Explore the Agenda
8:00 am Morning Refreshments & Networking
8:50 am Day One Recap
Designing Human-First Organizations That Empower People, Accelerate Innovation, & Thrive Alongside AI
9:00 am Discover: From Human-in-the-Loop to Human-in-the-Lead: How Genentech Is Building a Human-First, AI-Enabled Workforce & Leveraging AI to Accelerate Breakthroughs
- Mapping future capability needs and translating AI ambitions into workforce planning, skills strategies, and organizational priorities
- Embedding continuous upskilling and reskilling to enable scientists and knowledge workers to leverage AI as a force multiplier that augments human expertise
- Redesigning work, teams, and operating models to accelerate innovation through effective collaboration between scientific talent, agents, and emerging technologies
9:20 am Discover: How to Redesign HR Around Moments in the Employee Journey, Not Functions, to Unlock Workforce Agility & Accelerate AI-Led Transformation
- Your HR org chart has never once matched how your employees experience work – they don’t live inside your COEs, they live inside moments: getting hired, onboarded, growing, leaving, yet most organizations still design people processes around functions, not humans
- Drawing on Sanofi’s global transformation, this talk makes the case for a fundamentally different model, one where COEs and Global Business Services stop operating as parallel tracks and start designing together around the employee lifecycle
- The honest truth: breaking silos isn’t a technology problem, it’s a governance, data, and ways-of working problem – ownership is your biggest unlock, learn what it actually takes to get there, and what must change first
- If your HR model is still organized around how HR thinks, rather than how people work, this talk is for you
9:40 am Develop: Redesigning the Human Experience of Work for AI-Enabled Transformation
Explore how AI-enabled workforce planning and employee-journey redesign can converge to create more agile, human-first organizations. Use this discussion to unpack the practical governance, operating model, and skills implications of designing around how people actually work.
Interactive Q&A Session Facilitated by the Chair
10:00 am Action: Translating Human-First AI Ambition into Workforce Design
Work with peers to compare where your organization is still designed around functions versus moments of work, and identify practical steps to connect AI ambition, workforce planning, skills strategy and employee experience.
Interactive Roundtable Discussion Facilitated by the Chair
10:20 am Morning Coffee & Refreshment Break
Interactive Action Labs
Action Labs are interactive deep dives into the AI challenges shaping the future of work. Designed for topics with more questions than answers, these sessions bring together small, facilitated peer groups to explore real-world issues, compare what’s working in practice and challenge conventional thinking.
Expect candid discussion, fresh perspectives, valuable new connections, and actionable ideas you can take straight back to your team. Leave energized with sharper strategic insight, practical solutions, and the confidence to drive meaningful change.
10:50 am Action Lab A: What Are the Implications of Redesigned Work on Roles, Capabilities, & Org Design Across the R&D Value Chain to Drive Innovation?
- What new skills and capabilities will be needed as AI reshapes work across the R&D value chain (namely across discovery, clinical and CMC/operational functions)?
- How should organizations approach upskilling, reskilling, and workforce planning where domainspecific, scientific or technical expertise remains critical?
- What role-specific capability gaps must be addressed to enable effective human-AI collaboration and accelerate innovation in these functions specifically?
10:50 am Action Lab B: What Are the Implications of Redesigned Work on Roles, Capabilities & Org Design Across Commercial & Enabling Functions to Drive Efficiency?
- How do AI use cases reshape efficiency gains and ways of working across enabling and commercial functions?
- What are the implications for translating productivity gains into resource planning, reimagined work, and capability redesign in these functions specifically?
- Which skills, capabilities, and roles will be most critical as organizations redesign work around human-AI collaboration, and what are the skill gaps that require upskilling or reskilling?
12:20 pm Lunch & Networking Break
1:20 pm Action Lab C: How Can We More Effectively Measure ROI & Value Creation from AI to Define Both Quantitative & Qualitative Impact on Work Output?
- What does successful AI adoption look like from a workforce perspective and which transformation metrics matter most at enterprise scale?
- How should organizations measure AI-driven productivity, innovation, and business value beyond cost savings, including employee experience, quality of work, and new ways of working?
- What are the most effective approaches for quantifying ROI of AI initiatives across the pharma value chain to inform workforce, investment, and resource planning decisions?
1:20 pm Action Lab D: How Can Organizations Reverse-Engineer Roles Based on Tasks that Will Be Automated Versus Skills Requiring Human Judgement?
- As AI automates more task-based work, how should organizations deconstruct and rebuild roles around uniquely human capabilities such as judgement, decision-making, creative problem-solving, and scientific expertise?
- What does the future organizational matrix look like in an AI-enabled life sciences enterprise, and how will responsibilities be shared between people, agents, and cross-functional teams?
- How should learning and capability strategies evolve to balance broad AI fluency across the workforce with the deep domain expertise required to unlock value from specialized AI tools?
2:50 pm Afternoon Refreshment & Networking Break
Truth or Transformation? The AI-Enabled Workforce Pressure Test Debating the Assumptions Driving AI-Enabled Life Sciences Workforce Change
3:00 pm Before heading home…
Join your peers for a fast-paced, highly interactive debate session tackling some of the most provocative questions facing people leaders today. In small, facilitated table discussions, you’ll challenge assumptions, pressure-test popular thinking, and explore the real implications of AI for leadership, talent, skills, workforce planning, and organizational performance. There are no presentations and no easy answers, just candid peer-to-peer debate, diverse perspectives, and practical insights from leaders grappling with the same challenges. Expect strong opinions, fresh thinking, and plenty of ideas to take back to your organization.
Among the provocative questions we will examine together:
Are we using AI to truly transform work, or just automate bad processes at scale?
If AI does the entrylevel work, are we about to lose the talent pipeline that created today’s leaders?
What happens when employees trust AI more than their managers?
Are we still recruiting for jobs that AI will soon make obsolete?
Could AI become the greatest driver of workforce inequality in a generation?
Has AI already outpaced our ability to govern it responsibly?