DAY 2 ✦ 3 Nov 2026 - Europe/Lisbon
- Lily Nagy - Conference Producer, Informa Connect
Event audiences’ behaviors are more predictable than they may seem, influenced by habits, context, and emotional cues as much as by content quality. Understanding the concept of “predictable irrationality” can help planners create more engaging experiences by:
Design agendas that align with how people naturally interpret and process information
Sustain attention through strategic use of emotional and contextual triggers
Leverage behavioral insights to craft events that resonate with real audience engagement patterns
- Lea Karam - Behavioral Science Expert, Mindscope
- Phil Staines - Group COO, Strata Creative
Geopolitical instability, rising costs, and workforce disruption continue to shape the global meetings landscape. Industry leaders examine how travel challenges, security considerations, talent shifts, and vendor capability gaps are impacting planning, risk management, and delivery across regions.
Assess how geopolitical and economic trends are reshaping global meetings and travel
Evaluate approaches to risk mitigation, safety planning, and operational resilience
Identify workforce and vendor capability challenges affecting delivery
- Ashley Williams, MBA, LSSBB - Senior Vice President, Global Life Sciences Center of Excellence, BCD Meetings & Events
Engaging healthcare professionals requires balancing value, compliance, and trust in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. Discussions focus on cross border engagement challenges, VAT and tax considerations, meal caps, and evolving expectations from regulators, institutions, and HCPs themselves.
Navigate complex regulatory and cross border requirements affecting HCP engagement
Interpret VAT, tax, and country specific rules with practical application
Identify tactics for sustaining trust while adapting to tighter compliance frameworks
Congress participation is influenced by career stage, motivation, and experience design. The discussion highlights best practices in congress planning, booth strategy, inclusivity, patient representation, and emerging expectations around accessibility and wellbeing.
Tailor congress engagement strategies to career stages and motivations
Apply best practices for ancillary meetings, booth design, and space planning
Incorporate inclusivity, accessibility, and patient representation considerations
- Sibylle Hartzell - Founder & Event Director, Smarter Events
- Andrew Moore - Client Engagement Director, Emota
Working with multiple vendors—or stepping into inherited relationships—can be complex and demanding, particularly when expectations, priorities, and ways of working don’t always align. This overview focuses on practical approaches for creating consistency across partnerships, building trust quickly, and navigating competing interests without losing momentum. By bringing clarity to communication and establishing shared standards, organizations can turn complexity into an opportunity for stronger, more productive vendor relationships.
Manage competing priorities with confidence by aligning vendor goals to business outcomes and setting clear expectations from the start.
Strengthen communication and trust through structured touchpoints, transparency, and proactive issue resolution.
Transform complexity into collaboration by identifying success drivers, mitigating friction, and fostering long‑term, value‑driven partnerships.
- Avital Rosen - Vice President Business Development, Kenes Group
- Katie Knight - Congress & Events Enablement Lead, Astellas
Designed for mid‑career professionals, this roundtable focuses on the transition from tactical execution to strategic leadership within pharma meeting management. It emphasizes building the leadership skills needed to guide teams, navigate complex stakeholder environments, and drive results through influence rather than authority, while maintaining alignment and momentum.
Shift from execution to leadership by developing a strategic mindset and leading teams with clarity and purpose.
Navigate performance and people challenges through practical frameworks for performance reviews and confident approaches to difficult conversations.
Influence without formal authority by applying strategies that build alignment, credibility, and impact across complex stakeholder networks.
- Paulomi Debnath, HMCC - Team Lead, Global Event Sourcing, Meetings & Incentives Worldwide, Inc.
- Kerry Jackson - Team Leader, Global Functions, GME, AstraZeneca
- Ioli Karmali - Medical Affairs Project Manager, GSK
Artificial intelligence is rapidly entering the meetings and events ecosystem, offering new opportunities alongside new risks. Attention centers on practical internal applications, governance considerations, data protection, and balancing human expertise with AI‑enabled capabilities.
Identify internal AI use cases that enhance planning, engagement, and efficiency
Establish guardrails around governance, GDPR, and data protection
Balance AI‑enabled capabilities with human expertise and judgement
- Tash Liem - Senior Director, Global Travel, Meetings, and Events, Astrazeneca