2025 Programme
25th People Development Summit12-14 March 2025, EPIC SANA Marquês Hotel
2025 Topics & Themes
- Practical use of AI in L&D
- Learning with a neurodiverse population
- Proving L&D ROI
- Talent management approaches to performance management
- L&D’s role in workplace wellbeing
- Data-driven L&D
- Psychological safety
- In person vs. virtual instructor-led training (ILT)
- Relationship between L&D and D&I
- The future of L&D?
The People Development Summit programme consists of - keynotes, TED-style talks + Q&A and interactive Action Learning Workshops
If you have any speaker recommendations, please email eventteam@summit-events.com
For more information and live updates on our speaker programme, follow our Summit Events LinkedIn page.
2025 Speakers Below!
Biography
Michael Edwards, better known as Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards, was the first competitor to represent Great Britain in Olympic Ski jumping. Despite not winning in his sport, Eddie's heroic failures won the hearts and minds of the
public.
With a love of skiing and stunts from a young age, Eddie started out in downhill skiing but switched to ski jumping when he realised that this sport had no other UK competitors. Holding the record for stunt jumping but with only a small jump under his belt, two years before the Olympics he began training. After representing Great Britain at the 1987 World Championships, and ranking 55th, Eddie qualified as the sole British applicant for the 1988 Winter Olympics. He was working in difficult circumstances however - he had no financial support for training and had to wear his glasses at all times, which fogged up to such an extent that he couldn’t see while he was jumping. Eddie
came in last in both the 70m and 90m events but he succeeded in winning hearts around the world. He became a popular celebrity, appearing on talk shows around the world and gaining the affectionate nickname ‘Mr Magoo’ from the press.
An entertaining speaker, Eddie shares his journey with characteristic charm and humour. He talks of his willingness to take risks, the importance of pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and allowing yourself to fail but also to get back up and try again. He reminds audiences that success isn’t always in the winning but in the trying.
In the midst of his public glory, he released a book and several songs (including in Finnish). Since then, he has done a synchronised dive with Tom Daley on ITV’s Splash, taught celebrities to ski-jump on The Jump and danced as Rubber Chicken on The Masked Dancer. His story was made into a biographical film ‘Eddie the Eagle’ in which he was portrayed by Taron Egerton. He remains one of the best loved athletes today.Presentation Outline
I’ll be sharing my journey as Britain’s first Olympic ski jumper, including the funny and unexpected situations I found myself in before and after the Calgary Winter Olympics. It’s a story of resilience, tenacity, and never giving up.
Biography
The world is changing incredibly fast and shows no sign of this slowing down any time soon. For the last 25 years I have focused on helping organisations succeed by helping their people succeed. Fostering and building curious, continuous learning cultures across global technology businesses mostly from the ground up has given me incredible opportunities to explore and experiment with the levers that can build or destroy these highly engaged, high performance environments. It has sparked my thinking around leadership, performance, career, engagement, employee experience and wellbeing (to name a few areas).
Presentation Outline
This interactive session will delve into the reality of wellbeing in organisations. Peeling back the lid to look at what really happens when wellbeing aspiration meets business realities and how to make it about more than “hey we got an app”. Nick doesn’t have all the answers, but he has an interesting set of experiences and a curious mind. Which means this session will be about collectively seeing what ideas we can uncover and pool for everyone’s benefit.
Laura Ashley-Timms
Author of The Answer is a Question & COO, NotionNotion
SPEAKER
HR & L&D’s 3 Fatal Mistakes Preventing the Creation of a Coaching Culture … and the 5-Step Blueprint to Resolve it
Biography
Laura Ashley-Timms is the best-selling author of the award-winning book The Answer is a Question and a renowned thought leader on the subject of coaching who is regularly published in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, BBC, The Times, Fast Company, Newsweek and many more.
She’s also the COO at Notion (L&D Supplier of the Year), the co-creator of the STAR® model, the multi-award-winning STAR® Manager programme and an expert on how to leverage Operational Coaching® behaviours across organisations to drive commercial results and improve productivity and engagement levels.
Laura learned about the power of coaching from her early childhood career in international sports and was coaching others by the time she entered Oriel College, Oxford. With over thirty years of international business experience, living and working in the USA, Europe and Asia, Laura has a strong focus on pragmatism and results. She’s been recognised as one of the UK’s top executive coaches and as one of 40 Outstanding Global Women.Presentation Outline
Join me to discover the fastest and easiest way you can deliver a coaching culture that pays for itself multiple times over.
Are you tired of coaching initiatives that fall flat? Ready to transform your organisation into a coaching powerhouse? This session will equip you with a proven 5-step blueprint to build a sustainable coaching culture that delivers tangible results, built on scientifically proven research across 62 organisations in 14 sectors.
Discover the big mistakes organisations are making with their coaching strategy and why almost every penny you’re spending on your 'manager as coach' programmes is completely wasted.
Don't miss this opportunity to revolutionise your culture and drive extraordinary results!
This advance to traditional coaching methodology will be of huge interest to professionals who deliver and embed coaching into organisations.
You'll walk away with:
● A foolproof model for establishing a thriving coaching culture
● A step-by-step blueprint to maximise the impact of your coaching skills training
● Actionable strategies to measure and demonstrate ROI
● Insights into how to ignite employee engagement, productivity, and performance
● The secret to cultivating a proactive, solution-oriented workforce
● Access to an assessment to benchmark your organisation against the blueprint
John Gregg
Head of Learning and Organisational DevelopmentAlzheimer’s Research UK
SPEAKER
Measuring Learning Impact and Providing Value
Biography
John Gregg is the Head of Learning and Organisational Development at Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK). He is responsible for all L&D and Organisational Change interventions as well as L&D projects, EDI and technical programmes.
Earning his Degree at Coventry University he soon found he had an aptitude for converting difficult information into easy-to-understand, manageable content. He is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, a Fellow of the LPI, LinkedIn Top voice and he is also a proud Dyslexic.
He has enjoyed a successful career over the last 20 years and has worked for various multinationals across Banking, Motor trade, Education, Telecoms and Non-Profits
Away from ARUK he works with NEET young learners to help them improve confidence to gain work and apprenticeship experience.Presentation Outline
This session on learning impact explores the measurable effects of learning interventions, emphasising changes in knowledge, skills, behaviours, and attitudes.
It highlights the importance of demonstrating L&D value, aligning with business goals, while addressing challenges such as the complexity of learning and individual differences.
We will also discuss the need for aligning L&D with organisational goals, fostering a continuous learning culture through personalised paths, hybrid models, and building strategic partnerships.
To finish we will go through some practical tips on measuring impact and engaging stakeholders, it aims to position L&D as a strategic partner in driving organisational performance.
1. Understanding Learning Impact & what it is
2. Why Learning Impact is important and Challenges in Measuring it successfully
3. Strategies for Effective Learning Impact Measurement
4. Aligning L&D with Business Objectives
5. Hints and Tips on Measuring Impact
6. Conclusion and Q&A
Baden Frösén
Director, Global Leadership DevelopmentFortinet
SPEAKER
How much is too much? Exploring the toxic dark-side traits of high performing leaders
Biography
Baden is an Occupational & Organisational Psychologist by trade and currently stewards leadership across the globe at the cybersecurity firm Fortinet. Baden’s remit includes Fortinet’s end-to-end enterprise-wide leadership development proposition, as well as Fortinet’s global organisational change management approach. Additional hats Baden wears include leading all Talent & Organisational Development within EMEA, global Talent & Organisational Development Infrastructure and vendor management and he personally stands in role as the global sales function T&OD business partner for the sales EVPs.
Over the past 25+ years as a seasoned professional in organisational development and psychology, Baden is deeply passionate about creating environments where individuals and teams thrive, adapt, and excel. With a solid foundation in the theories and insights of eminent experts and senior leaders in the field, Baden has dedicated his career to shaping progressive organisational strategies with an inclusive lens. His particular theoretical interests within the psychology of leadership span between organisational leadership systems and more recently, the dark side of leadership.
On a personal note, Baden has a passion in reaching out to early talent in the LGBTQIA+ community. Representing the community, Baden believes that coaching and mentoring to ignite passion and create equity for disadvantaged LGBTQIA+ community members is a necessity for any senior LGBTQIA+ leader.Presentation Outline
Organisations and leaders regularly assess and select leaders with traits they believe will predict high performance, using multitudes of psychometric testing. But what happens when leaders are TOO high performing?
In this heavily psychologically based interactive workshop, you will explore the ‘dark-side’ of leadership, where previously assumed high-performance may in fact sit on the border of toxic and dysfunctional leadership.
Topics we’ll discuss and explore are:
o The leadership traits that predict ‘high performance’
o The ‘dark-side’ traits of leadership
o How the ‘dark-side’ traits predict toxic or dysfunctional leadership
o The boundary between high-performance and dysfunction
o Baden’s current research exploring this phenomenon in the LGBTQIA+ community
Sonia Gupta
Director, Talent and LearningSave the Children International
SPEAKER
Promoting neuroinclusion in our workplace culture
Biography
Sonia is a highly experienced senior leader with a proven record in leading value-driven, global transformational change programmes that deliver measurable impact in FTSE 100 companies such as Diageo, BP, Coca-Cola, Accenture and Save the Children. Dedicated to helping organizations achieve their business goals and future ambition by unlocking the growth and potential of diverse talent through innovative talent, culture, and leadership development initiatives. A thought leader and practical strategist with a unique background in management consulting and industry with deep expertise across global cultures and sectors. Strategic, commercially astute, and data-driven, my purposeful leadership style fosters team connection, collaboration, and curiosity and experimentation. Sonia has a passion for creating and promoting inclusion, with a specialism in neuroinclusion gained through both personal and professional experiences
Presentation Outline
This session explores the importance, opportunities and challenges of neuroinclusion which can foster more innovative, productivity, engagement and diverse thinking. It explores practical techniques of how you can create more inclusive practices throughout the employee lifecycle.
Biography
Ron is an award-winning pioneer in applying digital innovation in Learning and Development with over 30 years of experience gained in both corporate and commercial leadership roles.
At Entain, one of the world's largest sports betting and gaming groups, he is transforming best practices in L&D across more than 20 countries with 30,000 colleagues with a focus on management development, strategic upskilling, and learning technologies.
Ron is passionate about the evolving role of technology to support and drive performance and is excited to make it as engaging as Entain’s entertaining experiences!Presentation Outline
We’re in the midst of a technology revolution that is transforming how organizations provide training. It has the potential to change the role of learning and development.
This interactive session explores the evolution of consumer technologies in the workplace and artificial intelligence as a catalyst for transforming how we build and deliver learning experiences and support higher performance.
This is an opportunity to deepen your understanding of which capabilities are being unlocked before our eyes, explore where to get started and/or accelerate efforts.
Topics:
• A framework for which ‘learning’ technologies best support different levels of learning outcomes and experience levels
• How Generative AI and ease of video production/distribution unlock new approaches for engagement and global scalability
• Applying the framework to leadership development at Entain
Neil Dear
Global Head of L&DWatchfinder
SPEAKER
L&D's place in creating a positive workplace culture
Biography
Neil is a passionate and practical L&D leader who loves helping businesses succeed by facilitating their people to grow and creating a positive culture. As the Global Head of L&D at Watchfinder he has built the company’s L&D function from scratch, creating programs that not only make a real difference but also directly support the business' values.
With a background in sales, communication, leadership, and learning theory, he takes a straightforward approach to designing initiatives that genuinely work. It's all about making learning meaningful, engaging, and aligned with business goals.
A seasoned speaker he is comfortable talking to audiences big or small—whether it’s a room of 100 or a crowd of 5,000. What drives him most is the belief that learning can be a game-changer for both individuals and organizations when done right.Presentation Outline
Culture is a buzz word that organisation often say is important, but they struggle to define, let alone change. I believe that L&D is the key to creating a positive workplace. However, to do this we must know what culture is and how to impact it.
This interactive session explores how L&D influences corporate culture, focusing on what makes a culture thrive and how to foster it. Through discussions, group activities, and real-world examples, we’ll delve into the factors that shape culture and fully understand our part in changing culture for the better.
You’ll leave with practical insights and an action plan to take back to your organization, ready to make a meaningful impact.
Konstantinos Tasis
Learning & Development Programme ManagerIpsos UK&I
SPEAKER
Empowering Business Transformation: How Learning and Development Can Support the Integration of Generative AI
Biography
Konstantinos is a Learning and Development Programme Manager at Ipsos UK and Ireland. He is a Fellow member of CIPD, a committee member of the CIPD's South West London Branch, and a mentor for the CIPD Trust.
With 12 years of experience in the learning and development sector, Konstantinos has helped businesses align employee development with their strategic goals. His career includes supporting organisations such as Wilson James, CarGiant, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Currently, he is dedicated to supporting management and leadership development at Ipsos UK and Ireland.Presentation Outline
This event is designed to empower HR professionals to use the Learning and Development to support their business's integration of Generative AI. Attendees will gain the essential knowledge to be able to start a transformation and foster innovation through L&D. They will explore the power of blended learning and identify key influencers within their organisations, equipping them to effectively leverage Generative AI and create an adaptable, agile workforce ready for today’s fast-paced markets.
The session will additionally focus on strategies to build a culture of continuous learning, promote professional development, and leverage blended learning to maximise the potential of AI-driven environments. Overall, this event will empower individuals to become influential agents of change within their organisations.
Register your interest in the People Development Summit 2026
11-13 March 2026
Dolce CampoReal, Lisbon
Submit your name and email address and a member of the Summit team will send you further details including:
- the confirmed list of attendees
- instructions on how to apply for a delegate place
- sponsorship options