Persistent economic uncertainty, accelerating digital change and shifting workforce expectations are exposing the limits of traditional GBS models. Many organisations are constrained by legacy structures, blurred accountabilities and transformation initiatives that fail to translate into impact. This workshop explores how GBS leaders can reset their operating models, simplify governance and make deliberate design choices that enable faster decisions, scalable delivery and measurable business outcomes.

GBS and shared services leaders face the challenge of driving transformation while keeping operations running at pace. This workshop explores a new approach to change, combining process innovation, AI-enabled automation, and people development.

Shared services teams are under intense pressure to deliver faster, smarter, and error-free financial reporting across complex, multi-entity operations. Manual tasks and fragmented systems slow progress and limit impact. Finance automation is the game-changer, streamlining workflows, boosting accuracy, and empowering teams to focus on high-value insights. This workshop will reveal how to modernise shared services, unlock efficiency, and turn finance teams into strategic drivers for the business.

This workshop will take you through Siemens tried and tested Value Stream Map, a lean management tool used to visualise and analyse the flow of steps/ information required to bring a product to the customer. Its purpose is to identify waste, improve efficiency and support continuous improvement. This workshop will teach you the techniques needed to identify the value-add vs non-value add process steps, enable the value-add steps for increased efficiency and explore how to remove the non-value add steps from the process.

Zoran Blažević

Project Services & Transformation CEE Head
Siemens

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Miroslav Dub

Head of Smart Process
Siemens AG

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Arabela Sarkic

Senior Consultant
Siemens AG

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Building digital capability into your global business services from day one is essential to staying future-ready. This workshop brings together proven implementation insights on how to design and launch a truly AI- and digitally enabled GBS model from the outset.

Sponsored by: Proservartner

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This workshop will help GBS leaders cut through uncertainty with actionable, evidence based insights that unlock value and fuel transformation. This immersive workshop shows how to elevate shared services by leveraging strategic intelligence and forward looking frameworks to make better decisions, improve performance, and future proof global service operations.

Intelligent finance automation is changing the game, turning routine tasks into streamlined, data-driven workflows and freeing teams to focus on strategic impact. This hands-on workshop shows how to harness AI-powered automation to accelerate finance cycles, improve accuracy, and transform shared services into a powerhouse of business value.

Big transformations rarely fail on ambition; they fail in execution. Messages don’t land, influencers aren’t engaged, priorities blur, and employees tune out. This highly practical workshop from Merck tackles the messy reality of change: how to cut through noise, mobilise the people who actually drive adoption, sharpen what you’re asking for, and make change feel worth it across cultures, using tools you can apply the very next day. Review the 4 guiding principles to change management:

1. Creating effective global communication pathways

2. Identifying the key multipliers in the organisation

3. Setting a strong strategy and message for the organisation

4. Making change attractive to employees

Jan Derek Gill

Head of Change and Communications, Digital Enterprise Solutions (DES)
Merck Group

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Transforming to an end-to-end finance model no longer means layering patches onto outdated, existing structures. Transitioning from legacy models requires starting from scratch, not tinkering at the edges. However, resistance, the complexity of business continuity, and entrenched mindsets all stand in the way. This case study will dissect how leaders must disrupt, redesign, and realign their processes, people, and technology to build an integrated, E2E, finance model; one that works for the future, not the past.

Robert Mohorcic

Manager, Finance Systems & Global Finance Process Owner (Retail)
Sonova Holding

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What happens when agents move faster than your controls

AI agents are making financial decisions across your organization right now - approving invoices, flagging exceptions, routing payments - and in most finance functions, nobody can fully explain why. And now CFOs and GBS leaders face a dangerous gap: the speed of automation without the accountability frameworks to back it up. Accounts Payable is where this tension is most palpable, and where the compliance stakes are highest. This session draws on deep AP expertise to examine what accountable AI in finance actually looks like, what your auditors will demand, and how to move fast without breaking things.

Sponsored by: Springtime Technologies

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Mergers and acquisitions create seismic shifts in organisations, disrupting structures, cultures, and even employee trust. As with all transformation, the challenge lies in aligning the people, processes and technology with as little impact as possible. In this interactive discussion group you will explore how to manage resistance, integrate diverse cultures, merge & review processes and consolidate your tech stacks through major restructures.

• Build organisational trust across merging teams by implementing transparent, timely communication strategies

• Reduce resistance to change by mapping and addressing cultural and operational impacts early

• Retain key talent by implementing targeted engagement and retention initiatives

• Build a strategy to consolidate competing tech stacks to avoid competing systems

Jackie Lynn Hechanova

Global Finance and Transformation Lead - Unilever Ice Cream Business Establishme
Unilever

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Everyone wants true end-to-end ownership; few organisations actually achieve it. Faced with the same pressures of cost, complexity, and transformation, GPOs must deliver results without clear lines of authority. So why do some succeed while others stall? In this high-energy conversation, two GPOs from the same organisation compare how they navigate similar challenges around governance gaps, stakeholder tensions, and leadership constraints, whilst achieving different outcomes.

• Clarify what real end-to-end ownership looks like by examining leadership mandates and decision rights

• Achieve stronger outcomes by applying governance models suited to your context

• Influence complex stakeholders by tailoring engagement strategies to your process landscape

• Move from coordinator to accountable leader by leveraging authority and sponsorship effectively

Rob Pretty

Global Process Owner - Hire to Retire
Kimberly-Clark

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Gabriela Stanakova

Sr Director, GBS Global Source-To-Pay (STP) Global Operations
Kimberly-Clark

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As enterprises race to transform through GBS, the GPO role has emerged as a critical, yet often undefined, lever of value. New GPOs are expected to cut costs, simplify complexity, and deliver measurable impact without clear mandates or structures. This panel examines how GPOs move beyond transactional oversight to become enterprise change leaders, unlocking end-to-end ownership, stakeholder alignment, and P&L value through capability building, analytics, and continuous transformation.

• Clarify the GPO mandate by intentionally defining scope, authority, and success measures

• Strengthen end-to-end ownership by anchoring the GPO role in both delivery and change

• Shift value creation toward measurable P&L impact through disciplined “value hunting”

• Build influence across teams and leadership using operational credibility and data storytelling

Julie Ayres-Smith

Global Finance Lead GBS
Copeland

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Meena Saggar

Process Excellence, Global Process Owner, R2C Director
IHG Hotels & Resorts

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Tuula Tuononen

Global Process Owner, Procurement Excellence
Konecranes

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Péter Szabó

SVP GBS
MOL Plc

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For Shared Services and GBS leaders, sustainable growth depends on building a culture that embraces change, develops new capabilities, and continuously improves performance. Yet deeply embedded behaviours, skills gaps, and change fatigue often slow progress. Join your peers in discussing how leaders intentionally shape culture to support transformation, through leadership behaviours, talent strategies, and incentives, turning change from a programme into a mindset that fuels long-term value creation.

• Practical approaches for building change capability and adaptability across teams

• Ways to engage and retain talent during periods of sustained change

• The role of leadership, incentives, and accountability in shaping culture

Maria Bonifacio

VP and People Head Nokia Business Service
Nokia

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