HR Summit and Expo Day One - 14 October 2026Wednesday, 14 October 2026 - GT (Gulf Time, GMT+04:00)

The CHRO role is undergoing its most significant transformation in decades and is no longer sufficient to be just "people experts". This session reveals how pioneering CHROs are earning board seats and CEO trust by proving HR's financial contribution and driving business outcomes. Learn how to transform from support function to profit center, build board-level credibility, and position HR as indispensable strategic growth driver by:

• Positioning HR as the primary catalyst for business transformation and growth

• Developing frameworks for aligning people initiatives with enterprise-wide business objectives

• Building executive influence by demonstrating HR's measurable impact on bottomline and market position

• Designing sustainable change management approaches that balance business agility with employee wellbeing

Join Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer at Google X and bestselling author, for a transformative exploration of how HR leaders can navigate and shape the rapidly evolving future of work. In this compelling session, Mo will share insights from his unique perspective at the intersection of technology, innovation, and human potential, drawing on his experience engineering moonshot projects and understanding exponential change. Discover how HR can move beyond reactive disruption management to become proactive architects of organisational transformation in an era defined by AI, automation, and unprecedented technological advancement. Learn practical strategies for reimagining talent development, fostering adaptability, and creating human-centric workplaces that thrive amid constant change. This session will challenge conventional thinking and equip you with a visionary framework to lead your organisation confidently into 2030 and beyond.

As skills become obsolete faster than ever, organisations need systematic approaches to workforce transformation. This session examines how companies are implementing upskilling and reskilling programs that address capability gaps, reduce hiring costs, and build internal talent pipelines.

Key Learning Takeaways:

• Use AI-powered assessments to identify critical skills gaps and prioritise reskilling investments by business impact

• Design accelerated learning through micro-learning, simulations, and mentorship that delivers measurable skill development

• Create internal mobility frameworks that reduce recruitment costs while boosting retention through career advancement

As Gen Alpha begins to join the workforce, senior leaders face the challenge of uniting generations under a shared vision. This session explores advanced strategies to harness generational diversity as a competitive advantage, fostering collaboration, driving performance, and reducing friction in AI-augmented workplace environments.

Key Learning Takeaways:

• Develop sophisticated communication frameworks tailored to generational preferences, enhancing collaboration and streamlining decision-making at the executive level

• Design flexible career development strategies that align with the unique motivational drivers of each generation, ensuring sustained engagement and retention

• Adopt leadership methodologies that capitalise on generational strengths to build high-performing, future-ready teams

• Navigate generational perspectives on AI adoption and human-machine collaboration

With Emiratisation targets becoming more ambitious, HR executives must adopt innovative strategies to attract, develop, and retain UAE nationals. This collaborative session will bring together industry experts to explore successful models for national talent development.

Attendees will engage in real-world case studies, discuss best practices, and focus on building strategies to overcome common barriers, such as skill gaps and long-term career planning for Emirati professionals.

Key Takeaways for this session:

• Successfully navigating evolving UAE labor policies and avoiding sanctions by understanding the latest Emiratisation mandates

• Effectively attracting Emirati talent through strengthening community engagement and CSR initiatives to increase visibility among local talent pools

• Identifying and preparing local successors for leadership roles through targeted and sustainable learning pathways which focus on upskilling and career development

In times of uncertainty, organisations become more vulnerable to strategic drift as ambiguity obscures clear direction and erodes decision-making confidence. Leaders facing volatile conditions often struggle to distinguish between necessary adaptation and dangerous deviation from core strategy. This session explores how uncertainty creates blind spots that prevent leaders from recognising early warning signs of drift, allowing misalignment to compound over time. Participants will learn diagnostic frameworks to identify drift patterns even amid turbulent environments and discover techniques to maintain strategic clarity when external conditions are unpredictable. By understanding the relationship between uncertainty and drift, leaders can build resilience mechanisms that keep their organisations anchored to purpose while remaining agile in response to change.

AI transformation succeeds when HR and IT function as strategic partners. This conversation explores how CHROs and CTOs can collaborate effectively, featuring real-world examples of successful partnerships and actionable frameworks to overcome integration challenges.

Key Learning Takeaways:

• Align AI transformation initiatives with business objectives

• Conduct joint tech stack audits to eliminate redundancies

• Build cross-functional governance for responsible AI deployment

• Create shared accountability frameworks for AI ROI

Talent acquisition stands at the epicenter of AI disruption. This session explores how leading companies are fundamentally redesigning recruitment, leveraging skills science to decode capability requirements, automating transactional workflows, and elevating recruiters into strategic, judgment-led partners.

Key Learning Outcomes:

• Deploy skills-based frameworks that transcend traditional role descriptions and credentials

• Redesign end-to-end recruitment workflows using AI to eliminate friction and bias

• Transform recruiter roles from administrative coordinators to strategic talent advisors

• Measure AI impact on quality of hire, time-to-productivity, and candidate experience metrics

Achieving substantial productivity improvements requires moving beyond experimentation to strategic execution. This session equips leaders with proven methodologies for designing AI-human partnerships that generate documented performance gains through targeted opportunity analysis, intelligent tool deployment, and accelerated scaling.

Key Learning Takeaways:

• Identify high-impact zones for 30-50% efficiency gains through AI integration

• Design AI-human models that amplify expertise while preserving judgment

• Build ROI-focused cases demonstrating quantifiable returns and competitive advantage

• Deploy rapid strategies that produce measurable results within 90-180 days

• Build governance frameworks that align stakeholders around business outcomes and maintain executive support