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A PRIVATE EXECUTIVE ROUNDTABLE · DECember 1, 2026 ·
BY INVITATION
The Human Layer
Ask any leader why AI adoption has stalled and you'll hear the same answer: culture. Half a day, a small room of senior leaders, and a frank conversation about what's holding transformation back, and what's still theirs to change.
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Transformation doesn't stall at the technology.
It stalls at the human layer.
THE PREMISE

Every AI event
repeats the same line.

Heavy investment, thin adoption, blame the people. The evidence says otherwise. Competitors aren't winning by adopting AI faster. They're winning by redesigning how work happens, while everyone else automates yesterday's process. The Human Layer helps leaders find and remove what's holding that redesign back.
THE ROOM

Up to 24 senior leaders. One frank conversation.

Bringing together CEOs and senior leaders across telecom, banking, insurance, energy and utilities: established organisations confronting the same challenge - how to redesign work quickly enough to capture the value of AI.

Held under the Chatham House Rule

WHAT CHIEF EXECUTIVES REPORT
  • 12%
    delivered both cost and revenue gains
  • 1 in 4
    tolerate real risk of innovation
  • 47%
    of a leader's time on issues under a year out
  • 42%
    worry most about the pace of transformation
PwC 2026 Global CEO Survey - 4,454 respondents

The constraint isn't simply technical.
It's how decisions get made, what gets rewarded,
who's allowed to fail.
what makes it different
A short pre-event survey
turns each organisation into data.
On the day, it's mirrored back to the room: no benchmarks, no vendor pitch. The room looking at itself.
THE FORMAT
Half a day, in five movements.
  • The statement
    Said aloud to open the room: it isn't speed that costs you the advantage, it's redesign.
  • The Pulse
    An anonymous pre-event survey on where decisions slow, risk-aversion sets in, and good ideas stall.
  • The roundtable
    Where, specifically, is your blockage?
  • Breakouts
    Small groups across the three themes.
  • Close and lunch
    One question to carry out of the room.
THE THREE THEMES
Three places the redesign
gets stuck.
  • -1-
    Where decisions go to die
    Approval drag, budget hoarding.
  • -2-
    What's still yours to make
    Value when expertise isn't scarce.
  • -3-
    Do you actually model it?
    Governance, or just risk.
WHAT YOU LEAVE WITH
Your own organisation, benchmarked against the room.
  • THE BENCHMARK REPORT
    Six to eight pages, led by a one-page card comparing your approval speed and risk appetite with the room.

    Sent to every respondent · First invitation to the next roundtable
THE VENUE · BARCELONA
An exclusive modernist address, kept for the day.
Central Barcelona, in a room where daylight meets Gaudí-era detail: soaring ceilings, sculpted period flourishes, and a terrace where the conversations continue happen, long after the session has ended.


OUR HUMAN LAYER
The people in the room with you.
  • Mark Callender
    Managing Partner, The Human Layer ·
    Managing Director, OTR Events
    Mark led content at GSMA, shaping the conversations at the heart of Mobile World Congress events. He now runs OTR Events, designing the rooms where senior leaders actually talk. He co-built The Human Layer and keeps the day honest.
  • Natasha Ristic
    Managing Partner, The Human Layer ·
    Founder, Selectr Events
    Natasha built Mobile World Congress's Custom Programme and executive roundtables at GSMA, where she and Mark first worked together. Her master's in psychology focuses on creativity: what lets a room think differently. She convenes the room and holds the conversation.
Our Steering Committee
Our Steering Committee brings decades of experience leading people and companies through technology change, and helps shape the questions, the room and the conversation so that every edition stays honest, useful and grounded in how organisations actually work.
  • Mats Granryd
    Chairman of the board - Vattenfall, Business Sweden
  • David Walsh
    General Counsel, Climate Action, Telecoms, Compliance, Start-ups
  • Diego R. Lopez
    Senior Technology Expert at Telefonica, ETSI Fellow, chair of ETSI TC DATA, chair of IETF GREEN
Our Partners
We work with a small number of organisations whose expertise can meaningfully contribute to the conversation. Partnerships are designed around participation, insight and thought leadership - not product promotion.
Let's talk
BY INVITATION

Request an invitation

Tell us who you are and we'll be in touch about the December roundtable. Places are limited to 24.
THE HUMAN LAYER · BARCELONA
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