Andrea Iorio

It is a fact that the changes in the Digital world, accelerated by the pandemic, have radically changed the role of the customer and the consumer when they interact to companies.

If in the pre-digital world, a customer had a more passive and reactive posture, while today she is more empowered (due to 4 main factors, which Andrea describes in the lecture), more demanding, detains power, and expects nothing less than 100% customization and absolute transparency.

How to change our current CRM formats then?Andrea lists 3 main pillars of change, in this engaging keynote which is perfect for Marketing and Sales teams:

1. “Know who you are talking to”: use the data to personalize the customer journey;
2. “Do not sell a product or service, but an experience”;
3. “Humanize the conversation”: practice active listening and as

Innovating in the Digital world does not necessarily mean inventing something new, nor making it more complex, nor just applying the newest technologies to your business. What is innovation then, in the Digital world?

In this talk, Andrea proposes a new model of Innovation in the Digital world – which is fundamentally based on 3 main pillars:

1. Transform data into Insights to be more customer-focused;
2. Experiment, prototype, and have tolerance for mistakes;
3. Scale innovation through loyalty and retention.

And beware: innovation doesn’t stop at the third step, but it is a virtuous circle where with each success, you need to go back to square one and re-analyze the data to respond to customer, technology and market changes.

Do you realize that innovation is not a result, but a constant process? That’s why it needs to be part of your organization’s culture.

The leadership style that brought us here, legacy of a pre-digital world, is not the one that will help our companies move forward. The question for leaders is: are you changing as fast as the world is changing?

It is a fact the world has changed, and the future is coming faster than you think. It is an exponential and unpredictable world – confirmed even more by the current business scenario with real-time customer expectation updates and the combination of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at play -, where the role of the leader able of transforming business for the Digital world is increasingly important .

In this talk, Andrea proposes a new leadership model, where the leadership skillset changes along 3 major pillars of transformation:

1. Cognitive Transformation (how the leader thinks and makes decisions in the Digital Age);
2. Behavioral Transformation (how the leader acts and tolerates mistakes);
3. Emotional Transformation (how the leader connects and engages with others).

The keynote begins by providing an overview of the rapidly changing business landscape. It sets the stage by examining global macrotrends, emerging technologies, and evolving customer and consumer behaviors that are reshaping all kinds of industries.

From there, the keynote moves into the first pillar: what’s next with technology, particularly AI, and how it is transforming businesses across sectors. AI is presented as a core driver of operational improvements, with examples like predictive maintenance, smart energy management, and automation in key business processes. The discussion touches on how companies can harness the potential of AI by tapping into talent and innovation to stay competitive and adaptive in a fast-evolving landscape.

Next, the second pillar focuses on the consumer, highlighting how changing expectations are influencing business models. Today’s consumers demand greater transparency, sustainability, and ethical responsibility. These shifts are pushing companies to adopt circular economy models and more sustainable practices. The keynote also explores how both B2C and B2B clients are increasingly prioritizing environmentally responsible solutions, and emphasizes the importance of engaging local communities to address social and environmental challenges.

The third pillar addresses leadership in the age of AI, outlining how leaders must adapt to this new era. Effective leadership now requires a blend of embracing data-driven decision-making, fostering a culture of innovation, and ensuring ethical use of technology. The keynote underscores the new skillsets essential for leaders today, including a beginner’s mindset, emotional intelligence, and “antifragility” – namely being able to learn through mistakes, all of which are necessary to navigate the complexities of a tech-driven world.

The presentation concludes with a call to action, urging businesses to embrace the opportunities ahead by leveraging technological advancements, meeting evolving consumer expectations, and developing forward-thinking leadership. By adopting these shifts, companies can position themselves as leaders of positive change and innovation in the global marketplace.

A recent report by Dell Technologies points out that “85% of the jobs that will exist in 2035 haven’t even been invented yet”. The question then becomes: am I part of the 15% that will keep their job, or not? And besides all of this, how do I prepare for such an unpredictable job market?

The truth is that we inherited from a pre-digital world the belief that in the career we need to follow linear and specialized career paths, and that in this way we will succeed. The problem is that faced with such an unpredictable and uncertain future of work, we need to change the way we think about careers and skillsets.

In this keynote, Andrea explores the future of the job market, presenting the jobs that will be most deeply transformed by the Digital Revolution, as well as pointing out the most-requested skills – so that the audience can better prepare for the Future of Work and the Jobs of the Future.

Until recently, in a predominantly non-digital world, the intelligence of an employee or leader was measured primarily by their IQ.

But in a world where technology already performs many of these “rational” tasks better than we do (think about whether an Artificial Intelligence isn’t rationally smarter than a human being?), it is necessary to redefine our intelligence contemplating Emotional Intelligence (popularized in the 1990s by the psychologist Daniel Goleman) because it is what makes us typically human.

Emotional Intelligence, after all, is the breeding ground for Soft Skills (while our IQ is for our hard skills). But for a long time Soft Skills were not a priority in the work environment. Why? Fundamentally due to the fact that they are hard to measure.

But in this keynote, with his revolutionary theory on Soft Skills, Andrea solves this problem and redefines the range of behavioral skills, contemplating:

• Metacognition
• Collaboration
• Critical thinking
• Adaptability
• Creativity
• Agility

In this new wave of Web 3.0, where start-ups and DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) grow exponentially and outperform traditional companies in market valuation, it is a fact that the traditional leadership style, inherited from a pre-digital world, no longer works.

The elements that the Metaverse brings to business (remote work, collaboration, high data granularity, decentralization, among others) call for a new style of leadership based on 6 new skills, following a model developed by Andrea Iorio:

1. Metacognition (high clarity of vision and macro-trend technologies of the future)
2. Beginner’s Mind (ability to constantly rethink your beliefs in the face of external change)
3. Antifragility (acting like a scientist: testing hypotheses and learning from mistakes)
4. Adaptability (neither generalist, nor specialist: but specialized generalist)
5. Collaboration (engage teams with a high degree of autonomy and decentralization in decision making);
6. Analytical culture (ability to work with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to extract insights from an infinite volume of data).