Ethan Mollick AI Thought Leader, Professor The Wharton School
The Age of Real Work: When AI Becomes Your Colleague
Ethan Mollick is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on how AI, work and education intersect. He was named one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in AI”.
How leaders harness AI agents to amplify human insight – and avoid drowning in infinite output. AI is no longer a demo or a toy, it has crossed the threshold into real, economically valuable work. Ethan Mollick returns to UNLEASH to explore a new age of “real work,” where AI agents can replicate research, design products, and execute multi-step tasks once reserved for human experts. Yet the defining question of our time isn’t what AI can do - it’s why we let it. In this keynote, Ethan unpacks the profound tension between human-centered work and infinite automation. The greatest threat ahead isn’t job loss, it’s purpose loss - a world where organizations drown in AI-generated noise instead of rising through human creativity, judgement, and meaning. The future of work will be shaped not by how fast AI can move, but by how wisely leaders choose to steer it. The next frontier isn’t productivity - it’s discernment.
This is an UNLEASH Exclusive. Ethan’s last keynote for UNLEASH is one the most celebrated because of how many lives, careers, and companies he has helped influence and shape. He speaks with authority on how AI is reshaping careers, business and human potential, great for your “future of work” theme.
🗓️ Wednesday, 18 March | 16:40 - 17:25 | Stage 1 - Main Stage
Unleashing Employees to Build a Learning Organization
Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and the world’s top-ranked management thinker (Thinkers50, 2023). She is globally recognized for her work on psychological safety, teaming, and organizational learning.
This session explores how to create workplaces where employees find their work meaningful and teams support continuous learning. We examine why psychological safety drives engagement, innovation, and performance, and what leaders can do to foster it. Rather than relying solely on surveys and metrics, leaders can use action-oriented approaches that involve employees directly in improving their work experience. Research and case studies show that shifting from measuring engagement to enabling it helps build organizations where people collaborate, solve problems, and do meaningful work.
This is an UNLEASH Exclusive. Amy brings the human-heart of work - how engagement, learning, culture, and teamwork enable meaningful careers and thriving organisations.
🗓️ Wednesday, 18 March | 9:00 - 9:50 | Stage 1 - Main Stage
Amy Edmondson Novartis Professor Harvard Business School
Josh Bersin Founder & CEO The Josh Bersin Company
The Disruption Never Stops: How AI is Radically Transforming HR
- The world’s No.1 workplace and HR analyst
- Founder & CEO of the world’s most trusted HR advisory firm
- Dean of the Josh Bersin Academy - 50,000+ HR leaders trained
Industry analyst Josh Bersin focuses on the global talent market, trends, and technologies impacting workforces across all industry segments. His research is featured in publications such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, Economic Times, Financial Times, and Washington Post, and he published his book Irresistible in 2022.
The workplace is being reinvented at every level and HR is at the epicenter of this transformation. In this landmark keynote, global industry analyst Josh Bersin unpacks the urgent and systemic impact of AI on the HR technology stack, operating models, and the role of HR itself. Drawing on exclusive new research and 100+ use cases from across the industry, Josh explores the rise of AI agents, the shift from headcount to skills intelligence, and the reinvention of employee experience through intelligent systems. He will show how companies are rebuilding their talent strategy around productivity, adaptability, and trust: and what separates high-performing “superworker” organizations from the rest. This is not incremental change. It’s a once-in-a-generation reset of how we hire, manage, reward, and develop talent.
🗓️ Thursday, 19 March | 9:00 - 9:50 | Stage 1 - Main Stage
From One to Many: The future of AI is collaborative
Jaime Teevan is Chief Scientist and Technical Fellow at Microsoft, where she is responsible for driving research-backed innovation in the company's core products. Jaime is world-renowned for her research into productivity and personalized search, and was recognized by TIME as one of the top 100 people to play an instrumental role in AI development and societal advancement.
The future of work isn’t just about personal productivity—it’s about how AI can transform collaboration, making teams smarter and more effective together. As we move beyond individual gains, the real opportunity is designing AI that supports group goals, shared knowledge, and collective intelligence at scale. By intentionally shaping how AI integrates into teamwork, we unlock the potential to solve bigger problems and pioneer new ways of working—together.
🗓️ Thursday, 19 March | 9:50 - 10:25 | Stage 1 - Main Stage
Jaime Teevan Chief Scientist Microsoft
Peter Hinssen Partner Nexxworks
The Uncertainty Principle
Peter Hinssen is co-founder & chairman of nexxworks and a serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker and bestselling author on digital transformation, innovation and leadership. Working with UNLEASH for more than a decade, he’s frequently the “top-ranked world-class speaker” and holds the world record of presenting more than 300 slides in 30mins. Peter is fellow and visiting faculty at London Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management.
We no longer live in a world that changes every few years we live in a world that changes every few weeks. The Never Normal is here: a reality defined by relentless disruption, radical innovation, and seismic shifts in how we work, lead, and live. In this keynote, Peter Hinssen explores The Uncertainty Principle - the idea that uncertainty isn’t a threat to be managed, but the most powerful source of opportunity. When leaders learn to “weaponize” uncertainty, they turn volatility into velocity, complexity into creativity, and disruption into reinvention. For HR and business leaders, this means rethinking how we build cultures of adaptability, foster learning at scale, and design organizations that thrive amid constant change. Because in the Never Normal, the future doesn’t belong to the strongest or the smartest - it belongs to those who can turn uncertainty into momentum.
This is an UNLEASH Exclusive. He brings a potent combo of optimism, clarity, humor and relevance - perfect for challenging the status quo on the future of work.
🗓️ Wednesday, 18 March | 9:55 - 10:25 | Stage 1 - Main Stage
SPEAKERS
