Peter Ivanov is a manager, entrepreneur and expert in virtual teams with over 20 years of international experience. As an expert in New Leadership, he supports managers to retain the strength of their team despite geographical distance, age and cultural differences, and deliver top business performance.

What is your main professional focus at the moment?

My main focus is to inspire and unite people, despite the distance and cultural differences, to build Power Teams and achieve outstanding team performance. Every day 81% of us work with people in different locations. I support managers, business owners and NGO leaders to inspire each and every team member, leverage their unique talents, and achieve outstanding results. In my book "Virtual Power Teams" I described the 10 success factors for retaining the team’s gravity in Virtual Teams and unleashing their power. 

What are you passionate about professionally?

I love teamwork. The feeling that “we” are much stronger than the sum of individuals, where everyone feels special, recognised for their unique talents and contributing to the team mission. I love to work with teams in multinationals, SMEs and start-ups and help them achieve miracles, i.e. improve their team performance exponentially and deliver before time while improving quality.

What would be your role at the MERIT summit?

As an expert in "Future of Work" and "Human Skills in the Digital Era" – I’ll be providing input, facilitation, and advice on those subjects. I believe that the younger generation will work more often on projects aimed at making the world a better place rather than following a traditional career. I am happy to share my expertise on how to motivate people of different ages and cultures and build Power Teams tackling the world’s biggest challenges.

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges or issues for businesses?

• Retain top talent – considering that the opportunities to work and contribute remotely will grow.
• Create flexible and agile teams to deal with disruptive technologies and business models. Each organisation – regardless of how big or small – will have to foster agile innovation culture and teams in order to adapt and grow in the fast-changing environment.

What are you looking forward to at the event?

As my second MERIT participation I look forward to meeting great people and top experts, gaining new ideas and partners, and having a fabulous time.

What is your interpretation on the main conference theme “Always-on Learning”?

Continuous learning or "you live as long as you learn" will become ever increasingly important. Many of the traditional professions will be gone, and some remaining ones will substantially transform. Therefore, "Always-on Learning" will be a key professional success factor, maybe even a survival one.