The world is changing astonishingly fast – with the pandemic having fast-forwarded transformation in most organisations over the past two years. The pace of disruption looks unlikely to slow: climate change, geopolitical and macroeconomic indicators all suggest plenty of challenges ahead, and the stunning pace of technological advancement continues to be the joker in the pack – who knows what the next few years bring?
At an exclusive invitation-only event sponsored by Element in London on Friday November 26, NATO’s first CIO Manfred Boudreaux-Dehmer, LSE Professor Lucia Garcia Lorenzo – an expert in organisational and social psychology – and former HMG Chief Digital Officer Christina Hammond-Aziz joined The Stack’s founder Ed Targett at a private member’s club to discuss managing organisational change in fast-moving, demanding times.
Want to be on the invitation list for any of The Stack’s future dinners? Pop us an email.
The panel discussion touched on everything from leadership challenges and innovating from the inside of incumbent organisations, to change-fatigue in large teams where technology is introduced from the top-down; with questions – from an audience including CISOs, CIOs, senior developers and NEDs – touching on Manfred’s mandate to introduce a more enterprise approach at NATO, through to ways of inculcating innovation through “intrepeneurship” and even the extent to which HR is arguably proving an innovation-inhibitor.
The discussion was followed by dinner and drinks – with Element’s CEO Matthew Hodgson and COO Amandine Le Pape introducing the Matrix Protocol to our attendees -- few people know it better: they invented it.
(It wasn’t all work: other conversations encountered by The Stack's founder as as the evening continued included a heartfelt debate over the best James Bond; and the merits of Islay versus Speyside scotch. The venue's piano -- we're keeping the location half-secret, we just like it too much -- was also played very well indeed by one CEO.)
The Stack runs regular invitation-only events for senior digital leaders, chiefly in London. Like to sponsor one or get on the invitation list? Email Ed Targett here or send a Signal on +44(0)7956 411 683
About Element and Matrix.
The Matrix Protocol is an open network for secure, decentralised and real-time communication. When you send an end-to-end encrypted message in Matrix, it is replicated over all the servers whose users are participating in a given conversation, similarly to how commits are replicated between Git repositories, meaning there are no single point of control or failure. Its technical co-founders who continue to contribute to the protocol lead Element, which provides a secure and independent messenger, connected via Matrix, as well as Matrix hosting and consulting.
