What is the HR Innovation Roundtable?

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

Agenda: Day 1

28th October 2026 | Nokia’s Campus HQ

12:45 - 1:15 PM

Arrival Reception & Welcome

About:

For more than 160 years, Nokia has evolved by staying ahead of each new wave of technology. Founded in Finland in 1865, the company’s journey has spanned everything from industrial roots and paper mills to becoming one of the world’s most iconic mobile phone brands. Today, Nokia is a global B2B technology leader focused on network infrastructure, mobile networks, cloud and network services, and licensing, helping service providers, enterprises, governments and hyperscalers build the critical connectivity required for the AI era. In 2025, Nokia reported €19.9 billion in net sales and employed approximately 78,000 people globally, reflecting both its continued scale and its importance to the digital infrastructure powering modern economies.

Nokia’s transformation is equally visible in the culture it is building around innovation, inclusion and performance. The company has been recognised by LinkedIn as one of the 2025 Top Companies to grow a career, and was also named a top employer in the tech category. Join us in Finland for a two-day experience hosted across two distinctive Nokia environments: Day 1 at the Executive Experience Centre (EEC) on Nokia Campus in Espoo, and Day 2 at Nokia’s International Training Centre in Båtvik. Together, these settings offer a fitting backdrop for conversations about leadership, transformation, capability-building and the future of work inside one of the world’s most enduring technology companies.

1:15 - 2 PM

HR as the Execution Engine of the C-Suite

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

This keynote should set the tone with a simple, uncomfortable truth: in 2026, CHROs don’t get measured on how good HR is — they get measured on whether the business can execute through constant change. That means rethinking HR’s role from running programs to designing the system of work: how decisions get made, how managers lead, how skills move, how trust is protected, and how performance is sustained while AI changes roles faster than org charts can keep up.

The opportunity for Nokia is to anchor this conversation in a real enterprise context: global scale, complex transformation, fast-moving technology shifts. Kristen’s POV becomes the “north star” for the two days: this is how you build a People function that is credible with the CEO, respected by the board, and trusted by employees — because it makes execution possible.

• The 3–5 “non-negotiable” shifts Nokia believes CHROs must make in 2026 (AI operating model, skills-based planning, manager system, trust/energy, decision-grade metrics).

• Where HR can stop creating complexity and start creating speed (what Nokia has simplified, standardised, or redesigned).

• The leadership behaviours Nokia expects in an AI-augmented enterprise — and how those behaviours get reinforced through systems, not slogans.

2:20 - 3:35 PM

The Recognition Reset: Turning Appreciation into Measurable Performance

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Recognition is one of the few levers that sits at the intersection of what every 2026 report is worried about: employee confidence, retention stability, manager capability, change adoption, and culture durability. The mistake is treating it like a “nice to have” program. The unlock is to treat it like infrastructure: a behaviour reinforcement system that teaches leaders what “great” looks like, makes values operational, and creates measurable signals that correlate with performance and attrition risk.

This panel should be customer-led and brutally practical: what they measured, what they changed in leader routines, how they handled global consistency vs local relevance, and how they integrated recognition into the flow of work so it didn’t become another HR initiative fighting for attention.

• How enterprises connect recognition to outcomes without overclaiming (retention, engagement, manager adoption, productivity proxies, culture health).

• What “best-in-class recognition at scale” looks like (leader routines, governance, comms, and the moments that matter most).

• How to avoid the common failure modes: low adoption, inconsistent standards, “feel-good” perception, and measurement that doesn’t land with finance.

3:55 - 5 PM

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 Nokia 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 where data is reliable, AI is governed, and HR/IT share accountability for outcomes.

• How to structure the CHRO–CIO 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.

5 - 6 PM

Executive Experience Centre Tour: Chief HR Officer Translation Lab

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Nokia’s EEC exists to bring innovation to life through immersive demos and direct access to experts built for showing what’s real, not what’s hyped. The added edge is the proximity to Nokia Bell Labs’ work in Espoo, including its Virtual Future X Lab alongside the EEC, which makes this more than a showroom: it’s a front-row seat into how digital and immersive technologies are evolving.

For CHROs, the opportunity is to leave not just inspired, but equipped to act as catalysts, enabling humans, organisations, and society to keep developing and innovating as AI reshapes work faster than traditional org design can respond.

• What AI + digital transformation looks like in practice (and where the workforce implications hit first: skills, roles, leadership, trust).

• How to translate “cool tech” into work redesign bets: what should change in work design, capability building, and operating cadence.

• The CHRO as an enabler of innovation: how People leaders build the conditions for humans to adapt, learn, and create at speed.

6 - 7:30 PM

Networking, Drinks & Evening Dinner

Get to know your esteemed peers over some hors d'oeuvres 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

29th October, 2026 | Batvik International Training Centre

8 - 8:45 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 (Kristen) and event partner (Eric) on what to expect over the course of the day.

8:45 - 9:20 AM

The People Digital Strategy: Scaling Humanity Through Tech

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Nokia has publicly laid out a People Digital Strategy designed to respond to hyper-personalisation, the future workforce, and rapid technological change and it’s unusually specific about what they’re building: simplifying architecture, strengthening privacy, enhancing self-service, creating a central personalised interface, applying skills insights, exploring a corporate metaverse for onboarding/training/collaboration, and using immersive tech to revolutionise learning.

That’s exactly the playbook CPOs need in 2026: not “more tools,” but a coherent strategy that turns digital into execution speed, capability uplift, and a better employee experience without losing trust.

• The strategy choices: what Nokia is simplifying, what it’s doubling down on, and how it avoids digital sprawl.

• The human deal: how Nokia thinks about privacy, trust, and adoption when employee experience becomes data-driven.

• How digital enables growth: skills insights, immersive learning, and capability-building that actually change performance.

9:20 - 10:20 AM

The New Standard for Human-AI Productivity: How CHROs Redesign Work at Scale

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Most AI programs don’t fail because the technology isn’t powerful — they fail because organizations layer AI on top of broken workflows and reward “more output” instead of “better outcomes.” The result is familiar: volume goes up, but quality, trust, and decision velocity quietly fall as rework spreads across teams and managers spend more time reviewing, correcting, and firefighting.

This session is about the new CHRO mandate: moving from AI experimentation to work design. That means redesigning roles, workflows, decision rights, and performance expectations so AI removes friction and cognitive load at the source — not just speeds up the production of work that shouldn’t exist. The opportunity is to help the enterprise shift from “time saved” to “effort removed,” and to build a productivity model that scales quality and judgement, not noise.

• How to identify the highest-friction moments in work where effort is wasted — and where AI should be applied first to remove drag, not create more output.

• How to redesign performance expectations so teams optimise for quality, judgement, and decision velocity — not speed that creates downstream rework.

• How to build human–AI workflows that scale: clear accountability, reliable handoffs, “human-in-the-loop” rules, and simple governance that accelerates adoption.

10:40 - 11:40 AM

The Workforce Readiness Agenda: Skills, Talent and AI Transformation

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

The next 12 months will test whether organisations have the talent, skills and workforce flexibility to turn AI ambition into business impact. As AI reshapes work, roles and productivity expectations, CHROs can no longer rely on traditional talent models built around fixed jobs, linear careers and slow capability cycles. The organisations that move fastest will be those that can acquire, develop, manage and mobilise talent around the capabilities the business needs now and next.

This session focuses on building a more connected talent and skills strategy for the AI era. The challenge is not simply identifying skills gaps or launching new learning programmes. It is creating a workforce system that helps leaders understand where capability exists, where it needs to be built, where talent can be redeployed, and where AI can enhance human productivity. The opportunity is to build stronger pipelines, accelerate skills development, improve workforce agility and give the business greater confidence that its people strategy is ready for the pace of change ahead.

• AI-readiness starts with talent strategy: How CHROs are reshaping workforce priorities around the skills, capabilities and talent moves the business will need most over the next 12 months.

• Talent pipelines need to become more connected: How to link hiring, development, mobility, performance and succession into one joined-up system that builds stronger, more adaptable talent pipelines for the AI era.

• Skills are changing faster than traditional development can keep up: How to respond to the shrinking half-life of skills by building a more flexible, productive and continuously developing workforce.

12:40 - 1:40 PM

From Recognition to Real-Time Workforce Intelligence

PanelistS:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Workhuman’s positioning is that recognition creates a “live stream” of human datan and Workhuman iQ + the AI Assistant are designed to turn that into insights around culture effectiveness, retention dynamics, skills signals, and performance patterns. That matters to CHROs because it connects two things that are usually separate: behaviour reinforcement (culture, leadership habits) and board-level intelligence (what’s actually happening in the workforce right now). And when recognition is embedded into collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, it stops being a destination programme and becomes a daily operating layer.

• The blueprint for a global recognition system that is values-connected, measurable, and repeatable

• How Workhuman’s iQ + AI Assistant turn recognition signals into actionable insight (retention dynamics, cultural health, hidden skills, behaviour patterns).

• How to embed recognition into the flow of work via integrations so adoption doesn’t depend on comms campaigns.

2 - 3 PM

The Manager Operating System Built for AI Transformation

panelists:

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Strategy doesn’t fail at the top. It fails in the middle. In the next 12 months, the biggest constraint on execution will be manager capacity and leadership discipline under relentless change. The problem isn’t that leaders lack vision. It’s that most organisations still treat leadership as a “program,” when what they actually need is a repeatable operating cadence: clarity, prioritisation, coaching, decision-making, and change routines that are practised under pressure.

This session reframes leadership as infrastructure. The opportunity is for CHROs to build a system where change becomes routine rather than disruptive, managers are protected from overload, and leadership behaviours are reinforced through performance expectations and simple rhythms — not abstract competency models. This is how organizations move faster without burning out the people expected to carry transformation.

• How CHROs are redefining the role of managers as change catalysts, adoption leaders and confidence builders in the age of AI.

• How to equip managers with the routines, tools and support needed to lead teams through AI-driven change without increasing overload.

• How to build stronger leadership infrastructure that improves communication, coaching, prioritisation and performance as work continues to evolve.

3:20 - 4 PM

Building the Human Operating System for the AI-Powered Enterprise

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

This working session turns two days of discussion into practical action. CHROs will identify the one part of their people operating system that needs to change first. Work design, AI HR playbook, skills, digital experience, human intelligence, manager infrastructure or trust, then pressure-test that priority with peers and define one 90-day decision they can take back to the business.

• How to identify the people system that will have the greatest impact on business execution: work design, skills, digital experience, recognition intelligence, manager infrastructure, or leadership rhythm.

• How to pressure-test your priorities with peers and move from broad transformation themes to practical decisions that can be acted on in the next 90 days.

• How other CHROs are thinking about what to start, stop, simplify, or redesign as AI, workforce change, and business pressure reshape the role of HR.

• How to translate two days of insight into a clear action commitment that can be taken back to the CEO, executive committee, board, or HR leadership team.

4 - 5 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 Nokia’s Headquarters in Helsinki, Finland

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