May 19, 2027

D H M S

The Future of People Summit, 19 & 20 May 2027

This event has been designed to meet that moment. Across fourteen carefully sequenced sessions, it brings together the full spectrum of the people profession — talent strategy, learning innovation, and organisational design — into a single, integrated programme. Rather than treating HR, L&D, and OD as separate disciplines, the agenda [...]
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Background

Join Us at the The Future of People Summit 2027

Dates: 19 & 20 May

Event Theme: Human by Design: Leading People Strategy in the AI Era

As organisations head into 2027, the ground beneath HR, Learning & Development, and Organisational Development continues to shift. Artificial intelligence has moved from experimental pilot to embedded decision-support tool. Skills, not job titles, are becoming the currency of internal mobility. Employees expect personalised growth, flexible reward, and workplaces that genuinely support their wellbeing — while executives expect people strategy to show a measurable return. Sitting still is no longer an option for HR, L&D, and OD professionals; the pace of disruption demands continuous adaptation, sharper data literacy, and renewed leadership capability.

This event has been designed to meet that moment. Across fourteen carefully sequenced sessions, it brings together the full spectrum of the people profession — talent strategy, learning innovation, and organisational design — into a single, integrated programme. Rather than treating HR, L&D, and OD as separate disciplines, the agenda is built around the reality that today’s biggest workforce challenges sit at their intersection: a skills-based hiring strategy is meaningless without a learning ecosystem to build those skills; a change management initiative fails without an OD-led culture of adaptability; and no AI tool delivers value without a workforce equipped and confident to use it.

Delegates will leave with practical frameworks they can apply immediately — from building a skills taxonomy and designing AI governance guardrails, to embedding coaching into everyday leadership and measuring the true business impact of learning investment. Each session is grounded in real organisational practice rather than theory alone, with space built in for peer discussion, case studies, and direct engagement with subject-matter experts.

Who should attend

This event is designed for professionals across the people function who are shaping how their organisations attract, develop, and retain talent, and who are responsible for driving culture and change. The programme will be of direct value to:

  • HR Directors, Heads of HR, and CHROs seeking a strategic, business-aligned view of where talent strategy, technology, and reward are heading.
  • Learning & Development Managers, Heads of L&D, and Talent Development professionals looking to modernise their learning ecosystems and prove the business value of their investment.
  • Organisational Development practitioners and Change Managers responsible for culture, structure, and transformation initiatives.
  • Talent Acquisition and Talent Management leaders navigating AI-driven recruitment and skills-based hiring models.
  • People Analytics and HR Technology specialists wanting to understand how AI and data are reshaping decision-making across the employee lifecycle.
  • DEIB leads, Employee Experience managers, and Reward specialists working to embed inclusion, wellbeing, and personalised reward into everyday practice.
  • Line managers and emerging people leaders who want practical coaching and leadership tools they can apply immediately with their teams.

Why attending matters

The organisations that will thrive beyond 2027 are those whose people strategy keeps pace with technological and cultural change — not those reacting to it after the fact. Attending this event gives delegates a rare, concentrated opportunity to benchmark their thinking against best practice from across HR, L&D, and OD in a single sitting, rather than piecing insight together from disconnected sources throughout the year.

Beyond the content itself, the event offers a valuable space for peer networking — the chance to compare notes with counterparts facing the same pressures around AI adoption, skills gaps, leadership capability, and change fatigue. For many delegates, the relationships and shared learning built during the event prove as valuable as the sessions themselves, providing an ongoing sounding board long after the conference ends.

Ultimately, this is an event for people professionals who want to move from reactive HR administration to proactive, strategic influence — equipped with the tools, evidence, and confidence to shape how their organisations work, learn, and grow in the years ahead.

SPEAKERS AND DATES

EVENT SCHEDULE

Enjoy the speeches from the best this industry has to offer!



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Welcome Speech & Event Opening

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Opening Keynote - AI-Augmented HR: From Automation to Strategic Decision-Making

How HR functions are moving past chatbots and applicant-tracking automation into AI-assisted workforce planning, predictive attrition modelling, and decision support — and what governance and ethics guardrails leaders need before they scale it.

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Panel Session - Skills-Based Organisations: Redesigning Work Beyond Job Titles

A practical look at shifting from rigid job architecture to skills-based talent models — how to build a skills taxonomy, deploy internal talent marketplaces, and use skills data to widen the hiring and mobility pool.

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Coffee/ Tea Break

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Panel Session - Succession Planning and Critical-Role Talent Pipelines

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Moving succession planning from a once-a-year exercise to a continuous, data-informed process — identifying critical roles, building readiness pipelines, and reducing key-person risk across the business.

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Partner Session - Total Rewards Strategy for a Multi-Generational Workforce

How to design pay, benefits, and recognition strategies that flex across five generations in the workplace at once, balancing cost discipline with the personalised reward expectations of a modern workforce.

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Networking Lunch Break

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Panel Session - Learning Ecosystems: Personalised, On-Demand, and AI-Curated L&D

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How L&D teams are replacing static training calendars with adaptive learning platforms that curate content to the individual, using AI to recommend the right learning at the point of need.

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Panel Session - Coaching Cultures: Embedding Coaching into Everyday Leadership

Thumbnail Shaleenah Marie

Practical frameworks for building a coaching mindset into line-manager behaviour — not as a specialist intervention, but as a daily leadership habit that drives performance and retention.

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Closing Keynote - Reimagining Leadership Development for Hybrid and Distributed Teams

Thumbnail Shelleny Govender-Dhooma (CHRP, M.Inst.Dir)

What leadership development looks like when teams are spread across locations and time zones — building trust, visibility, and influence without relying on physical presence.

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Opening Keynote - Measuring What Matters: L&D Analytics and Business Impact

Moving beyond completion rates and satisfaction scores to metrics that link learning directly to performance, retention, and business outcomes — and how to report this convincingly to leadership.

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Panel Session - Building Change-Ready Cultures: OD in an Era of Continuous Disruption

Thumbnail Themba Chakela

How OD practitioners are helping organisations move from episodic "change projects" to a state of continuous adaptability — embedding change capability as a core organisational muscle.

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Coffee/ Tea Break

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Panel Session - Change Management Mastery: Leading People Through Transformation

Thumbnail Shervarni Govender

Proven models and practical tools for sequencing communication, sponsorship, and reinforcement during major transformation — restructuring, M&A, technology rollouts, and culture shifts.

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Partner Session - Organisational Agility: Structuring for Speed and Resilience

Exploring flatter structures, cross-functional squads, and dynamic role design as organisations trade rigid hierarchies for structures that can respond faster to market shifts.

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Networking Lunch Break

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Panel Session - Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging: Moving from Policy to Practice

A candid look at where DEIB commitments have stalled, and how to embed inclusion into everyday systems — hiring, promotion, and team dynamics — rather than treating it as a standalone initiative.

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Panel Session - Employee Wellbeing as Organisational Strategy

Positioning wellbeing not as a perk but as a core driver of performance and retention — practical models for psychological safety, workload design, and manager capability in supporting wellbeing.

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Closing Keynote - The Future of Work: Redesigning Jobs, Roles, and the Employee Contract

Thumbnail Amaris (Buckham) Rennie

A forward-looking close to the event — how AI, skills-based design, and shifting employee expectations are together reshaping what a "job" even means, and what the employer-employee contract looks like by 2030.


GET TO KNOW THE

EVENT SPEAKERS


Managing Director and Principal Training & Development Consultant at Skills@Work Training

Marjon Meyer

Head | People, Culture & Change at e-motion consulting (pty) Ltd

Themba Chakela

People (HR) Lead at Mondelez International | 2023 TransUnion Rising Star Finalist (Top 5) | Ex-PepsiCo

Amaris (Buckham) Rennie

Group Lead: Digital Learning & Capability Building at Momentum Group Limited

Kira Koopman

Executive Officer: People and Culture at LegalWise | Executive with 18 years in Financial Services. Certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Executive, Business & Enneagram Coach. Time to Think™ Facilitator and Psychometrist. Keynote & Conference Speaker

Shervarni Govender

PhD (Organisational Behaviour) | L&D Strategist | Thought Leader in Leadership Development | Driving Future-Ready Organisations | Board Member | Enneagram Practitioner & Leadership Circle Coach

Dr Mmathema Matle

Senior Director: Careers & Development at NTT DATA Middle East and Africa

Amanda Daly

Head of L&D, Sub-Saharan Africa at Siemens | Doctoral Candidate | MSc Coaching & Behavioural Change | UN Women AGCCI & EmpowerHER Lead | Inclusive Leader Award Winner | Mentor of the Year | Top 100 Influential Women in Tech

Shaleenah Marie


PAST EVENT

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Director: Global Business Services and HR at BASF in Africa |MBA| Business Executive | End-to-End Supply Chain Thought Leader | People Development | Human Capital Strategist

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Caroline Berns

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Louise Claassen

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Janko Kotze

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Shervarni Govender

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Themba Chakela

Chief Executive Officer at BridgingAndAssociates | Business Leadership, Workplace | Evolution | Speaker and passionate about process optimisation.

Antoinette Roberts

Fractional VP: Global Employee Relations | Award Winning Employee Relations Visionary and Strategist | DBA| MBA| Lecturer | Author | Founder | Consultant | SPHRi| Chartered FCIPD | MHRP |CRCMP|

Dr. Akona Makoboka (DBA)

Managing Director at Chromatic Consulting | Diversity and Inclusion Specialist| Non-Exec Chair of Kuehne + Nagel Inzuzo Board| Keynote Speaker

Lerato Semenya

Human Resources Executive at Discovery Limited | Building the next generation of positive global leaders

Selo Govender

Regional Vice-President, Medium Business, Africa & Middle East at Sage

Gerhard Hartman

Head of People Solutions at Humanity - The Employee Experience Company

Laura Pycraft

People Wellness Executive at Alula Technologies

Ruth Wotela

People & Operations Executive | Driving Business Growth Through Strategic Learning, HR Excellence & Operational Leadership | Transforming Organizations at Scale

Adi Stephan

Full-Time Faculty Member of the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) | Founder of Forward Notion Advisory

Dr. Jefferson Yu-Jen Chen



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