At ISPI EMEA, we believe that a conference is more than its scheduled sessions and presenters.  Our conference participants are every bit as much a part of the total learning and sharing experience, as our great presenters.  If you’d like to get a feel for our unique conference format and what participants say about it, you might want to visit the Previous Conferences section of our website, with Feedback Reports going back to 2013 and conference videos (featuring participants, in their own words) beginning with ISPI EMEA 2010 – Gothenburg, Sweden.

Why participate? Only you can contribute your unique perspective!  ISPI EMEA Conferences are purposefully intimate in size (limited to 100 participants) with a format, content and presenters designed to attract executives and professionals from diverse backgrounds and experience that bring with them an enthusiasm for learning, sharing and growing together in the highly participative atmosphere of the conference.

Hybrid can be engaging for both in-person and virtual participants! As with all of our conferences since 2007, last year’s virtual agenda featured an Open Assist Experience designed to provide meaningful value to the Client organization, as well as valuable experience to conference participants.  The 2023 Open Assist Experience will be introduced in a virtual session the evening before the first full day of the conference.  Open Assist Teams will begin work during the “Bidders Conference” on Day One, when the Client will present and answer questions about the organization’s Request For Proposals (RFP). The Open Assist will then run throughout the conference to the end of the in-person agenda on Day Three, when participant teams will be scheduled to present their proposals. In addition, there will be compelling senior executive panel sessions and strategic deep dive discussions scheduled, as well as, nine (9) Briefing sessions, on a range of topics related to our conference theme and selected via our 2023 Call-For-Proposals process.  Following is a graphic representing the virtual agenda, with the Open Assist shown in the dark blue fields.

Conference Highlights

Whether you are interested in presenting a session or you would rather participate and share in a more informal and/or collaborative  way, we hope that you will review the conference highlights below and/or take the time to go to our website to learn more about our uniquely engaging conference format.

Open Assist Experience – an opportunity for participants to be immersed in a unique teamwork experience that runs throughout the conference.  Through this process, all conference participants, presenters and sessions become “crowd-sourcing” resources for teams, as they work to respond to a live request for support from the senior executives of an actual organization, who will participate throughout the conference.  — As for all of our conferences for the last 7 or 8 years, Open Assist Team Leaders will be selected prior to the start of the conference and participants will be free to select the team they would like to join at any time, once Team Leaders are announced.  Each Team Leader will have their own collaboration space within the conference Zoom meeting space, which will be accessible throughout conference hours by Teams, who are also free to schedule additional meeting times convenient to Team Members, who may well be participating over very diverse time zones.

Senior Executive Panels– respected senior executives, from across the region and representing diverse organizations, share their thoughts and insights with participants in three (3) interactive panel sessions. — These valuable sessions will be recorded when live-streamed and those recordings will be available to be accessed across all time zones at the convenience of participants, from the time after the session is recorded until a date and time shortly after the end of the conference, which will be announced to participants. Following are our 2023 Senior Executive Panel Session Titles: #1 Performance Improvement in Turbulent and Transitionary Times, #2 Performance Improvement and Transitioning to a Green Economy, and #3 Performance Improvement and Supply Chain Resilience.

Briefing Sessions – to be carefully selected from proposals to present, submitted through our 2023 Call For Proposals (CFP) process. — During in-person conferences, these sessions have been run concurrently, 3 per time slot. However, the hybrid format will permit us to record all sessions and have the recordings available to be accessed asynchronously across all time zones at the convenience of participants.  Therefore, each Briefing Session will run alone in its time slot.  Once Briefing Sessions have been selected, the topic for each and a description of the session will be published along with a photo and brief bio of the presenter or presenters. 

In 2020, we took our unique conference format virtual in response to Covid-19.  But, we were determined to deliver a compelling event, that would maintain the core of our innovative, active/interactive format and produce an experience as close to that achieved with our in-person conferences as possible. Just ask anyone who has participated in both our in-person and virtual conferences, or take a look at our 2020 and 2021 Virtual Conference Feedback Reports to see what participants (both frequent participants at our ISPI EMEA conferences and newcomers) had to say.  Below is a sample of verbatim participant comments from the 2020 Feedback Report, just to give you an idea.  We held a third successful virtual event in 2022.

Overall Value

“All presentations were wonderful! The coordination was great! Thank you for a wonderful conference experience.”

“Virtual is different, but works great!”

“Virtual expanded our reach, both participants and Senior Executive Panelists, yet interaction was still high, like we were all together.”

Discussion Spaces

“I loved the interaction that we were able to achieve. The breakout rooms (Discussion Spaces) were great.”

“The discussion sessions (Discussion Spaces) with simple access through break-out rooms made it easy to interact with other participants – like being there [in person].”

“Really enjoyed the opportunity to discuss after the sessions (Discussion Spaces). Lots of stimulating conversation and exchange of ideas.”

Open Assist

“Working in teams was energizing and I learned about myself as well as improved my knowledge and skills.”

“Thank you so much and your teams, who provided truly stimulating ideas. We really were not expecting to receive so much value!” – Open Assist Client

We hope to meet you virtually this year!

2023 Patrons and Sponsors