and growth. You’ll discover how to bring content into employees’ daily context for immediate performance whilst creating pathways for career progression, get hardline with stakeholders about measurable impact across both objectives. We’ll explore repositioning from adoption-driven to dual-purpose strategy, transforming from disconnected function to strategic enabler across both performance support and career development, and operating cost-effectively with every investment.

The bridge we’ve built over a career can quietly become a boundary. The expertise, the frameworks, the reputation — the very things intended to move others forward can be the thing stopping us from moving ourselves.

Most seasoned L&D leaders know this. Few say it out loud.

In this keynote, Laura Overton and Michelle Ockers draw on 20 years of research, more than 230 interviews with learning leaders, and their own professional reinventions to make the case for a different kind of leadership. Not the certainty of expertise, but the courage of the wayfarer. Not waiting for the map but learning to read the signals.

Because the expertise that built your career is not the professional edge that will carry it forward. And the leaders who thrive in what’s coming won’t always be the most experienced in the room. They’ll be the most courageously vulnerable.

Every organisation wants AI upskilling, yet implementation remains challenging.

Join your peers to discuss:

• What skills does the workforce need to use AI effectively?

• How can we uplift these skills at scale across the enterprise?

• How do you ensure people leave training with immediately applicable skills?

• How can we help the business manage risk?

• How can we adapt when tools launch new versions mid-programme?

• What resources are available to support us?

When technology and data teams run their own training, HR gets sidelined. When L&D designs in isolation, technical leaders dismiss content as irrelevant. The traditional approach of L&D owning all capability development fails in digital transformation: tech moves too fast, specialisation runs too deep, and everyone runs separate initiatives with no coordination.

This session reveals what happens when L&D partners with specialist business functions rather than going it alone. You’ll discover how to let technical leads determine topics whilst L&D translates complexity into applicable learning, co-design with specialists who bring expertise whilst you bring learning design and leverage functional leaders as speakers to show true collaboration. We’ll examine building three-tier models for different cohorts, structuring partnerships with regular touchpoints, and why functional expertise resonates more when fostering learning and development between stakeholders.

Ashton Media’s hit podcast, where we talk to leaders about missteps, mistakes and failures in their careers that have helped them become the leader they are today, is taking to the stage in a special live recording. Hosted by Tomas Haffenden, this will be a session unlike any other as we take a deep dive with a very brave L&D leader as they share what’s not worked in their Learning & Development career, and how to adapt when things don’t always go to plan…