NBF 2026 Highlights
On the 16th and 17th of September, 8,500 senior decision makers gathered in Helsinki to get ideas on developing the human strenghts of their companies, teams, and themselves.
The event was full of inspiration, insights, connections, and enjoyment around the Human Edge theme.
The Human Edge
“What is power today is judgment. The easier that it becomes to do anything, the more it matters what you choose to do.”
– Shawn Kanungo
“The problem is the downshift is happening right now, and this new growth regime that AI is promising could still be years away.”
– Michael Beckley
“Anything that you can express with words or numbers can and will be conquered by these machines.”
– Kjell A. Nordström
“Feedback should be like breathing, feedback should be a natural form of communication.”
– Patty McCord
Navigating Complexity
On day 1, we started off with Michael Beckley giving his insights an how companies should operate in the current geopolitical landscape:
- The era of “easy growth” is ending. Slowing productivity as demographic decline, rising debt, and global fragmentation are challenging constant business progress.
- Resilience, cooperation, and reindustrialization are now critical to driving future economic and societal growth.
Continuing on the topic of decision-making from a more literal perspective, Kjell A. Nordström highlighted that:
- High-trust, tech-positive Nordic cultures give businesses a distinct speed advantage to adapt and operate through modern crises.
- As AI automates explicit head-based knowledge, true competitive advantage will rely on tacit human knowledge and organizational agility.
The Human Strenghts of Decision-Making and Performance
In the afternoon, Shawn Kanungo shook up the audience a bit by being pretty direct in his thoughts:
- As generative AI and Astra (GPT-6) move to the AGI era (automating both knowledge and execution), the true human edge relies on bold judgment, strategic questioning, and creative friction.
- Leaders must move beyond incremental efficiency and courageously disrupt their current operating models from zero.
Rahaf Harfoush continued by emphasizing the importance of protecting deep human intelligence:
- With AI transitioning humanity from a searching culture to a generating culture, organizations face the critical risk of “cognitive atrophy”; losing the human mastery of thinking, critical analysis, and deep creativity.
- To create a true human edge, leaders must intentionally invest in human expertise, audit their beliefs and behaviors, and maintain courage and curiosity.
The Keys of Performance: People, Places, and Failure
Continuing on the topic of human performance, Angela Duckworth underlined how crucial the environment and culture are in the equation:
- Individual effort and grit are not enough to high performance. True achievement depends heavily on situational agency, or the ability to change your environment to maximize performance.
- Effective leaders stop relying on pure willpower and instead design supportive, high-standard cultures that naturally motivate people to thrive.
To close the first event day, we got to hear from Steven Bartlett‘s insights on optimizing performance:
- Remarkable things happen when you extend your time horizons and embrace long-termism. Strong foundations take time to build.
- Failure is actually feedback, feedback is knowledge, and knowledge is power. For Steven, that means failure is power.
Courage, Conversations, and Collaboration
Paul Polman kicked off the second day by emphasizing how we cannot solve today’s biggest challenges alone:
- From climate change to the disruption brought by AI — the challenges we face are deeply interconnected. Yet we often respond to them in silos, treating the symptoms rather than addressing the underlying issues.
- With the limited time we have, we should be asking ourselves how we can maximise our impact by working together across suppliers, partners, peers, competitors and communities.
The day continued by Alison Wood Brooks sharing practical insights into how the way we communicate can make a real difference especially when conversations become tense:
- Conversation is a coordination game, and good conversations require us to navigate many competing goals and perspectives at once.
- Leaders should become more intentional about how they communicate to coordinate better, connect with others, and have more productive conversations.
Feedback and Trust as the Key Elements of Collaboration
Continuing on the topic of collaboration, Patty McCord shared her bold perspective on building great teams:
- Great teams are built by hiring the right people, giving them freedom and responsibility, and focusing on results rather than rules and control.
- Leaders should continuously rethink what their teams need, embrace change, and create a culture where people can do their best work and ask better questions.
Nando Parrado took us through his incredible and deeply moving story of survival in the Andes:
- His story serves as a powerful reminder that when the path ahead is unclear, trust in each other and a shared purpose can give us the strength to keep moving forward.
- “Why did we survive? We had something AI doesn’t have: empathy, creativity, meaning, judgement, trust and love. And love saved us.”
The Heart of Connection
The grande final of Nordidc Business Forum 2026 was Oprah Winfrey sharing thoughtful reflections on authenticity, purpose, and the importance of staying connected to who we truly are:
- “It’s what I intend, that is going to determine the outcome, not what I want, not what I think about, not even what I desire. It’s what is the purest conscious and subconscious intention that is at work here. Learning that lesson changed everything.”
- When we listen to ourselves, stay true to our values, and approach others with openness, we create space for more meaningful and genuine connections.
Read More Insightful Thoughts from the Main Stage Speakers
Want to learn more of the key insights shared on the Nordic Business Forum 2026 stage? Our blog offers a quick recap of the first day, and later also written summaries of the each Main Stage sessions. Happy reading!
“We risk losing what is called mastery of thinking.”
– Rahaf Harfoush
“At the end of the day, [leadership] is creating situations that bring out the best in other people. Creating situations in which all of their effort makes sense, and which pays off.”
– Angela Duckworth
“100% certainty exists only in hindsight.”
– Steven Bartlett
Check the Visual Summaries
Our go-to notetaker Linda Saukko-Rauta has also visually summarized each Main Stage session. This is a quick and fun way to go catch the essence of the sessions!
Download the Written Executive Summary
The Executive Summary offers an overview of all the Main Stage sessions by capturing the core insights of each speaker. In addition to a written summary, we’ve also included a list of key points and a few reflective questions that you can use to better apply those insights into your own work. Enjoy diving into the ideas!
Want to See and Use All Photos?
Our talented photographers have captured many of the extraordinary moments from the event. They’ve also taken several nice shots of our dear event guests. Feel free to take a look at our gallery and use the photos! We just kindly ask you to give credits to ©Nordic Business Forum when sharing.
Want to Join us in 2027?
The themes and first speakers for Nordic Business Forum 2026 have now been announced and tickets are on sale. Join to learn from Oprah Winfrey, Steven Bartlett, Angela Duckworth and many others to improve your leadership skills and take your business to new heights!