Ron Thomas

Human Capital Institute

International Country Manager: Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific Region

Ron Thomas is the Managing Director of Strategy Focused Group an international consulting firm based in Dubai. He is a visiting executive faculty member at the Global Human Resources Leadership Institute at Howard University School of Business in Washington, DC. He is also a senior faculty member of the Human Capital Institute, covering the MENA/Asia Pacific & Africa Region.
Ron is the former CEO of Great Place to Work-Gulf and CHRO of Al Raha Group, based in Riyadh. He holds certifications from HCI as Global Human Capital Strategist (GHCS), Master Human Capital Strategist (MHCS), and Strategic Workforce Planner (SWP) as well as New York University. Prior to consulting, he worked in senior level roles for IBM, Martha Stewart Living, Xerox HR Services [HR Consulting] in the US.
He has been identified as one of the top 5 HR/Leadership thinkers in the Middle East by CIPD.  He received the Outstanding Leadership Award for Global HR Excellence at the World Human Resources Development Congress in Mumbai, and was named as one of the 50 Most Talented Global HR Leaders in Asia. As a consultant and management educator, he has worked with companies such as Central Bank of Nigeria, Iran MTNCell, King Faisal Hospital-Jeddah Saudi Electric Company, BASHRM, JLT [Saudi Arabia], Dubai Tourism, American Hospital of Dubai, Dar Al Riyadh, Gulf Bank-Kuwait, Boybyan, Kuwait, CIMB Bank and Singapore Government Civil Service.

Anne Morrison

Pearson College London’s Governing Body (former BAFTA chair, former BBC Academy Director)

Chair

Anne Morrison is Chair of Pearson College London’s Governing Body and is a senior media executive, coach and keynote speaker. She is Creative Director of Factual Programmes at Nevision, a London-based independent production company, where she has recently executive produced several feature documentaries, including The Missing Children for ITV’s Exposure strand. 
She was Chair of BAFTA from 2014 to 2016, the second woman to hold the position in the organisation’s history. She is a member of the Communication and Engagement Committee for the British Academy and of the Annual Review Panel for BBC-branded magazines at BBC Studios. Previously she was a Governor of the University of the Arts London, Chair of Creative Skillset’s TV Committee, a Trustee of the Charleston Trust and a board member of Women in Film and TV.
She is a frequent speaker internationally on issues such as diversity, employability, and creativity and has her own coaching practice. Throughout her career, she has been committed to the development of new talent. Until 2014 she was Director of the BBC Academy, the BBC’s centre for training, which she launched in 2009.
In her television career, having worked as a producer/director, she held senior management positions for 20 years at the BBC, and was responsible for hundreds of hours of factual television including many award-winning programmes.
Anne was educated in Belfast and Churchill College, Cambridge.

Kim Wylie

former Builder.ai, Farfetch, Google

Kim is an experienced People Leader, Strategic and Board Advisor with over 20 years in the Technology and Media sectors. Specializing in people development, organizational transformation, and high-performance teams, Kim combines corporate strategy, people strategy, and technology to create inclusive, high-performing cultures. She has led global teams at Builder.ai, Farfetch, and Google.As a certified coach and keynote speaker, Kim has shared her expertise on leadership, team dynamics, and diversity and inclusion at institutions including London Business School and Cambridge University.

Sergio Snyder

Marriott International

Area Director Human Resources, UAE, Oman and Lebanon Premium and Select Brands

Sergio Snyder started his career with Marriott in 1991 and has worked in three continents, and 25 different countries over his 32-year tenure with the company.  He has held several HR Leadership roles throughout his career with Marriott both on Property and above Property. In 2007, he became the Regional Director of Training for Continental Europe and in April 2011 moved as Area Director of Human Resources for Easter Europe where he worked for 7 years. He joined Western Europe in November 2018 and Western Europe and Maghreb in 2020 as Dir of HR Operations before moving to his current role in the UAE. He is fluent in English and Spanish and is a graduate of Westminster College in London, the London Institute, and a member of the Institute of Personnel in the UK (CIPD)

Troels Wendelbo

LEGO Group

Senior Director of People Operations & Development

Troels Wendelbo is the Senior Director of People Operations & Development, working as strategic HR business partner for LEGO Group CFO and member of the People Operations & Development global leadership team. Previously he has held global responsibility for many parts of LEGO Group HR/people agenda, spanning from HR strategy, attraction & employer branding, culture, engagement, HR analytics, globalization, leadership development and business partnering. Troels has more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of HR, primarily from consultancy and the FMCG-industry. He holds an Executive coaching degree from Columbia University in New York and holds a master in Organizational Strategy.

Florine van der Ven

ING Tech NL

Global Senior HR Business Partner

With Masters in Civil and Corporate Law, and experience in Talent Acquisition, Performance Management, Brand Activation, Agile Way of Working, Florine changed after working in Italy for a few months and the role of a Global Transformation & Change Consultant at ING, to the role of Global HR Business Partner Tech. ING has recently embarked on a massive transformation journey becoming an IT company with a banking license, IT and analytics being at the core of this change. Florine supports more specifically the Tech Infra business, which especially in these times play a crucial role for the bank. Aim is to have a better client and customer experience.

Tanja Rutter

H&M Group

Global People Growth Lead

Tanja Rutter is a forward-thinking HR leader with a dynamic 18+ year career spanning multiple industries, including Telecommunications, FMCG/Pharma, Health Tech, and Fashion Retail. Currently serving as the Global People Growth Lead at H&M Group, she is spearheading the implementation of a global Learning Experience Platform (Edcast) to drive professional growth within the organization. Tanja's extensive experience includes impactful roles at notable companies such as Philips, Danone, and Nokia Siemens Networks, where she excelled in roles related to organizational transformation, talent development, and learning operations. Her unique blend of international experience and passion for fostering organizational cultures of growth and development makes her a prominent figure in the HR landscape.

Orsolya Hein

Novartis

Global Head of Learning Content & Portfolio Strategy

Orsi is a passionate, versatile learning professional with over 16 years of global leadership experience gained across multiple industries and geographies. 
From business process outsourcing, learning delivery and operations (IBM), through organizational design, operating model setup and partnering (Philips) to learning content strategy definition and execution (Novartis), Orsi’s experience covers the end to end spectrum of corporate learning. 
In her current role, Orsi is transforming the way Novartis looks at learning content starting from buying decisions all the way to strategic skill and capability alignment and content deployment to associates. 
In addition to learning, Orsi has also held key leadership roles in knowledge management and with her IBM and Philips teams, already started experimenting with machine learning and large language models before they were even a thing. Today she is actively leading Novartis’ GenAI transformation in the learning content space.