I found myself outside LinkedIn’s beautiful London HQ with a coffee, sunshine on my face and a friend by my side, with thirty minutes to spare. The 12pm starts allow you to take a breath.
As we arrived and more people trickled in, fruit bowls and flavoured water in hand, I had one of those moments of important self-awareness. I’ve spent four years building my network; learning how to start conversations, how to not cling to the comfort of familiar faces, and how to laugh off the occasional (okay, frequent) moment of clumsiness that breaks the ice. Spilling water, knocking something over, classic me. But often, it’s in those slightly awkward starts that the best chats happen. The ones that spark an idea or begin a brilliant new connection.
That sense of openness - staying curious about who you might meet, what you might learn, what you might need to unlearn, was the thread that ran through the whole day for me.
Mobility, Managers, and Making Moves
The first panel focused on internal mobility, a topic we all wrestle with. There was a lot of alignment (though part of me craves a bit more tension on panels sometimes). But the message was clear: if we want to retain great people, we need to make movement within our organisations normal, visible, and supported.
A few standout suggestions:
The discussion on manager involvement was interesting. Some companies give managers a say in internal moves, others keep them out of it. All agreed that talent hoarding is real and damaging. The suggested response to a reluctant manager? ‘If they want to go, they’ll go. So, do you want to help them to stay within the business?’
There was also a great question about why people sometimes don’t engage with upskilling opportunities. Is it because we’re prescribing what they should learn and when? Or is it about capacity and managers not protecting time for development? The answer is probably ‘it depends’, it’s something we need to be curious about and interrogate in our context.
And then there was the idea of interim roles - creating a ‘roadmap to ready’ for people who aren’t quite there yet but have the potential. That one really stuck with me. Instead of asking, ‘Who’s ready now?” ask, ‘Who could be ready in six months?’
Sarah Maclot on Leading with Kindness
Sarah Maclot, Group L&D Director at GAIL’s and The Bread Factory, shared generously and honestly about building high-performing teams. I felt genuinely soothed listening to her. Proof that you can be successful, impactful, and kind - all at once.
A few gems I took away:
And Then... Kombucha.
After all the thinking and note-taking came the drinks. I was quietly delighted to find Hip Pop Kombucha in the ice bucket; I’d randomly met the founders on a train a few weeks earlier, and they’d kept me laughing all the way to London. Full circle moment.
Then came the usual post-event chaos: big crowd, small pub, silly games, generous rounds, rapid-fire LinkedIn connections, 'Have we met before? Yes!' energy. The kind of evening that reminds you how lucky we are to work in such a curious, sociable community.
By 10:30pm I was sat on my hotel bed across London, M&S salad in hand (yes, sad times), watching a Graham Norton rerun. Head buzzing. Heart full.
Final Thought
If I took one thing away from the day, it’s this: stay open. To people. To disagreement. To new ideas, and ones you thought you’d already made your mind up about. Some of the best learning moments don’t come from content, they come from conversation.
I haven’t even touched on Chris Hirst’s talk on “No Bullsh*t Leadership” yet - which stirred up a whole notebook's worth of thoughts. That one’s getting its own follow-up. Watch this space.