Collaboration and creativity are the solar energy that fuels excellence. Learning organisation are the ones that will inherit the future. These are two sound reasons for the innovative MERIT Summit to bring together for the third time corporate and higher education leaders for an inspirational networking and learning event dedicated to “Co-creating Learning Organisations” and hosted in Vienna on 16-17 January 2019.

But what is it that brings the MERIT Summit to the priority list of corporate learning strategists, executive education architects, and people development gurus?

# 1: The future is here

“We have HR strategists, C-level decision-makers, L&D professionals, and business schools’ executive education in the same room – networking and sharing ideas for building a better future,” highlights Christophe Coutat, CEO of Advent Group – the MERIT Summit founder and organiser.

Business leaders today envision the future, but need to start creating their future-proof organisations now. So the MERIT empowering keynotes will tune in the diverse audience to the exploration of the future that we are already living. Google’s Stephanie Fastre will bring, in addition to her background in theatre and acting, over a decade of building cultures of creativity, innovation, and learning internally and with external partners. Royal Dutch Shell’s EVP HR Gerard Penning will explore the Learning Organisations of the Future – visualising them and anticipating the top challenges, stakeholders, and synergies.

Amazon’s Jim Fanning, Facebook’s Jeff Turner, and LinkedIn’s Tiffany Poeppelman – all passionate about leading growth though learning and people development – will share insights, visions, and lessons learned on how they have created the future and are looking beyond.

# 2: Unique diversity of perspectives

“The big attraction for me at the MERIT Summit was the opportunity to learn from a lot of different business schools from across a region, but also from peers across Europe and the rest of the world,” is what bring value for David Chivers from Virgin Media.

At MERIT 2019 we will tap into the origins of creativity, exploring the blend of arts and neuroscience in the learning process with Mehmet Baha. Combining his skills in music and his expertise in business, he designs and delivers unique learning experiences which empower business professionals to improve collaboration at work.

On the other hand, how insightful will it be to immerse in the world of scientific discovery? CERN’s Head of L&D Pascale Goy will share the challenge to design and develop a learning framework to address the “what” and the “how” of a career conversation in a world-class fundamental physics research organisation.

What better way to bring out different perspectives and arguments than a classical open debate? One of the most provoking debate topics is paradoxes. Sessions like “Paradoxes of Leadership: Humility vs. Power”, among many others, will ignite the debate of HR professionals, consultants, and academics from Banco Santander, Sanofi, Oxford Said Business School, and PeopleSmart.

What is more, although MERIT 2019 participants can follow specific thematic streams that best fit their interests, choosing between People Development, Leadership, and the C-suite CXO topics, there are highly interactive, cross-silo opportunities such as debates, ignite talks, and the World Café.

# 3: Truly global best practices

“Well-created content, excellent quality, international speakers and participants, truly global best practices. I like the diversity,” is what will bring Reza Moussavian, Deutsche Telekom AG, to MERIT once again.

At MERIT Summit everyone speaks from experience, be it in the business world or academic research. But we have created a unique environment for speakers to share not only success stories, but what is even more valuable – lessons learned from trial and error. We go beyond, and this year some companies will dare to share their current challenges and look for solutions together with other participants.

Bringing global best practices into the spotlight will equip you with the results of business school programmes such as “Creating effective L&D frameworks for mid-size multinational companies” and “Measuring the impact and ROI of a leadership programme”. Add to that company experiences such as that of Lidl who challenged the L&D role before they reinvented it or TOTAL’s search for the most creative way for X-Y-Z cross-generational synergy.

# 4: Enriching networking

“The quality of networking makes MERIT the place to be and I am looking forward to the next edition,” shared Jose Bedoya, Center for Creative Leadership.

Starting with an interactive session to guide you on how to maximise your MERIT experience, we take networking beyond the traditional coffee, lunch, cocktail, gala dinner, and city tour. We facilitate meetings with leading executive education institutions so that you can get acquainted with their latest courses and programmes to enhance your organisational learning.

What is more, there is always something to learn from mingling with agile HR TECH start-ups to gain insight into their innovative projects supporting or rethinking the HR and L&D roles. Inviting peers for a chat is just a click away with the MERIT mobile app for all registered participants. The time for learning and networking is never enough, so have your stack of business cards ready as well and be creative and sociable during the two-day event in Vienna. Keep the momentum and positive energy flow and connect to MERIT participants any time after the event. MERIT is a bonding experience that opens up new opportunities.

# 5: Collaborative spirit

“That’s the beginning of thinking how we can create in a collaborative manner, together, programmes that will help corporations,” reflects JB Kurish from Emory Executive Education.

Co-creating Learning Organisations, the big theme of the 2019 MERIT Summit, naturally sets the tone for collaboration. On the very practical level, dedicated pre-scheduled One-to-Three meetings between business schools and corporate executives enable constructive discussions on finding solutions to current challenges.

Presentations on company challenges, business schools’ and companies’ case studies naturally lay the groundwork for collaboration and match potential partners. The Exhibition & Start-up Village is yet another territory for proactive explorers on the lookout for peers open to co-creation.

As JB Kurish highlighted, MERIT 2019 is “the beginning”. It is up to you to take your co-excel (Co-XL) corporate learning experience further. Explore all that MERIT Summit 2019 has to offer. The final countdown for joining has started and we look forward to immersing ourselves in the spirit of learning and co-creation.

This article was kindly provided by Iliana Bobova, chief editor at Advent Group.

Photo by Andrew Palmer on Unsplash