On April 20th, 170 leaders gathered with us in Ghent to do something slightly absurd: plan for 2040. With Peter Hinssen, Steven Van Belleghem, Jitske Kramer and Rik Vera as our guides, we traded the usual quarterly tunnel vision for a 15-year horizon.

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Here are the ideas that stuck (and that you can steal whether you were in the room or not).

🐢 Today is the slowest day of the rest of your life

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Peter's opener landed hard. The pace we currently complain about? That's the chill version. If 2026 already feels like a lot, the next few years will make it look like a wellness retreat.

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🤖 AI is quietly becoming your biggest hire

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ChatGPT crossed 800 million weekly users in 3 years (1 in 10 humans on the planet). One company recently revealed it had "hired" 300 new colleagues last year, 270 of which were AI agents. They don't ask for promotions.They also don't bring cake on Fridays. Trade-offs.

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🧭 Four forces will shape the road to 2040

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Hardcore geopolitics, extreme capitalism, talent singularity (Nvidia paid 20 billion for one engineer), and a serious squeeze on the middle class. Not a doomsday list, but a strategy briefing. The companies thinking about all four right now are the ones quietly building moats.

🌗 We're living in "liminal times"
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Jitske's word for that weird in-between where the old playbook stopped working but the new one hasn't been written. Her advice for leaders: stop pretending you know the way. Saying "I'm a bit lost, let's figure this out together" is now a competitive advantage. Who knew honesty was a leadership hack? Apparently, everyone! But we just needed someone to say it out loud.

⚡ Power is a verb, not a noun

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Most organisations sit on enormous power and use almost none of it. Culture isn't a poster on the wall, it's the sum of every interaction and decision you make this week. A cheerful reminder that doing nothing is also a choice (and usually the expensive one).

🕯️ Memento Humanitate

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Roman generals had someone whisper "remember you're human" in their ear daily. In an age of exponential tech, we might want to bring that back. Jitske's point: shared intelligence (humans + technology) will always outperform pure optimization. The future isn't human or AI, it's the people who can dance with both.

🎯 The 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 framework to actually move

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Rik's antidote to overwhelm: dream in 3 years, deliver first results in 3 months, run experiments in 3 weeks, and start in 3 days. If you're not doing the last one, the first one is just a vision board. 😉

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So what now?

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The day didn't hand us answers. It handed us better questions, a sharper compass, and the uncomfortable but useful nudge that 2040 isn't something that happens to us. It's something we're building right now, one decision at a time.

The leaders who were in that room on April 20th aren't waiting for 2040 anymore. They're already building it. 💪🏼

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Curious to join the next one or bring your team into the conversation? Let's talk. Don't just read the recap, aim to be in the room of the future! 💥

Feeling major FOMO right now? 
That's your sign to stay tuned for our next adventure! 🚀👀

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