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Keynote topics

Three stories about AI, work and humanity.

Each story works as a full keynote, masterclass or session, built from parts I tailor to your audience: from healthcare executives to recruiters, from city council to boardroom.

Laurens Waling, smiling, outdoor portrait
Keynote 01

More talent than you see

How AI and skills make hidden potential visible. Labour scarcity is structural, but it’s rarely a shortage of people. It’s a visibility problem: talent sits hidden behind CVs, diplomas and job titles. In this keynote I flip that question, with a recognisable example such as the baker who became an EV-charger technician. Look at tasks and skills instead of fixed jobs, and you suddenly see how much agility is already inside your own organisation.

A lot of that visibility now comes from AI. Everyone talks about it, but far fewer organisations translate that conversation into clear decisions. I show what AI can genuinely do today in matching and decision-making, drawing on what I see daily at 8vance: ethical, explainable AI already running in healthcare, government and business. No black box, real evidence from practice.

Skills-based organising is the result: the best person for every job, and the best job for every person. That doesn’t start with new software. It starts with looking differently at the people already on your payroll.

Building blocks I tailor

  • The future of work: from jobs to agility
  • AI in organisations: from hype to decisions
  • Skills-based organising: making talent visible

For whom

  • Executives and boards
  • HR leaders and recruitment
  • Healthcare and government organisations facing scarcity

Your audience takes home

  • Why recruiting harder doesn’t work, and what does
  • A sober view of what AI can genuinely do today
  • Concrete first steps for their own organisation
Keynote 02

Agentic HR

What changes once AI doesn’t just advise, but acts. Until now, AI in HR was mostly an advisor: it suggested, a person decided. That’s changing. Agentic AI carries out tasks on its own, from finding matches to scheduling conversations. That makes AI something closer to a new colleague, not just a tool.

For HR and recruitment, that means a different role: less executing, more directing. The question shifts from “who does this work” to “which tasks can we hand to an agent, and who keeps oversight over that”. I take my audience through what this concretely asks of HR, recruitment and workforce management.

Not every decision belongs with an agent. Automate where it demonstrably adds value, and protect what requires human judgement, attention and responsibility. Whoever doesn’t draw that line deliberately leaves it to chance what an algorithm decides about someone’s career.

For whom

  • HR and recruitment leaders
  • Management teams facing AI decisions
  • HR-tech and workforce-management conferences

Your audience takes home

  • What agentic AI concretely changes in daily HR work
  • Which choices you do, and don’t, hand to AI
  • How HR professionals move from executor to director
Keynote 03

Leading human change in the age of AI

Why transformation rarely stalls on technology. Change rarely fails on strategy. It almost always fails on behaviour: control, patterns, safety and the tension nobody names out loud. As a change expert, I take you into what really happens inside organisations during a transition. Personal, sometimes confronting, always constructive.

Many organisations have a clear vision, solid policy and a strong presentation, and still nothing moves. I show where that gap between knowing and doing comes from, and which interventions actually close it. Built on more than twenty years of organisational change, from Part-up to dozens of talent ecosystems in healthcare, government and business.

AI accelerates that challenge. It changes not just work, but attention, collaboration and how people assign themselves value. I show which human qualities become more important as AI gets smarter, and raise the question underneath all of my work: how do we make technology strengthen human value instead of replacing it?

Building blocks I tailor

  • Leadership and behaviour in change
  • From strategy to movement
  • Humanity in times of AI

For whom

  • Leadership days and offsites
  • Boards and programme managers in transition
  • Executive and societal conferences

Your audience takes home

  • Why good plans strand on behaviour
  • Interventions that can start tomorrow
  • Which human qualities become more important through AI

Which story fits your event?

Torn between topics or looking for a combination? Grab a quick slot in my calendar and I’ll think along with you.

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