HR Tech Europe Is Upon Us – What Guidance Awaits HR Leaders in 2026?

In this special UC Today interview, host Kristian McCann sits down with Gnosoulla Tsioupra‑Lewis, Chief People & Culture Officer at Arc Network—the organization behind HR Tech Europe. Together, they explore how AI is transforming HR leadership, workforce design, and culture across Europe. If you’re leading change, reimagining your employee strategy, or heading to HR Tech Europe 2026 in Amsterdam, this discussion offers unmissable insights from one of the event’s central voices.

Tsioupra‑Lewis shares a first-hand perspective on the tensions shaping today’s people function and how HR Tech Europe is helping practitioners move from inspiration to application.

Key takeaways from the conversation:
🔵 Why “speed vs readiness” has become HR’s defining tension in 2026—and how leaders can strike the right balance.
🔵 How AI is shifting from theory to real-world impact, transforming workflows and redefining trust and capability.
🔵 The evolving role of CHROs as “ambiguity absorbers” navigating complexity with confidence.
🔵 What makes HR Tech Europe unique—deep practitioner exchange, transparent storytelling, and focus on real results, not just ideas.

If you’re attending HR Tech Europe this April, connect with UC Today on-site to share your perspective. 

For more insights on the future of work, subscribe to UC Today, and to explore our HR Tech Europe coverage leading up to the event visit https://www.uctoday.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello and welcome to UC Today. My name is Christian McCann and today we're taking a closer look at HR Tech Europe and it's returning to Amsterdam this April for what promises to be one of the most relevant gatherings the people profession has had this year. If you were navigating the pressures of AI in the workplace or rethinking how your organization attracts and retains talent, or simply just trying to understand what the best HR leaders in Europe are focused on right now, stay with us because I'm joined by Sula Chupara Lewis, Chief People and Culture Officer at Art Network, which is the group behind HR Tech Europe, and she's going to give us a unique practitioner's perspective and a close view of the conversations, challenges, and priorities shaping this year's HR Tech Europe event. So, uh Sulla, thanks very much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Right, well, let's kind of set the playing field. What is the defining tension in the HR space right now? And what are you consistently hearing from people, you know, especially HR leaders across Europe?

SPEAKER_00 1:19

I'd say, gosh, the defining tension I'd say, um, and what I'm hearing again and again is that tension between speed versus readiness. Um, HR's being asked to move faster than organizations are ready or willing to actually trust. Um, so particularly with AI accelerating at greater speed than all organizations can readily absorb, there's very high expectations, and we all know that, around productivity and reinvention and efficiency, but the reality is that successful transformation takes time, and so there's a growing gap between what we as business leaders want AI to unlock and how quickly organizations and we as CHROs can actually redesign work and build capability and bring people along with us, and that's creating a lot of tension. Um, and I think at the same time, whilst we're under pressure not to fall behind with AI, there's also the the flip side of that, which is not moving so fast that we're creating risk. Um, we've got to balance that innovation with um responsibility and trust and compliance. And I think particularly in Europe, where it's a much more highly regulated environment, that tension's amplified. HR leaders are having to deal with pay transparency and data protection issues and fairness, and so that creates even more tension for people.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Indeed, well, that's really interesting, this kind of vivid picture you're painting. I was wondering maybe if we could take a look at this now about how is it affecting HR teams on the ground that are trying to keep pace? You know, you mentioned about keeping pace being a big thing, you know, what what what's this looking like and uh where's the pressure landing?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Um I think it's squarely landing in terms of where the work actually happens. Um, it's moved on from theory now, and we're having to sort of think about what does AI really mean beyond um workforce tools and pilots and platforms. What we're seeing is actually the growing evidence that the biggest challenge and actually the biggest opportunity is sitting with redesigning work itself. Um, how do we integrate AI into our daily workflows at a local level? It's not a centralized thing, it's a local thing for each individual. And how skills gaps are being identified, how capabilities are being built in in real time to deliver that productivity and growth that we're all looking for. So HR isn't just implementing systems, we're really redesigning how work is happening on the ground. Um and I for me I think this is fundamentally a culture transformation. Um if it were just about if AI were just about systems, we would be very happy to just leave it to the CTO. Um but unfortunately where it really stalls is in trust, which I keep mentioning. If people don't feel confident about using it and they don't feel they have permission to change the way they're doing their work or they don't even know what good looks like, then that's going to hold things up. And so they're not technology problems, they're people and culture problems, and that's always been HR's job. So that's where it's hitting us on the ground.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Uh it's I found it really interesting you talked about uh HR is about sort of redesigning. Um that kind of got me thinking, um, you know, you talked about AI changing things. Well, what does the future of HR leadership then look like? And what do leaders need to be doing to succeed?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, I mean it kind of feels like the future's already here. I mean, it's it's um it's about navigating constant change, and for the future, we just have to be used to that and be able to do that with confidence, even when there are no clear answers. Um, I think the best HR leaders won't have all the answers, but they'll be able to navigate what the next steps are. And um, need to sort of balance the technological possibilities with the human impact and being able to make strong decisions in ambiguity. Um, I think as HR leaders we have to become ambiguity absorbers. So taking the complexity from the organisation and being able to sort of turn it into some sort of clarity and direction for our employees and all our colleagues. Um, and I think more generally, in terms of how that work is being done and how we as HR leaders need to think about things, there's a real shift been happening between building skills-based adaptable organisations. We've no longer got those strict static structures that we've been used to for years and years. Um, so we have to think differently about capability, about performance, um, and about progress in careers. And we've talked a lot about that at HR Tech Europe, and I'm sure you know we'll be talking about it a lot again. Um and finally, I think our future success really depends on collaboration. So across HR technology, business leadership, um, the most effective HR leaders I think are um deeply embedded in enterprise decision making. We're not sitting on the sidelines.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Well, that's fascinating, and um, you've really given us a great lay of the land and some really interesting things to think about in the interim. However, given all of this that we've discussed, what is HR Europe uh HR Tech Europe's response to this moment and what is the going to be some key themes or focuses for the event with this in mind?

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah, I mean look, I've I'm lucky enough to be able to attend every year, and I've attended for the this will be my third one, and actually I can really see the shift between um what was inspiration to now application and execution. So I remember attending a couple of years ago when everybody had just begun to talk about Chat GPT and um uh everything, you know, the the workforce technologies were still in experimental stage and everyone was just testing the waters. Whereas now things have evolved incredibly quickly, not just over the last two years, but even in the last six months. Um, so I think this year is really about implementation and what's actually working and about learning from peers and learning from their mistakes as well as their successes. Um I think the programme this year is more practitioner-led so that we can really learn from those user cases, real case studies, um, and thinking about today's realities. What does the technology look like in practice? Um, about that skills transformation I talked about, um, and regulatory readiness and our evolving role as um CHROs, it's it's about what HR leaders are actually doing rather than just what's possible.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Okay, interesting. Well, um obviously AI in sort of HR, it's probably going to be a topic that many people are coming at, um, different conference providers or so on, or even publications, but I want to understand what's HR Tech Europe really doing that makes its offering feel genuinely different from those?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Yeah, I think look, as a CHRO myself, I am the audience for HR Tech Europe, and um I what I find that's different from other conferences and events is the depth and honesty. Like, really, it's it's less about surface level content and more about real discussion, um, including what hasn't worked, and building sort of we aim for the program to build learning across the sessions rather than individual content sessions. So it's moving from that sort of content consumption, just sitting back and listening to real learning. Um, and also importantly, it's HR Tech Europe's really a space for interaction. Um, when I speak to HR practitioners, and actually also in workplace technology, um, it's also IT directors, CTOs, and other workforce technology sort of project managers, leaders. What they value most is the opportunity to have that genuine peer exchange and really just learning together.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Well, excellent. Well, it sounds like there's going to be a lot of opportunities to really have these genuine and insightful discussions, but obviously, um, you know, two days is so much on offer. Maybe someone is listening to this and they think, you know, I really want to hit the kind of key bases, the key touch points. Um, if they were thinking that, uh, what would you say they should be sure not to miss?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Um, I, you know, me as a CHRO from my perspective, um, I think anything to do with um AI in action, um, those real use cases I've talked about, real workflows, real examples of scale, so not just proofs of concepts, um, and also um talking to others about how AI is embedded into day-to-day workflows and actually changing outcomes and um you know attend a session like that because then you can go away and actually put things into practice. So focus on how AI is actually being used rather than how it's being discussed.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Excellent. And finally, someone has come to the conference, you know, they're leaving. What would you hope would be the thing they walk away from the conference thinking about or doing differently?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Um, I I'd really like to for people to leave with clarity but also confidence. Um, if they leave knowing what the next step is, then you know we've done our job, and I think clarity on what matters right now, and that confidence to take that next step, even if it's imperfect, because undoubtedly it will be imperfect, um, and those practical ideas to implement immediately. Um, and also from a personal perspective, actually, what really matters to me is people leaving feeling as if they're less alone in this, that um we're part of a wider HR community and we're all in this together and we're finding out about it together.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Okay, well, I think that's a great place to end it. So love, thanks for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed talking to you.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

So, for our audience, HR Tech Europe takes place on the 22nd and 23rd of April in Amsterdam, and um we, UC Today, will be in attendance. And if the conversation is anything like what I've had today, I'm really looking forward to it. So um feel free to reach out if you are attending too. Uh, but until then, I'm Christian from UC Today, and we'll see you at the show.