We’ll be in Paris for UNLEASH World from 20 to 22 October. With seven stages running at once, choosing what to see is half the job; at 15:15 on Wednesday there are four sessions I’d happily walk into, all starting at the same moment. So here are my five, in the order I’d see them.
I’m going on the published abstracts and haven’t seen any of these yet, so I’ll report back. Times and rooms are from the agenda on 2 October and can move, so check the UNLEASH app before you plan around them.
1. The people science edge that translates workplace sentiment into measurable impact
Wednesday 21 October, 11:45 to 12:15, Stage 2 (WorkTech & Pay). Hannah Sargeant from Hays and Rachel Bourne from Jacobs.
This is the one closest to what we do. The abstract is about helping managers get from survey insight to action faster, and that gap is where most engagement programmes lose their value. A company can run a perfect survey and still wait months for anything to change. We built Hoogly to bring that wait down to days, so I want to hear how two large employers are handling it.
2. Join the club: a practical framework for building ownership, trust and collective impact
Wednesday 21 October, 14:15 to 14:45, Stage 3 (Talent). David Edwards from Dark Artistry, with Kobe Verdonck and Bruce Fecheyr-Lippens from SD Worx.
The question behind this one is what it takes for people to say “I want to be part of this”. My answer starts with whether people believe anyone is listening, so I’m curious what these three say.
3. How talent management decisions shape your culture
Wednesday 21 October, 15:15 to 15:45, Stage 3 (Talent). André Lacroix from Intertek, Barbara Martin Coppola from Patagonia, Jean-Dominique Senard from Renault Group and Charles-Henri Besseyre des Horts from HEC Paris.
Every hire, promotion, reward and exit tells people what a company values, whether leaders intend it or not. I’d like to hear how leaders at that level think about the signals they send. This is the session I’d pick at 15:15, though you’ll be choosing it over three others.
4. Recovering from failures and roll-backs: the agentic AI roll-backs nobody talks about
Wednesday 21 October, 16:15 to 16:45, Stage 2 (WorkTech & Pay). Antonio Bebba from The Corporate Jungle, Miriam Kugel from Microsoft, Syed Ali Abbas from HelloFresh and Rachel Bourne from Jacobs.
Conference stages are full of AI success stories. This panel is about the pilots that stalled and the agents someone had to switch off, and I expect to learn more from it than from most keynotes. We build with AI every day, so I’m keen to hear what went wrong and what people changed afterwards.
5. Louis Theroux: two visions, two AI strategies, one extraordinary conversation
Thursday 22 October, 15:05 to 15:45, Stage 1 (Humans x AI). A fireside conversation.
Louis Theroux has built a career on getting people to say what they actually think, and that is the skill we care about most at Hoogly. I don’t know how much of the hour will be about AI, but I’d go anyway.
Where to find us
Come and say hello if you want to talk about listening, culture or why so many surveys go nowhere. If the expo coffee is as bad as conference coffee usually is, come and find us and we’ll see what we can do 🙏🏽
Dates, venue, tickets and the invite-only parties are in our UNLEASH World Paris 2026 guide, and you can see everything else we’re attending on the events page. If you’d rather book a time before the show, you can do that here.
