Join us for three days of AI Transformation at the Nova School of Business & Economics in Carcavelos, Portugal on April 28-30, 2026.
Day 1: Research Convening
Hosted in collaboration with:
When: Tuesday, April 28, 2026 | 8:30 AM
Where: Westmont Hall, Nova School of Business & Economics Campus, R. da Holanda 1, 2775-405 Carcavelos, Portugal.
Following up from the January 30th Frontier Firm convening and the March 11 Journey to the Frontier event, this convening includes hands-on AI activities and research talks from our hosts at Nova as well as sessions aimed to move new research forward. Learning from the challenges and priorities shared at the previous events, we’ll also have opportunities for you to learn from each other’s organizations on how to move from incremental adoption to transformative capability creation.
Agenda
| Time | Session | Location |
| 9:00 – 9:15 AM | Welcome & Goal Setting with Karim Lakhani, Pedro Oliveira and Matthew Duncan | Westmont Hospitality Hall |
| 9:15 – 10:45 AM | AI X Lab Activity: Starting with a presentation by Pedro Ferreira, we will then head over to the AI X Lab and try out the technology led by D^3 at Nova and Jordan Metzner. | AI X Lab |
| 10:45 – 11:00 AM | Break | Westmont Hospitality Hall |
| 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM | NOVA Faculty Lightning Talks – Qiwei Han and Yufei Shen: Prompt to Purchase: How generative AI is reshaping online shopping – Rodrigo Belo: Is GenAI Anchoring a Blessing or a Curse?/ How does the quality of initial AI output affect final output and human effort? – Michail Batikas: The Invisible Costs of AI: What Companies Need to Measure Beyond Productivity | Westmont Hospitality Hall |
| 12:00 – 1:00 PM | Beyond Productivity: The Organizational Value Shift & Preview of Microsoft’s Work Trend Index 2026 with Neha Shah and Matthew Duncan | Westmont Hospitality Hall |
| 1:00 – 2:15 PM | Lunch | Azure Restaurant |
| 2:15 – 3:00 PM | A Generative Agent Platform to Forecast AI Adoption with Ashley Whillans – A concrete example of how a platform that creates “digital twins” of employees can forecast responses to workforce changes, such as AI rollouts, before they are deployed. – A live walkthrough of the platform, including a discussion of how the platform is validated, and how it can be securely deployed within organizations to support ongoing change initiatives. | Westmont Hospitality Hall |
| 3:00 – 3:15 PM | Break | Westmont Hospitality Hall |
| 3:15 – 4:45 PM | From WTI Results to Mechanism Diagnosis with Jorge Tamayo | Westmont Hospitality Hall |
| 4:45 – 5:00 PM | Closing with Karim Lakhani | Westmont Hospitality Hall |
| 5:00 – 6:00 PM | Reception | Pedro Santa Clara Alumni Lounge |
Speakers
Karim Lakhani
Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Founding Chair of the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard
Pedro Oliveira
Dean and Cascais Chair Professor of Operations, Technology & Innovation Management at the Nova School of Business and Economics
Matthew Loys Duncan
Head of Future of Work & AI, Thought Leadership
Microsoft
Jordan Metzner
Founder and CEO
Ryz Labs
Neha Shah
Director of Research, Workforce AI & Org Strategy
Microsoft
Qiwei Han
Assistant Professor, Operations, Technology and Innovation Management Research Track, NOVA SBE
Yufei Shen
Assistant Professor, Operations, Technology and Innovation Management Research Track, NOVA SBE
Rodrigo Belo
Professor, Operations, Technology and Innovation Management Research Track, NOVA SBE
Michail Batikas
Assistant Professor, Operations, Technology and Innovation Management Research Track, NOVA SBE
Ashley Whillans
Volpert Family Associate Professor of Business Administrations, Harvard Business School
Jorge Tamayo
Principal Investigator in the Digital Reskilling Lab at the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard and Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School
Day 2: Driving AI Transformation CEO Forum
What: An exclusive, invite-only event for business leaders.
When: Wednesday, April 29, 2026 | 9:00 a.m. WEST
Where: Westmont Hall, Nova School of Business & Economics Campus, R. da Holanda 1, 2775-405 Carcavelos, Portugal
Agenda
| 7:50 AM | Registration | |
| 8:00 AM | Warm-up Breakfast | Pedro Ferreira, Co-Academic Director, Digital Data Design Institute at Nova SBE and NOVA Medical School |
| 9:00 AM | Welcome Remarks Official opening of the forum and framing the leadership mandate for AI integration. | Karim Lakhani, Professor, Harvard Business School Pedro Oliveira, Dean, Nova SBE |
| 9:30 AM | Fireside Chat: Portugal’s Strategic Play on AI – The Government Perspective An overview of the national vision for AI and public infrastructure developments. | Bernardo Correia, Secretary of State for Digitalization Pedro Oliveira, Dean, Nova SBE |
| 10:15 AM | Fireside Chat: Leading Through Change A closed-door session focused exclusively on the personal and professional challenges of leading an organization through systemic technological change. | Marco Iansiti, Professor, Harvard Business School Matthew Prince, Co-founder & CEO, Cloudflare |
| 11:00 AM | Coffee Break | |
| 11:30 AM | Panel: The Workforce You Have vs. The Workforce You Need. A discussion on the complexities of reskilling large-scale organizations, managing culture change, and maintaining talent trust. | Maria José Campos, COO, Millenium BCP Jorge Tamayo, Professor, Harvard Business School Miguel Almeida, CEO, Cisco Portugal H.E. Raja Al Mazrouei, CEO, Etihad Credit Insurance |
| 12:15 PM | Fireside Chat: Driving AI Transformation Discover the unwritten rules of leadership that separate isolated pilots from true enterprise-wide transformation. | Silvia Bechmann, Ex-CEO, Mercedes- Benz.io & Executive Advisor Jen Stave, Executive Director, HBS AI Institute |
| 1:00 PM | Networking Lunch | |
| 2:15 PM | Boardroom Session: What AI Actually Changes in Your Organization Accounts of AI implementation, focusing on strategic shifts and internal communication hurdles. | Sérgio do Monte Lee, Board Member, Delloite Sofia Tenreiro, CEO, Siemens Portugal Leid Zejnilovic, Co-Academic Director, Digital Data Design Institute at Nova SBE and Nova Medical School |
| 3:00 PM | Fireside Chat: Agentic AI, the new Enterprise Operating System A conversation on the strategic implications of how Seven2, a private equity company, is creating value with AI across continental Europe and beyond. | Karim Lakhani, Professor, Harvard Business School Francois Candelon, Partner Value Creation, Seven2 Matthew Duncan, Head of Future of Work & AI, Thought Leadership Microsoft |
| 3:30 PM | Afternoon Break | |
| 4:00 PM | Fireside Chat: Lessons from Start-Ups A conversation on agility and decision-making with incomplete information. | Pedro Oliveira, Dean, Nova SBE Ernesto Pedrosa, Founder, Automaise |
| 4:30 PM | Interactive Exercise: Lessons from the Startups: Build an AI-Native Company Building on case studies of AI-native startups that have cracked how to reorganize their firms and workflows around AI, you’ll get hands-on with vibe coding and agentic AI tools to start this transformation yourself. | Jordan Metzner, Founder, Ryz Labs |
| 5:30 PM | Keynote: Research Overview and the Impact of AI on Business A presentation of the latest empirical evidence regarding how AI is reshaping industry productivity. | Karim Lakhani, Professor, Harvard Business School |
| 6:00 PM | Cocktail Reception and Student Networking Closing reception with a select group of Nova SBE students and forum participants. |
Speakers
Karim Lakhani
Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Founding Chair of the HBS AI Institute
Jen Stave
Executive Director of the HBS AI Institute
Pedro Oliveira
Dean and Cascais Chair Professor of Operations, Technology & Innovation Management at the Nova School of Business and Economics
Jorge Tamayo
Principal Investigator in the Digital Reskilling Lab at the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard and Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School
Marco Iansiti
Principal Investigator in the Trustworthy AI Lab at the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard and David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School
Silvia Bechmann
Ex-CEO Mercedes-Benz.io and Executive Advisor
Sérgio do Monte Lee
Board Member, Deloitte
Jordan Metzner
Founder and CEO
Ryz Labs
Miguel Almeida
CEO, Cisco Portugal
H.E. Raja Al Mazrouei
Chief Executive Officer
Etihad Credit Insurance
Maria José Campos
COO, Millenium BCP
Bernardo Correia
Secretary of State for Digitalization
Leid Zejnilovic
Co-Academic Director, Digital Data Design Institute at Nova SBE and Nova Medical School
Matthew Prince
Co-Founder and CEO, Cloudflare
Sofia Tenreiro
CEO, Siemens Portugal
Francois Candelon
Partner Value Creation, Seven2
Pedro Ferreira
Co-Academic Director, Digital Data Design Institute at Nova SBE and NOVA Medical School
Event MC
Christina Ioannidis
CEO, Aquitude, International Speaker, MC, Technology Advocate
Day 3: Future of the University
When: Thursday, April 30, 2026 | 9 AM
Where: Jerónimo Martins Grand Auditorium, Nova School of Business & Economics Campus, R. da Holanda 1, 2775-405 Carcavelos, Portugal
Dive into the wild ride of how colleges will change and shake up the way we learn in the coming years. Bringing together academics, practitioners, policymakers, and innovators, this event will explore the social, technological, and economic forces reshaping higher education. Through a dynamic exchange of ideas, participants will examine the trends most likely to redefine the role, mission, and model of universities.
Agenda
| 9:00 AM | Registration |
| 9:30 AM | Welcome Pedro Oliveira, Dean, Nova School of Business & Economics Karim Lakhani, Professor, Harvard Business School Cláudia Sarrico, Secretary of State for Higher Education, Portugal |
| 9:50 AM | AI Won’t Wait | How Will Universities Keep Up? Karim Lakhani, Professor, Harvard Business School Francisco Veloso, Dean, INSEAD Business School Pedro Santa Clara, Director, 42 and TUMO Portugal Neha Shah, Director-Workforce AI & Org Strategy, Microsoft Moderator: Nadim Habib, Professor, Nova School of Business & Economics |
| 10:50 AM | Coffee-Break |
| 11:10 AM | Research & the Campus as a Living Lab | Learning by doing, testing and failing Ikhlaq Sidhu, Dean, IE School of Science and Technology Pedro Ferreira, Associate Dean, Executive Education, Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University Ashley V. Whillans, Professor, Harvard Business School Nathalie Crutzen, Professor, HEC Liège |
| 12:10 PM | From Degrees to Lifelong Platforms | Credentials, Subscriptions, Partnerships Céline Abecassis-Moedas, Pro-Rector, Universidade Católica Portuguesa Enno Siemsen, Professor, Wisconsin School of Business Manuela Veloso, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University Margarida Uva, Associate Partner, Deloitte |
| 1:10 PM | Pedro Oliveira, Dean, Nova School of Business & Economics |
Hosted in collaboration with:
