Co-creating the Future of Workforce Learning
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Ask any executive about the challenges they face, and workforce talent will be one of the biggest. Companies find it difficult to find people with the right skills and equally difficult to retain their skilled workers. Although some organizations have innovative practices for managing their talent pipelines, all companies wish their talent and career development processes could be better.
That’s why we created the Global Opportunity Forum. It has a singular goal – to help companies improve their workforce and talent management by sharing stories, curating best practices, and co-creating new solutions to tough problems. It’s a community of organizations united in the goal of giving the right skills to the right people in the right way – for the benefit of the workers and the companies themselves.
At the Global Opportunity Forum in London on June 21, we are convening a fascinating set of experts to discuss topics such as career navigation, innovative learning and development approaches, and building strong talent ecosystems to find people with the right skills and help them grow in their careers. Through our formal and informal discussions, you can gain ideas, contacts, and confidence to shape the future of workforce learning in your organization.
George Westerman is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Founder of the Global Opportunity Forum (http://gof.mit.edu).
George’s work bridges the fields of executive leadership and technology strategy. During more than 20 years with MIT Sloan School of Management, he has written three award-winning books, including Leading Digital: Turning Technology Into Business Transformation. As a pioneering researcher on digital transformation, George has published papers in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and other top journals. He is now focused on helping employers, educators, and other groups to rethink the process of workforce learning around the world through the GOF and several research collaborations.
George is cochair of the MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Awards, a member of the Digital Strategy Roundtable for the US Library of Congress, and member of the Board of Directors for Workcred. He works frequently with senior management teams and industry groups around the world. Prior to earning a Doctorate from Harvard Business School, he gained more than 13 years of experience in product development and technology leadership roles.
Stephen Cunningham is the Director of Talent at BT.
Dr Phil Budden is a Senior Lecturer at MIT's Management School, in Sloan's TIES (Tech Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategy) Group, where he focuses on 'corporate innovation’ and multi-stakeholder innovation ecosystems, especially how corporates can get value from the latter (including start-up enterprises). He works closely with corporate executives and leaders of other large organisations on such strategies, through MIT Corporate Relations/ILP, the Corporate Innovation Program (https://corporateinnovation.mit.edu), Executive Education (https://executive.mit.edu/ci) and MIT’s global REAP program (https://reap.mit.edu), as well as custom and consulting work.
Charles Bodwell is originally an engineer. Prior to the ILO, he worked at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in the 1990s on manufacturing issues and developed a factory upgrading program for production facilities in Africa. The program was taken to the ILO when he moved organizations and eventually led to the modular approach of the ILO’s Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) Program.
As the ILO’s Enterprise Specialist in East and South East Asia and the Pacific, his focus had been largely on the development of SMEs and entrepreneurship, using an activity-based, peer-to-peer training methodology rather than the traditional trainer-led methodology. It was when he started the discussion with ILO COOP Unit on adapting the new methodology for cooperatives that he got more involved in cooperative development.
In 2018, he worked with colleagues in the COOP Unit to develop a family of tools that build on the activity-based learning methodology – basically providing groups of cooperative members, or groups of small business people or farmers who might be interested in the cooperative business model, with templates and activities that guide them – without the need for external experts – through a process of considering cooperation , starting a cooperative and managing a cooperative.
Leila Guerra serves as Assistant Dean for Postgraduate Programs at Singapore Management University’s (SMU) Lee Kong Chian Business School, overseeing programs marketing and recruitment, admissions, program management, operations & systems, and career services for over 1,000 students.
Prior to this, she served as Executive Director for Early Career Programmes at London Business School, and as Director of Innovation at IE Business School in Madrid, from which she also holds an Executive MBA.
Bill Peaper has been part of Industry Wales since 2014 and is currently a Project leader working with employers’ government and providers on Skills development. He is supporting Welsh employers’ skills and ambition to stay competitive.
In his role, Peaper strives to ensure the skills priorities and needs of employers in the Aerospace, Automotive, Electronics, Technology, Metals, Mechanical, and Electrical sectors are met in Wales.
Peaper has over 30 years of experience in vocational education in the sectors, including working for Semta as National Manager for Wales.
Recently, he developed Flexible skills Partnership projects for Engineering manufacturing and Digital Sectors, supported the development and review of National occupational standards for engineering manufacture, and supported the development of a Rail Degree Apprenticeship Framework. He became a CCR Employment and Skills Board member and supported employers in sourcing support for skills development in Wales. He also supported the development of the New Advanced Manufacture Centre in Wales.
Building effective talent pipelines requires an ecosystem approach that can include employers, educators, NGOs, non-profits, governments, and others. In this panel, we’ll hear from different stakeholders about how they work together to solve their common challenge of finding, training, and developing people in good careers.
Victoria Sparey started her career in Marketing before specialising in capability as part of a Marketing Transformation initiative looking at skills for future careers. She spent a few years in Australia working for a Not for Profit before moving back to the UK. As Senior Capability Lead for the Tech and Change area of Lloyds Banking Group, she led the capability team within a large-scale multi-year Agile Transformation programme. Most recently, she is driving the People Leader programme for Tech and Change, scaling Time to Grow to support embedding a culture of learning and leading the Talent Programmes for Data & Tech colleagues. She lives in Wiltshire with her family and loves running.
Alisa is responsible for Research and Technology Partnerships at Airbus Group. As part of the Corporate Technology Office, she helps deliver breakthrough technologies and disruptive products through a global ecosystem of partnerships. In her previous role, Alisa was in charge of bringing new solutions for improving the aircraft manufacturing process. The innovations spanned a host of technologies in the framework of the future factory, including collaborative robotics, digitalization, and augmented reality.
With an academic background in behavioral economics, business, and computer science, her professional journey took her from entrepreneurship, academia, and consulting, to Airbus’ corporate strategy and innovation.
Wendy James is the Leadership, Learning, Talent and Diversity Director at BT.
Organizations that don’t develop peoples’ careers face a double challenge in the talent wars: finding new workers and replacing the ones who leave for better opportunities. In this panel, corporate talent and learning leaders will share their challenges and effective practices for helping every employee develop in their careers.
Lara Paemen is a Director of IFMA EMEA. Lara has started as European Director of IFMA and has recently expanded her responsibilities to the EMEA region. In this role, she is the link between IFMA’s HQ in Houston, Texas, and IFMA’s Chapters in the region and is responsible for the EMEA strategy of IFMA. She is also a member of the European Advisory Board. Before joining IFMA, Paeman acquired 17 years of experience as a Strategic Workplace Consultant and Change manager working on missions in Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Spain, the UK, and Serbia.
Katie is the Founder and CEO of Claira, a competency analytics platform helping companies understand their workforce and hire better. Before starting Claira, Katie spent 10 years in global workforce development, where it became clear that customers and the market were ready for a more precise, inclusive future of work. Katie regularly speaks and writes on a variety of topics including diversity hiring, ai ethics, and automation impact on the workforce.
Previously, Katie worked for the United States Attorney’s Office, Department of Justice, Executive Office of the President, The White House and the State of Michigan. She holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and an MPA from the University of Michigan, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and a BA in Political Science from Hope College. She also played and coached volleyball for 20 years.
Reace is responsible for Entry Talent Programmes at BT Group in the new Digital business unit.
With over 15 years experience in a number of roles at BT focused on the design and implementation of entry talent programmes and apprenticeships to meet industries' current and future Digital skill needs.
Reace is co-chair of the TechSkills Apprenticeship Programme Board and has worked with industry leaders on the development of Degree apprenticeships. Leading on programmes internally and provided externally to enable individuals to realise and reach their potential through bridging the gap between formal education and entry into employment and developing a more inclusive and diverse Digital workforce.
The traditional path from school to job to long-term career is no longer sufficient for companies or individuals. Increasingly, employers need to tap non-traditional routes to find good workers. In this panel, we’ll discuss some of these non-traditional approaches to finding great employees, such as returning workers, veterans, refugees, and others. We’ll examine alternative talent sources as well as alternative ways that organizations help people to show and grow their competencies.
Joanne Legge is an experienced Information Technology leader with demonstrated success working in the oil & energy industry. Skilled in IT Strategy, Business Transformation, and Change Management. Passionate about inclusion. Past Advisory Board member OUTstanding, driving LGBT+ career progression in business, and active member of business resource groups changing how business does inclusion.
Erin Crompton is a 3rd-year Chartered Business Management Apprentice at BT. During her time at BT, Erin has undertaken three roles across BT as part of the rotation scheme. These roles include a transformation specialist, business operations within the Media and Broadcasting sector, and currently a PAN government support role.
Dr. Doherty is employed by Ibec (Irish Business and Employers Confederation) as the Manager of the hugely successful Apprenticeship in Retail Supervision Program delivered in Ireland. For the last 15 years, he has held several managerial positions responsible for the design and delivery of work-based learning programs and industry-education collaborations. Prior to Ibec, Oran was employed by the Department of Education and Skills and also spent over 10 years employed at Letterkenny Institute of Technology (now called Atlantic Technological University). He has published a number of national sectoral skills reports that examine emerging skills for the future workplace. These reports have been extensively used by industry and education providers in the design of new programs. Oran has developed and delivered numerous innovative programs that present best practices in industry-education collaborations as well as short 3-day courses in addressing the skills of the future workplace. He has presented at numerous conferences throughout Europe on the theme of industry-education collaborations. He has also participated in a number of EU skills and work-based learning projects and initiatives.
Oran completed his Doctorate on the topic of overcoming organizational cultural differences in industry-education collaborations and has presented his findings at numerous international conferences.
Glen McGowan is the Group Head of Emerging Talent at HSBC.
Apprenticeships are an enticing avenue to train and hire new workers. But apprenticeships are only one of several important programs that can help people start and thrive in their careers. This panel will examine innovative approaches that organizations are using to foster emerging talent and early-career success.
Rupert is Chair of Storm Energia Inc and of Optimal Organisational Outcomes LLP (3XO). He was previously the UK’s Government Chief People Officer (2016 to 2022), and prior to that Group HR Director of Lloyds Banking Group and held senior HR roles at Aviva and Barclays. Starting his career at the CBI in 1989, he joined Arthur Andersen in 1995, becoming a Partner in 2001 and joining Deloitte as a Partner in 2002. He is Chair of the People Committee of the Haberdashers’ Academies Trust South and a member of the Chartered Management Institute’s Board of Companions. He is a Companion of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), and is a Fellow of CIMA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant.
With multiple leadership roles at MIT, Kathleen is on the front lines of technology and innovation. Right now, she is passionate about AI education, digital transformation, and sustainable fashion. She is a strategic leader with a unique skill set for transforming organizations as well as building new ones.
As Executive Director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, Kathleen works with a multidisciplinary research team on Supermind Design, a methodology for designing intelligent human/machine organizations. She is putting that into practice at MIT Open Learning, where she leads MIT Horizon, a digital learning platform helping organizations to train at scale about emerging technologies such as AI.
Steven joined BT in 2019 following nearly 10 years of service in the Royal Air Force where he led, trained, and developed a variety of different teams in the UK and overseas. During his time with BT, he has worked in a variety of roles delivering complex solutions for external clients, principally within financial services and now with defense.
The focus of his work is cyber and security solutions; working with a range of people across our business to bring the best of BT to support and deliver on our customer’s objectives. Effective collaboration, the freedom to intellectually explore opportunities, and the willingness to take risks have been essential to our successes. All of which are underpinned by working with some exceptional BT people and teams.
Steven holds a number of Cyber Security related certifications and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). He is currently studying for an MSc in Advanced Security and Digital Forensics with Edinburgh Napier University alongside delivering in his current role.
Sarah Kandil is a Digital Strategy Officer at Société Générale . She possesses 10 years of experience in Front Office Technology teams showing a successful track record in pushing digital transformation to increase revenue and reduce operational loss with a full partnership with business stakeholders. Renowned as a strategic thinker and creative problem solver; with the ability to focus on the detail and distill complex challenges into tangible, quantifiable execution strategies which consistently deliver against the business objectives.
Kandil is a strong actor in empowering people and transformational leadership, leading successful projects across organization silos, and fostering co-construction and innovative mindsets.
Steve Suarez is the Global Head of Innovation, Global Functions at HSBC, leading an innovation ecosystem to shape and deliver better ways of serving our customers through innovative solutions.
Steve is an accomplished transformation expert with 30 years of experience in consulting, telecommunications, and financial services, guiding geographically diverse teams and driving large-scale complex strategic initiatives across multiple organizations.
Steve establishes strong connections with executive stakeholders and corporate partners alike, sharing his expertise through multiple channels, including non-executive board participation and keynote engagements. His passion for innovation and the growth mind-set drives his continuous learning, the most recent of which is the Innovation and Leadership program at MIT, where he has become an MIT Sloan Alumnus.
Technology changes quickly, but organizations change much more slowly. How can companies develop the right competencies for technologies like artificial intelligence, data science, blockchain, cybersecurity, or quantum? Hiring isn’t enough, but training everybody to be experts won’t work either. Our panelists will share their perspectives on who needs to know what in companies and how you can make sure they do.