Our conference is sold out (if you wish to be put on the waitlist please contact: [email protected])
Adaptive Leadership in Volatile Times
Conference Overview
The 8th Annual BerkeleyHaas Culture Connect Conference will be held on the BerkeleyHaas Campus January 13-14, 2026.
Bringing together almost 200 industry leaders and academic experts, we’ll explore emerging research on new learnings and the potential impact on a company’s culture, ability to innovate, and its path to growth, plus hear from corporate leaders and preeminent academic scholars.
On January 14, presentations and fireside chats with corporate executives and leading academic scholars will explore critical issues in today’s corporate environment, following the theme of “Adaptive Leadership in Volatile Times”. The day provides opportunities for collaborative discussions amongst attendees, and promises deep engagement, learning, and growth through the exchange of new ideas.
January 13, our academic day, spotlights nascent academic research, bringing together students and academics to present their abstracts for feedback and discussion. Highlighting the day are four keynote addresses from faculty across disciplines, including computer science, economics, social psychology, and sociology, featuring the ways culture is impacted by a variety of factors.
More details and registration information for both days are below.
Corporate Day (January 14)
The corporate conference brings together industry and academic perspectives in three key areas:
- Navigating Uncertainty in the Workplace: Including economic upheaval, global challenges, rapid workplace evolution, the unrelenting pace of change.
- Incorporating Design Thinking in the Workplace: Defining evolving roles and workplace of the future. Impact to building the best workplace model.
- Preparing the Workforce for AI: Aligning the use of AI with culture and product goals; iterating on what workflows and work structures will look like with AI; ensuring employees are involved and thinking through their changing roles and tasks.
As in previous conferences, there will be featured talks and fireside chats with top leaders across industries, as well as presentations from renowned academic experts. Our academic keynote speakers represent a range of schools and disciplines.
Corporate Conference Speakers
| Arden Hoffman SVP & Chief People Officer, GM |
| Cathryn Van Namen Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting |
| Chad Jones Professor of Economics, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University |
| Christopher M. Good Chief Creative Officer, One Workplace |
| Léonard Boussioux Assistant Professor, University of Washington |
| Lindsay-Rae McIntyre Chief Diversity Officer & Corporate VP of Talent and Learning, Microsoft |
| Lindsey Cameron Assistant Professor, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania |
| Melissa Valentine Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University |
| Paul Cooper Principal, TEF Design |
| Rich Lyons Chancellor, UC Berkeley |
| Ronnie Chatterji Chief Economist, Open AI |
| Sarah Franklin CEO, Lattice |
| Toby Stuart Professor of Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Innovation, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley |
Academic Day (January 13)
The academic day explores the latest in organization culture research through presentations from scholars around the world who examine culture through their distinct lens (sociology, social psychology, economics, computer science). The day includes keynote talks for additional insight on evolving trends and tools.
Abstracts Info
Thank you for your interest in submitting an extended abstract (up to one page in length) for your work to be presented at the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation’s eighth annual Berkeley Culture Connect Conference! Please use the button above to complete the form and upload your submission.
The Berkeley Culture Connect Conference Abstract presentations will take place on Tuesday, January 13, 2026 at the Haas School of Business.
Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions.
Edgar Schein Best Student Paper Award
The Edgar Schein Best Student Paper Award encourages the next generation of scholars to explore work that builds connections across disciplines, is theoretically rich, and empirically rigorous. We typically receive between 80-100 abstracts for conference presentation, and identify the student-written papers for award eligibility. The abstracts are rigorously reviewed by our academic board who then nominate papers for the award. We will be opening the Call for Abstracts by late August.
Thank You
