Explore the Agenda
8:30 am Morning Refreshments & Networking
9:00 am Chair’s Opening Remarks & Start of Day Two
9:15 am Interactive Panel Session: How the Broader Life Sciences Ecosystem is Helping Reimagine What’s Possible for the Future of Innovation
- Lessons learned from early efforts to rethink what work gets done by whom, challenging traditional thinking around roles and skills in the process
- What appear to be the biggest skill gaps we need to close as we navigate this complex transformation journey to future-proof our organizations?
- What are the most critical roadblocks we’ve encountered (or we expect to encounter), and how should we best position ourselves to overcome them?
10:00 am Discover: How Bayer Radically Reengineered its Operating Model to Ensure it was Fit to Thrive in an AI-Enabled Life Sciences Industry
- Inside the ‘dynamic shared ownership’ model which allows a 160-year-old entity with 100k headcount to operate with greater speed, agility and do more with less
- How 90-day cycles allow AI-enabled teams to set clearer outcomes, test new solutions, learn lessons faster, and adapt to new realities to help move forward faster
- Challenging traditional thinking about career paths in a future pharma workforce turn career ladders into zig zags and create more valuable, transferrable talent
10:20 am Discover: How Johnson & Johnson has Deployed AI to Infer Employee Skills as Part of a Groundbreaking Digital-First Workforce Initiative
- Inside the employee skills inference platform J&J devised to create a digital-first workforce capable of thriving amid the new reality of continuous digital innovation
- What challenges did J&J face during the deployment of the platform and what activities did the team undertake in response to these challenges?
- The 3 organizational practices critical for the successful deployment of AI: blueprinting the future workforce, managing ethical data work across borders, and compensating for AI blind spots
10:40 am Develop: Rethinking Operating Models & Skills in the Age of AI
Join a live Q&A exploring how you can transform your organizations to thrive in an AI-enabled future. This is your opportunity to ask questions about dynamic operating models, skill inference, and the cultural shifts needed to support sustainable, tech-driven change.
11:00 am Action: Rewiring the Enterprise: From AI Strategy to Workforce Reality
In this facilitated roundtable, collaborate with peers to explore how dynamic operating models and AI-driven skills strategies can be adapted to your organization. Work together to identify practical ways to rethink roles, accelerate transformation, and build a workforce ready for continuous innovation.
Facilitated by the Chair
11:20 am Networking & Refreshments Break
11:50 am Discover: How Merck is Accelerating Towards an AI-Enabled Future to Enable Faster Delivery of Lifesaving Medicines to Patients
- Leveraging human-centered innovation to balance cutting-edge technology with ethical responsibility to ensure AI enhances – not replaces – human expertise
- How Merck is deploying internal AI solutions to streamline operations and foster a culture of experimentation, learning, innovation, and adaptability across functions
- Where targeted training and cross-functional collaboration is allowing Merck to equip employees with the digital and analytical skills needed to thrive in an AI-driven environment
12:30 pm Develop: Human-Centered AI in Action
Join a live Q&A exploring how Merck and Novartis are balancing innovation and responsibility in their AI strategies. This is your opportunity to ask questions about ethical deployment, workforce readiness, and how AI is reshaping decision-making and delivery across the life sciences.
12:50 pm Action: Human-Centered AI & the Future of Decision-Making
In this facilitated roundtable, work with peers to explore how AI can be ethically and effectively integrated into your organization’s decision-making and workforce strategies. Identify practical ways to balance innovation with responsibility and prepare your teams for continuous digital evolution.
Facilitated by the Chair
1:10 pm Chair’s Summary & Close of Plenary Conference
1:30 pm Networking Lunch
Interactive Workshop A: Designed for All Attendees
2:30 pm From Disruption to Design: Accelerating Human-AI Collaboration in Practice in Life Sciences Today
The work we do in life sciences is being radically redefined in the context of the new AI-enabled
operating model and the question for HR leaders to tackle is no longer if work will change, but
how fast we can redesign our organizations for human-AI collaboration in the face of continuous
technological change. Companies that can get ahead and stay ahead of the evolving relationship
between knowledge workers and AI, focusing on how AI influences the employee experience, job
design, and skills development are best placed to thrive in a future life sciences industry.
This workshop will address:
- What research tells us about how AI is redefining the nature of work across all organizations, from entry-level automation to high-value human-AI collaboration
- The emerging tension between the short-term efficiency gains AI is delivering and the sustainability of the long-term talent pipeline into the future biopharma business
- Challenging traditional assumptions around what durable (human) skills will matter most in an AI-augmented biopharma business, and how to develop them quickly
You will leave this workshop able to:
- More effectively identify the critical skillsets – both technical and human – that will define futureready biopharma organizations and build a plan to develop them faster
- Evaluate your current talent and skills strategies through the lens of long-term capability building in an AI-driven environment to allow you to build a future-ready workforce
- Apply research-backed frameworks to shape your organization’s approach to knowledge, skills, and workforce design with a 5–10-year lens
Interactive Workshop B: By Invitation Only for CHROs
2:30 pm Strategic Workforce Design in the Age of AI: What CHROs Must Do Now to Continue to Shape the Future
As AI reshapes the life sciences operating model, CHROs are uniquely positioned to lead the
reinvention of workforce strategy, role, and organization design and future skills development. This
interactive workshop will explore how HR leaders can move beyond reactive change management
to proactively design roles and organizations where human potential and AI capabilities evolve and
work in tandem. The focus will be on long-term value creation, sustainable talent strategies, and
the leadership mindset required to navigate continuous transformation.
This workshop will address:
- What work should be reimagined vs just automated, and how AI is shifting the boundaries of work, roles, and decision-making – and what this means for organizational design and leadership
- The strategic risks of underinvesting in human capability development as AI accelerates – and how to balance efficiency with long-term resilience
- How CHROs can influence enterprise-wide thinking on skills, culture, and the employee experience in an AI-augmented environment
You will leave this workshop able to:
- Identify the most urgent strategic questions HR must answer to future-proof the workforce in an AI-enabled life sciences industry
- Evaluate your current workforce strategy through the lens of adaptability, hyper-efficiency, and long-term capability building
- Lead cross-functional conversations that position HR as a driver of innovation, not just a responder to disruption