With a focus on humanity’s role in the age of AI, Northeastern will hold its biggest Global Leadership Summit yet, bringing its global community together in London.
What does human leadership look like in the age of AI?
That will be the central question to tackle when attendees gather at Northeastern University’s 2026 Global Leadership Summit in London next week.
Bringing together some of the most innovative industry leaders from Northeastern’s global network, the summit, which will take place on June 3 and 4, will convene entrepreneurs from all over the world and facilitate discussions around groundbreaking ideas and perspectives. Among the headliners will be Sir Lucian Grainge, chair and CEO of Universal Music Group, who will sit down with Northeastern president Joseph E. Aoun for a conversation about innovation and human creativity in the age of artificial intelligence.
The Global Leadership Summit was first launched in 2020 in Mumbai, India, and has since traversed the globe. Summits have also taken place in Accra, Singapore and Miami, all with the goal of fostering connections between members of the Northeastern community and industry leaders and driving opportunities for entrepreneurial innovation.
Each year, the summit tackles different topics in a different country, connecting students, alumni, university leaders, global CEOs, founders, investors and entrepreneurs who are active in shaping business, technology, and society through disruptions and opportunities.
In keeping with Northeastern’s focus on lifelong learning, all summit participants will be able to earn professional credentials through the university as part of the event. By completing pre-summit coursework and attending summit events, participants can receive Northeastern certifications in venture acceleration/entrepreneurial leadership and AI ethics/digital transformation leadership.
This year’s meeting will leverage London’s position as a global finance, technology and arts hub and features an array of sessions led by industry leaders and members of the Northeastern community who will provide insight into a range of topics, including what it takes to build a startup in today’s economy, how robots are propelling AI, how AI is reshaping healthcare and the future of human expression.
The London summit is also shaping up to be the biggest yet, with more than 300 participants expected from 27 countries, including the U.S., Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Singapore, Spain, Brazil and Canada.
Community events and a series of sessions will launch the two-day event at Devon House, the hub of Northeastern’s London campus.
The sessions kick off with a new addition to the summit: the Global Venture Forum. In the style of the reality competition show known in the US as “Shark Tank,” current students and alumni will have an opportunity to pitch their entrepreneurial ideas to a panel of judges.
The panel will evaluate the ideas, offer feedback and announce winners later in the summit. The winners will receive a substantial monetary prize, with the opportunity to network with potential mentors who are all venture founders and industry leaders, contacts that could help participants accelerate their business ideas.
Following the Global Venture Forum competition, 11 concurrent sessions will discuss investing banking across industries, brand strategy, multigenerational enterprises, and artificial intelligence, among others.
For example, Northeastern faculty like electrical and computer engineering professor Ravinder Dahiya will talk about the future of robotics and AI and how physical AI is making its way to market. Richard D’Amore, chair of Northeastern’s board of trustees, will bring his venture investment experience at North Bridge Venture Partners, the venture capital firm he co-founded, to bear during a talk about the future of venture capital.
Industry leaders from multiple sectors will take the stage to share their experiences and lead discussions. Jeff Clarke, CEO of insurance technology company Insurity, will talk about what it takes to lead and change a business during transformative times. Eric van der Kleij, a British entrepreneur and co-founder of the EdenBase Quantum Computing Fund, will strive to make the audience quantum curious in his examination of quantum computing. And A.C. Grayling, a British philosopher, will speak to why the humanities continue to be important as AI becomes more widely adopted.
The second day of the Global Leadership Summit will be held further upstream the Thames at the Piccadilly headquarters of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, or BAFTA. Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun and author of “Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” will kick off the second day of the summit with a talk about human leadership in the age of AI.
Aoun’s remarks will be followed by a series of headlining addresses, including from Dame Emma Walmsley, board director of Microsoft and former CEO of British pharmaceutical company GSK; Chris Viehbacher, CEO of biotechnology company Biogen; Michael Miebach, CEO of Mastercard and Hemant Taneja, a Northeastern trustee and CEO of venture capital firm General Catalyst.
The winners of the Global Venture Forum will also be announced and Sir Lucian Grainge, a Northeastern trustee and chair and CEO of Universal Music Group, will speak to the value of innovation and creativity in a world where human expression is transforming. Aoun will also present Grainge with the inaugural Global Entrepreneurship Award to recognize the milestones and vision of his decades-long career in the music industry.
Cody Mello-Klein is a Northeastern Global News reporter. Email him at c.mello-klein@northeastern.edu. Follow him on X/Twitter @Proelectioneer.
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