Centaur Stage

Sandra Salame is the founder of Siira, a mental wellbeing platform that provides emotional support through harnessing the power of communities to overcome day to day struggles. Siira aims to educate and empower individuals, businesses and governments by providing them with the tools and knowledge needed to effectively solve wellbeing challenges and achieve personal and professional goals. 
 
Sandra joined us as part of our Make it Count campaign to discuss nurturing well-being during uncertain times. Along with Marilyn Zakhour, she explored common emotions & behaviors during times of crisis, strategies to cope with uncertainty, and how to create a safe space for employees.

Jose Santos joined us for the 4th year in a row for our closing session to talk about the role that time plays in leading organizations that deliver in our closing session. 

Jose is an Affiliated Professor of Practice in Global Management. After spending 20 years in the managerial world, Joe moved from Italy to INSEAD and devoted himself to scholarly work, a dream from his youth. Jo’s research and teaching focuses on the management of multinational enterprise, particularly on the management of global integration, and global innovation.

Tandem’s Rabih Brair and Alexander Damouni spoke at the 2023 #CosmicConference on Wednesday, November 8 to share insights on how leaders can navigate a restructuring holistically. 

Rabih Brair is the Managing Partner and co-founder at Tandem, a Dubai-based business advisory firm aimed at startups, SME's and angel investors in the region. Alex Damouni is a partner at Tandem, and he’s highly resilient to managing operational challenges and uncertainty for businesses in transition.

One of our dearest members of the #CosmicCommunity, Dr. Christiane Mueck joined us for the 2023 #CosmicConference to discuss capability building, the skills gaps, and reskilling talent in the region. 

Christiane Mueck has 20+ years of experience as a strategy consultant & expert advisor in education, foundations, and start-ups in Europe and the Middle East. She’s also a Co-founder and angel investor in ed tech/fintech start-ups. She thrives in and aims to build imaginative, entrepreneurial organizations on the brink of professionalization where she can apply her unique mix of strategy and business consulting, leadership, mentoring, and coaching skills.

Soussane Chartouny is Senior director, EMEA/LATAM Field & Channel Marketing at Palo Alto Networks.
She’s experienced in developing go to market strategies based on data analytics and execution to meet business goals and results. She’s also passionate about customers, technology and people and is an advocate of a growth mindset and collaborative leadership.

Sounssane spoke at the 2023 #CosmicConference on Monday, October 30 to talk all about impactful global leadership, the role of leaders in evaluating and developing the capabilities of the organization, and how to lead in distributed settings. 

Joining us for this year’s 2023 hashtag#CosmicConference is M. Belen Settembri CPCC MCC (Master Certified Coach), Executive and Leadership Coach, and Founder of @shiftunfolders. Belen’s session, all about leading systemic change, explores how to engage executive teams, how to manage people through change and turn those most resistant into advocates for transformation. Belen dives into how to understand the systems within a company and leverage that to lead through change.

Wissam Adib is an Executive Coach & Organizational Behavior Expert.
He leverages a 25-year career leading large- and small-scale organizational transformation programs and works with these leaders to unlock hidden potential and create transformative results. 
This includes several turnaround and restructuring projects, as well as leading the institutional reform of several Dubai Government Authorities. 

Wissam Adib spoke at the 2023 #CosmicConference on Tuesday, October 24 to share insights on the phases of change and the type of leadership required for each phase of change.

📣 SPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT: Joining us for this year's 2023 #CosmicConference is Fahad ‘Abu PowerPoint’ Habib, Founder of Boost | Consulting Redefined . Fahad shared the critical aspects of scaling, including strategy execution, key skill sets for leaders, effective strategies for small businesses, and insights on the Saudi market, while also shedding light on the intricacies of the fundraising process and building a successful funnel. 

Richard Fitzgerald is CEO and Founder of Augustus Media, an award-winning modern media company in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, publishers of Lovin Dubai, Lovin Saudi and Smashi TV. Initially working in digital, media and social media agencies in Europe and the Middle East for over a decade, Richard founded Augustus Media in 2015 to what has grown to be 80 employees with offices in Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Dubai to become one of the leading modern media companies in the region. 

Richard spoke at the 2023 Cosmic Conference on Wednesday, October 18 sharing his perspective on leadership, the mindsets needed to scale over time, and the patient pursuit of long-term success in the region.  

Patrick Flesner is a growth mindset leadership coach, mentor and advisor who has a unique and holistic perspective on leadership and business growth. The insights and frameworks he shares equip leadership teams with the knowledge and tools they need to become highly effective leaders, grow their businesses fast and sustainably, and reach their biggest business goals. He joined us at the #CosmicConference on Monday, October 16 to discuss leading organizations that scale.

Mihai Ionescu, Strategy Management technician, has spent the past 15 years developing the practice-tested definition of a Strategy cycle that connects the dots of the key concepts, theories, and frameworks of the Strategy Management discipline. He joined us at the #CosmicConference on Wednesday, October 11, to discuss the process of developing and implementing successful strategies, from experimentation to execution.

Join us for a rerun of Wissam’s keynote about creating a high-trust executive team from the Opening Event of the 2023  #CosmicConference. 

Wissam Adib is an Executive Coach to CEOs and senior leaders in the public and private sectors. He leverages a 25-year career leading large- and small-scale organizational transformation programs and works with these leaders to unlock hidden potential and create transformative results. This included several turnaround and restructuring projects, as well as leading the institutional reform of several Dubai Government Authorities.

Join us for a rerun of Jean Abou Assi's Fireside chat with Marilyn Zakhour during the Opening Event of the 2023 Cosmic Conference.

Jean is a Partner Digital & Technology at PWC ME. He has wide experience in leading large-scale digital transformation programs and is well-versed in the entire digitization process from strategy to delivery. Jean works closely with senior executives, business owners, technology teams, creatives, and product managers to make hyper-personalized digital journeys work for both customers and businesses.

Jean and Marilyn dive deep into how to become a master of strategy execution and how to structure a healthy relationship with your management or implementation consultant, unpacking how to take strategy from development in the boardroom to execution on the office floor.  And we all know that in this region (GCC), strategy rarely gets developed or implemented without a management or implementation consultants so Jean and Marilyn share their experiences and discuss how to structure a healthy relationship with these partners.

Learn how to become a master of strategy execution from leaders directly involved in doing this at various scales. You'll hear from Infosysta's Edmond Tehini, AESG's Katarina Uherova Hasbani, and Nisrine Khoury.

Join us for a rerun of this panel discussion with Marilyn Zakhour from the Opening Event of the 2023 Cosmic Conference on Friday, October 13. 

Marilyn Zakhour the CEO & Founder of Cosmic Centaurs, hosted a Linkedin Live at the #CosmicConference on Tuesday, October 10, at 1PM Dubai time (GMT +4) to deliver the keynote from the opening event of the Cosmic Conference all about #strategyexecution.

Witness the transformation of a struggling giant, the formation of the Renault-Nissan alliance, and the consequences of unchecked power. 

Join us for this gripping exploration of Carlos Ghosn's story, a remarkable figure in the automotive industry.

How did 2 college grads bootstrap a company with only $10,000, and without any VC money, which would later become one the biggest tech companies in the world?

Join me next week to learn all about Atlassian’s fascinating story, in our upcoming episode of Centaur Stage Season 3.

How did America’s most popular airline, Southwest Airlines, cancel 16,700 flights over the 2022 Christmas period, leading to a 820 million dollar loss?

Short answer: it was the tipping point of 20 years of neglect.

Join me on this episode of Centaur Stage Season 3, as I share the story of how the rise and fall of Southwest Airlines.

In 1975, Kodak engineer Steven Sasson unveiled the world's first digital camera—a momentous leap forward for the industry. How did Kodak end up filing for bankruptcy in 2012?

Join me on this episode of Centaur Stage Season 3 as I share the story of how Kodak faltered in leveraging their own innovation and uncover the invaluable lessons we can learn from their critical missteps.

In the Swedish province of Småland where the founder of IKEA Ingvar lived, the stony land produced poor crops. Farming wasn’t enough to survive. People had to be innovative, creative, strong and stubborn. Families were thrifty, and many became entrepreneurs to make ends meet.

In the upcoming episode of Centaur Stage Season 3, I will be sharing the story of how IKEA went from being a countryside store to a global multinational, by “discovering” the right strategy.

Watch me on Thursday, May 18 at 3:30 UAE time and click Attend.

A special mention goes to Jo Santos who was the first person to share this story with me in his class at INSEAD and who taught me everything I know about emergence. 

If you would like to read the Testament of a furniture maker click here: https://ikeamuseum.com/en/digital/the-story-of-ikea/the-testament-of-a-furniture-dealer/