Day Two

• How can acquired biotechs and their new parent company protect innovation, engagement and critical talent through the highest risk period of integration?
• Learn how Roche’s M&A team manages the full arc of a deal, from due diligence through integration, with a particular focus on employee experience as the factor that determines whether an acquisition ultimately succeeds
• Discover the practical tools used to keep teams engaged and productive through cultural and structural change, including how Roche balances global consistency with the realities of function and site level culture

• How do you determine the right operating model for your discovery function, and know when the moment has arrived to shift resources from discovery to clinical development?
• Learn how Ventus Therapeutics reduced its organization from around 100 employees to 35 in 2025, scaling down its discovery function to protect the clinical trial budget as financing conditions tightened for a pre-catalyst biotech
• Discover how full transparency with employees about the organization’s likely trajectory, and a shift toward equipping people for their next opportunity rather than promising a long-term one, helped Ventus retain talent through the reduction with almost no attrition, even where discovery staff saw little value in their equity

This interactive Q&A explores how to protect engagement and critical talent through M&A integration and function wind-downs alike.

• Managing a deal’s full arc, from due diligence through post-merger integration, with employee experience as the deciding factor
• Knowing when to shift resources from one function to another as priorities change
• Using full transparency about an organization’s likely trajectory to retain talent through uncertainty

This roundtable helps you apply these lessons to whatever organizational change your business is navigating.

• What makes a change ultimately succeed or fail for our people?
• When do we know it’s time to shift resources?
• How much transparency is the right amount during uncertainty?

Leave with a clearer approach for protecting people through change.

This panel brings together experienced CHROs and CPOs to discuss what it takes to step into the top HR seat for the first time, and how to prepare the next generation of people leaders to do the same. Expect candid conversation on the skills, mindset shifts, and support systems that make the difference between a smooth transition and a difficult one, for both first-time CHROs and those they’re grooming to follow.

Building on both panel discussions, this roundtable gives you space to work through your own journey toward senior HR leadership, whatever that looks like for you: stepping into the CHRO seat for the first time, developing your own successor, or growing into a broader C-level remit. You’ll collaborate with peers navigating the same transitions to identify what support, capability, and credibility you still need to build.

• What’s the biggest gap between where you are now and the senior HR leader you’re becoming?
• How are you identifying and developing your own next-in-line?
• What does “ready” actually look like for the next stage of your career?
• Where do you need more support, mentorship, or organizational backing to get there

This panel explores what it looks like when a people leader operates beyond the traditional HR remit, taking on responsibilities that stretch across culture, communication, IT, finance, and facilities alongside the core people function. Hear from CPOs and CHROs navigating this expanded scope firsthand, sharing what it demands in terms of capability, credibility, and personal leadership, and what organizations need to do to create the conditions that allow their most senior people leaders to operate at full potential.

End the conference with a high-energy Speed Learning session designed to maximize the value of your time in the room.

In this quick-fire session, each table will be hosted by an HR leader who will share the secrets of their most high-impact LEAP; you then get the opportunity to

question the host before moving on to your next table.