Leadership in Turbulent Times – Global Conference in Brussels This Week

Is turbulence the new normal? What if stability never returns?

Leadership in Turbulent Times, the 19th global conference hosted by the International Leadership Association (ILA) will explore the demands turbulence places on leaders as they strive to create resilient communities and thriving organizations. ILA’s signature cross-sector, cross-cultural, cross-generational conference will bring together professionals working at the intersections of leadership theory, practice, and education — leadership coaches and consultants; scholars, educators, and students; political and military leaders; business executives and nonprofit leaders — to listen, share, and learn from one another and from other experts in the field. 

The conference takes place at SQUARE Brussels Meeting Centre, 12-15 October 2017 and features presenters from over 50 countries delving into the latest research, tools, and techniques in the field of leadership via thought-provoking panels and presentations, and skills-building workshops. Keynote speakers from the top echelons of business, political, military, and thought-leadership will speak to the challenges facing leaders today in a global environment rife with rising intolerance, tribalism and isolationism, and wicked problems such as climate change, global migrations, and refugees. 

After a day of intensive, deep-dive pre-conference workshops on the 12th, the conference opens on the 13th with a plenary from Herman Van Rompuy, the former Prime Minister of Belgium (2008-2009) and the first fulltime President of the European Council (2009-2014). Van Rompuy, currently the President of the European Policy Center, an independent think tank dedicated to fostering European integration, will address Europe: Reasons to Be More Hopeful. 

Friday’s plenary brings another former European Prime Minister to the stage as the ILA bestows its 2017 Distinguished Leadership Award upon George A. Papandreou, who led Greece from 2009-2011. Papandreou’s experiences on the front lines of the Eurozone crisis provide an important lens for understanding Europe today and the continuing struggle, globally, to build inclusive, humane economies. 

General (Retired) David H. Petraeus, the former director of the CIA (2011-2012), joins the conference on Saturday to deliver his keynote, Reflections on Strategic Leadership – and a Walk Around the Globe with moderator and commentator Robert van de Roer, an independent, international diplomatic expert. Petraeus has been widely recognized for his leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan and is one of the most prominent U.S. military figures of the post-9/11 era. 

The closing plenary takes place at The Nexus of Theory and Practice. Margaret Heffernan, Lead Faculty at the Forward Institute and acclaimed author of Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril, and Jeroen van der Veer, a noted business leader and former Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell plc (2004-2009), will each give brief remarks on, respectively, The New Leadership and My Leadership Framework before launching into a keynote conversation discussing how academics and business leaders can learn from and build off of each other’s work and experiences. 

The conference will also feature Robert Lord and Stella Nkomo who will each be honored with the ILA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for their respective accomplishments in advancing the field of leadership. Lord is Professor of Leadership at Durham University in the UK and a trailblazer in the study of leadership at the intersections of cognitive science and neurocognitive science. Nkomo is a noted scholar and consultant based at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and is the President of the Africa Academy of Management (AFAM). Though her work in AFAM, she has, quite literally, put African leadership and management practices on the map.

 Visit the conference website for detailed information and the complete agenda. The conference is open to everyone. Please register online in advance or onsite at the SQUARE. Day passes are also available onsite. With a stellar list of keynotes, expert session presenters, and a diverse array of networking opportunities and special events, Leadership in Turbulent Times promises to inform, inspire, and invigorate. 

www.ila-net.org