What is the HR Innovation Roundtable?

A powerful closed-door workshop bringing together 40 Chief HR Officers and Global HR & Talent Executives from leading global
brands for intimate discussions about specific challenges and transferable solutions.

Agenda: Day 1

7th July, 2026

12 - 12:15 PM

Arrival Reception & Welcome

About:

Merck Group (Merck KGaA) is one of Europe’s most enduring science and technology companies, with a history that stretches back to 1668 in Darmstadt, often cited as the oldest pharmaceutical and chemical company in the world. Today, Merck operates across Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics, and sits at the intersection of scientific discovery and industrial-scale execution, exactly the combination that makes it such a compelling host for senior people leaders who care about productivity, capability, and reinvention, not just HR programmes.

At its global headquarters in Darmstadt (near Frankfurt), Merck’s largest site, more than 12,000 employees from 100+ nations work across production, R&D, and Group functions, spanning 1.25 km² (around 200 football fields) and manufacturing ~25,000 products, with a major R&D community embedded directly into the operating heartbeat of the enterprise.

From a scale and governance perspective, Merck is also a boardroom-grade organisation: With 62,000+ employees worldwide, and its shares trade on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, a DAX-listed environment that raises the bar for operational discipline and transparency. Just as importantly for CHROs, Merck has earned recognition for the kind of workplace and culture that sustains innovation at scale, including being named a Global Top Employer and recognised by Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators (standout for sustainability/innovation), alongside broader inclusion recognition.

This is why Darmstadt is the right setting for a CHRO-level conversation: you’re not discussing the future of work in theory. You’re doing it inside a company that has had to reinvent for centuries, while still delivering modern science, modern manufacturing, and modern talent systems at a global scale.

12:15 - 1:15 PM

The Chief People Officer as Value Creator: Merck’s Blueprint

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Merck has been quietly building a model of HR that behaves like a business system: it starts from strategy, translates that strategy into a measurable people plan, and then uses modern infrastructure—skills visibility, leadership disciplines, and service redesign—to execute at speed. This case study shows what changes when the Chief People Officer holds the line on business outcomes while still protecting the employee experience, values, and long-term capability.

The opportunity is massive because most organizations are still running HR as a collection of programs rather than an integrated operating rhythm. The cost of getting this wrong is predictable: slow execution, unclear accountability, leaders reverting to command-and-control under pressure, and workforce investments that cannot be defended at board level. Success looks like HR initiatives that ship like products, scale like platforms, and prove value like a business case—quarter after quarter.

• How to build HR initiatives that come with a board-ready business case, not a “nice-to-have” story.

• How to operationalize skills visibility and workforce planning so they actually change hiring, deployment, and development decisions.

• How to design leadership and benefits strategies as enterprise levers that strengthen retention, performance, and trust.

1:15 - 2:30 PM

Agentic HR: The Operating Model CHROs Need for 2026

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Most organizations are stuck in the most expensive phase of AI adoption: lots of experimentation, little operating leverage. In 2026, the real advantage won’t come from having more tools—it will come from redesigning how HR work happens so AI and agents reduce cycle time, increase decision quality, and raise the capacity of HRBPs, Talent, and L&D to do higher-value work.

The opportunity cost of getting this wrong is brutal: fragmented pilots, rising risk, and growing cynicism from CEOs and CFOs who expected productivity and got noise. Getting it right means HR becomes a modern execution engine—where workflows are orchestrated, insights are proactive, and employees feel supported (not monitored) because governance, transparency, and trust were designed from day one.

• How to move from “AI pilots” to an HR operating model where agents are embedded into real workflows and decision points.

• How to set governance that scales adoption without slowing innovation, while protecting trust and compliance.

• How to define success metrics that the CEO/CFO actually recognize as enterprise value.

2:45 - 4 PM

AI Coaching at Scale: The Fastest Path to Better Managers

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

This is a customer-first session built to show what Valence is exceptional at: scaling high-quality leadership and team coaching through an AI coach that supports managers in the moments that actually shape performance—1:1s, difficult conversations, onboarding risk, team dynamics, and decision preparation. Instead of “training people and hoping,” this model makes development continuous, contextual, and measurable.

The opportunity is to finally break the constraint that has limited leadership development for decades: coaching and behavior change don’t scale, but enterprise expectations do. The cost of getting it wrong is predictable—manager inconsistency, leadership capability gaps, and L&D spend that can’t prove impact. Success means coaching becomes a system: always-on support, equitable access at scale, and measurable lift in manager effectiveness and team performance.

• How leading companies deploy AI coaching to scale manager capability without adding layers of program overhead.

• What adoption looks like when coaching is delivered in the flow of work, not as an “extra initiative.”

• How to measure coaching impact in ways that connect to performance, retention, readiness, and execution.

4:15 - 5:45 PM

Decision Velocity: How CHROs Remove Friction from the Business

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Most organizations don’t lose because they lack strategy — they lose because their operating system is slow. Decisions take too long, priorities shift weekly, and the people system can’t redeploy capability at the speed the business now demands. This session is built around one idea: decision velocity is now a CHRO’s competitive advantage, because speed isn’t just a product or tech issue — it’s talent, operating rhythm, governance, and leadership behavior.

The opportunity is huge: when HR removes friction from performance, staffing, approvals, and accountability, the entire enterprise ships faster. The cost of getting this wrong is compounding drag — a culture of meetings, rework, unclear ownership, and “initiative fatigue” that kills execution. Success means the CHRO can point to fewer bottlenecks, faster redeployment, sharper accountability, and measurable acceleration in business outcomes.

• How top people leaders identify the few friction points that slow execution most — and redesign them fast.

• How to create operating rhythms that keep the organization aligned without drowning leaders in meetings and approval chains.

• How to measure “speed to decision” and “speed to capability” as true enterprise performance indicators

5:45 - 7:30 PM

Networking, Drinks & Evening Dinner

Get to know your esteemed peers over some hors d'oeuvre and deliciously prepared cocktails. We will then head to a private restaurant for a three-course evening dinner. Enjoy the relaxed atmosphere in the presence of your peers to learn, share and ponder over the key topics of what was discussed earlier in the day and the exciting conversations in store for you on day 2.

Agenda: Day 2

8th July, 2026

8 - 8:40 AM

Registration & Breakfast followed by Welcome Reception

PanelistS:

Join us nice and early to grab a tasty bite to eat and your daily dose of caffeine to set you up for a full-on day of learning, sharing and innovating. At 8:30 AM hear a few words from our event chair (Chris), host (Khadija) and event partner (Parker) on what to expect over the course of the day.

8:40 - 9:20 AM

The CIO × CHRO Alliance: The Work Tech Blueprint for 2026

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

AI doesn’t fail in organizations because the models aren’t powerful enough—it fails because the operating system around it is weak: fragmented data, unclear governance, competing tool stacks, and no shared ownership between HR and IT. This Merck fireside is about the partnership that fixes that, showing how CIO, Data/AI, and HR governance leaders align architecture, privacy, quality, and product thinking so employees feel the benefit in everyday work.

The opportunity is to build a true work-tech layer that makes HR faster, more personalized, and more proactive without compromising trust. The cost of getting this wrong is high: tech sprawl, adoption fatigue, risk exposure, and employee skepticism. Success means the employee experience improves because the foundations are right—data is reliable, AI is governed, and HR/IT share accountability for outcomes.

• How to structure HR–IT partnership so work-tech decisions are shared, fast, and outcome-driven.

• How HR data governance enables personalization and agentic workflows without eroding trust.

• How to modernize the HR tech stack into an employee-facing “work system,” not a set of disconnected tools.

9:20 - 10 AM

AI Coaching as Infrastructure: The New Standard for Manager Excellence

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

The manager layer is where strategy becomes reality—or quietly fails. This fireside explores what happens when coaching stops being a limited resource and becomes infrastructure: always available, context-aware, and designed to support leaders in real moments that shape performance. The conversation will unpack how a Merck-scale organization can deploy AI coaching to accelerate manager readiness, raise leadership consistency, and reduce the “randomness” that employees experience across teams.

The opportunity is to create a measurable uplift in execution without launching another heavy program. The risk of getting it wrong is building a shiny tool that employees don’t trust or leaders don’t adopt. Success means managers actually change habits: conversations improve, teams stabilize faster, onboarding becomes smoother, and leadership quality becomes more consistent across the enterprise.

• How to position AI coaching as a workforce capability, not an HR tool, so adoption follows value.

• How to scale leadership support without diluting quality, personalization, or trust.

• How to define outcomes that matter: readiness, retention risk, performance lift, and leadership consistency.

10:15 - 11:30 AM

The Capacity Question: How Many People, With What Skills, Doing What Work

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

In 2026, workforce planning can’t be a yearly spreadsheet exercise because the business isn’t stable enough for that to work. The leaders winning right now are designing scenario-based plans that connect strategy, capability, and capacity in ways the CFO respects—then updating those plans continuously as markets, regulation, and technology shift.

The opportunity is to move from reactive hiring and restructuring to proactive redeployment, targeted development, and smarter build/buy/borrow decisions. The cost of getting this wrong is expensive churn: over-hiring, under-capability, slow pivots, and critical roles left uncovered. Success means you can answer the CEO’s toughest question quickly and credibly: “Do we have the workforce to deliver the plan?”

• How to build scenario-based workforce plans that drive decisions, not just reporting.

• How to link AI-driven work shifts to capacity and capability moves without creating org chaos.

• How to make workforce risk visible and actionable at executive and board level.

11:45 AM - 1 PM

Skills as the Operating System: Making Capability Visible and Actionable

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Skills only matter when they change decisions—who you hire, how you deploy, what you develop, and how fast you can move. This session focuses on the shift from “skills as language” to “skills as infrastructure,” where capability visibility becomes a practical decision engine across Talent, L&D, and workforce planning.

The upside is speed: faster redeployment, better succession coverage, and more targeted development investment. The downside of getting it wrong is complexity without value—taxonomies that don’t match work, low adoption, and endless debates about definitions. Success means skills become a shared system that improves execution: business leaders can access capability quickly, employees can see pathways clearly, and HR can prove readiness with confidence.

• How to design a skills approach that maps to real work and real decisions, not theory.

• How to turn skills visibility into internal mobility, faster staffing, and better succession.

• How to measure capability lift and readiness in ways executives trust.

2 - 3:15 PM

Rebuilding Leadership for 2026: Managers as the Execution System

panelists:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

In most organizations, culture doesn’t collapse dramatically—it drifts quietly as transformation accelerates, pressure rises, and managers revert to old habits. In the human–machine era, leadership quality becomes even more decisive because employees will judge the “future of work” by the reality of their day-to-day: clarity, fairness, feedback quality, and whether managers can lead change without breaking trust.

The opportunity is to rebuild leadership as a system, not a set of programs—so expectations are consistent, manager habits improve, and culture becomes a performance advantage during volatility. The cost of getting this wrong is predictable: uneven employee experience, higher attrition risk, slower execution, and change fatigue that compounds. Success means managers become the most reliable mechanism for execution, adoption, and belief.

• How to strengthen manager capability as the fastest lever for performance, retention, and change adoption.

• How to prevent culture drift by operationalizing values into decisions and behaviors.

• How leadership must evolve when teams include both human and AI contributors.

3:30 - 4:45 PM

Workforce Risk Radar: The Threats Your Talent Data Isn’t Warning You About

Speaker:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

CHROs are being asked to deliver bigger outcomes with less margin for error — while the workforce environment becomes more volatile. The real challenge is that most HR metrics are still backward-looking: they tell you what happened, not what is about to break. This session is a working build: how to create a workforce risk radar that surfaces the few risks that truly threaten execution — capability gaps, leadership fragility, attrition hotspots, culture drift, and compliance exposure.

The opportunity is to move from reactive firefighting to proactive prevention — so the executive team can make earlier, smarter moves. The cost of getting this wrong is blindside risk: surprise attrition in critical roles, stalled transformations, rising burnout, and capability gaps you only notice when performance drops. Success means HR can confidently say, “Here’s what’s likely to break next — and here’s the intervention we’re making now.”

• How to define a small set of workforce risks that are genuinely board-level and execution-critical.

• How to build leading indicators that predict attrition, readiness, leadership strain, and culture drift earlier.

• How to turn risk signals into decisions, interventions, and accountability — not just reporting.

4:45 - 5:30 PM

Closing Remarks & Networking Reception

SPEAKER:

Apply to Attend

Please fill out your details in the form below.

We reserve the right to reject any registrations if your role is to provide HR services, products, or consultancy offerings.
The HR Leaders Innovation Roundtable is strictly reserved for Executive level HR Practitioners (both generalists & specialists).

Why Should You Attend the Innovation Roundtable?

Members

Hosted at Merck’s Headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany

Still Have Questions?

We've answered a few FAQs to get you started.

Looking for an answer more specific? Email us at 📧 hello@hrleaders.co

A Few Pics from Around the world