This is a question every CHRO should be asking right now: if your talent management strategy was designed before generative AI entered the workplace, is it still fit for purpose? For most organizations, there is no clear answer. The frameworks that once guided performance reviews, reward systems, and leadership development were built for a slower, more predictable world. That world no longer exists.
Across EMEA, senior HR leaders are confronting the same tension. AI is reshaping how work gets done, yet the systems we use to attract, develop, and retain people have barely evolved. The gap between what organisations need and what their talent management practices deliver is widening fast. Closing it requires more than incremental updates. It demands entirely new rules — and those rules are taking shape at the HR World Summit 2026 in Porto this May.
Transforming Organisations for Peak Performance: Why Talent Management Starts With Org Design
For years, companies have treated performance as an individual problem. Set targets, measure outputs, reward the top tier, and coach the rest. But what happens when the organisation itself is the bottleneck? When vision, culture, and structure are misaligned, even strong performers underdeliver. The issue is not the people. It is the system they work within.
Francesca Dellacroce, Global Head of Group Organization at Barilla Group, will tackle this directly in her session at the Summit. She will explore how designing organisations around shared purpose and culture unlocks growth, drives operational excellence, and energises teams from the inside out. Her argument is compelling: when you redefine people metrics to measure what actually matters — purpose-driven outcomes rather than activity-based KPIs — performance becomes sustainable, not just measurable.
For CHROs, this is a critical shift in thinking. Talent management is not just about who you hire and how you develop them. It is about whether the organisation itself is designed to let people do their best work. When HR and leadership co-lead that design process, transformation happens faster and sticks longer.
Reimagining Talent in an Age of AI and Uncertainty: AI Power vs. Brain Power
The conversation about AI in HR often defaults to fear. Will algorithms replace recruiters? Will automation eliminate middle management? These questions miss the more important shift. AI is not replacing talent. It is redefining what talent means — and that has profound consequences for how organisations identify, develop, and deploy their people.
Severine Riviere-Gerstner, Chief People Officer at Sportradar, frames this as a question of whether AI power and brain power are competing forces or complementary ones. Her session offers a practical toolbox for HR leaders navigating this tension, drawing on practices already underway at Sportradar. The answer, increasingly, is that the most valuable employees are those who work alongside AI effectively. Technical expertise still matters, but adaptability, critical thinking, and the ability to interpret AI-generated insights are becoming the real differentiators.
For CHROs rethinking their talent management approach, this is the core question. Yesterday’s high performer may not be tomorrow’s. The skills that drove success before AI entered the picture are not the same ones that will drive it going forward. Organisations that cling to outdated competency models risk promoting the wrong people and overlooking the ones who will actually lead the business through its next chapter.
Securing Tomorrow’s Leaders Today: Building Leadership Pipelines That Actually Work
Ask most executives whether they have a strong leadership pipeline, and they will say yes. Ask them to name their top ten future leaders with confidence, and the room goes quiet. The uncomfortable truth is that most organisations are chronically underinvesting in early-career talent development, and the consequences are starting to show.
A dedicated panel at the HR World Summit 2026 brings together Alexandra Eichberger of Erste Group, Mario Butterling of Avolta, Garima Srivastava of Takeda, and Lena Tsvetinskaya of Campari Group to confront this challenge. They will discuss where companies most often fail when building future leaders, what leadership capabilities are essential for an AI-driven future, and how to balance digital efficiency with genuine human development.
What makes this moment urgent is the AI factor. Leadership in an AI-shaped world requires capabilities that most current development programmes do not teach: decision-making with incomplete data, ethical judgement around algorithmic outputs, and the ability to lead hybrid teams of humans and AI. Without deliberate investment in these areas, organisations face a leadership vacuum within a few years. Succession plans that exist only on paper offer no real protection.
Where These Conversations Come Together
If you are a senior HR leader grappling with how to modernise your approach to talent management, performance, and leadership development, these are not abstract challenges. They are the defining questions of this moment. And they require more than reading about trends. They require honest, practitioner-led conversations with people who are doing this work every day.
The Day 2 track at the HR World Summit 2026 — “Unleashing Potential: New Rules for Talent Management and Performance” — is built for exactly this. Hosted by Andy Storch and featuring leaders from Barilla, Sportradar, Erste Group, Takeda, Campari Group, and Avolta, it runs on May 27 at the Alfandega Congress Center in Porto, Portugal.
With CHROs, CPOs, and senior HR leaders in attendance, this tenth edition of the Summit is one of EMEA’s most concentrated gatherings of people shaping the future of work. If talent management is on your strategic agenda for 2026, Porto is where you need to be.
