Connect 2026 Sessions Announced
The Learning Network is excited to reveal three of the standout sessions heading to Connect 2026, its annual conference, which arrives at The Eastside Rooms in Birmingham on Friday 27th November. Helen Routledge, Kirstie Greany, and Robin Hoyle will each take to the stage with sessions that get to the heart of how people build skills, how the L&D role is changing, and how learning turns into better performance at work.
Speaker sessions sit at the core of the Connect programme, giving experienced practitioners the space to share their thinking, their evidence, and their hard-won lessons with a room full of peers. This year's line-up is built around the theme of Building the Future, and these three sessions tackle that theme from three very different directions, from the first moments someone faces a difficult situation at work to the future of the L&D profession itself.
Helen Routledge, CEO of Totem Learning, opens up a question that will feel familiar to anyone who has ever been thrown in at the deep end: What if the first time wasn't real? Nobody would let someone operate a complex piece of machinery for the first time without practice, yet organisations routinely ask people to handle some of the most human and consequential moments at work with little more than some content, a few scenarios, and a knowledge check. The first difficult conversation, the first time challenging a decision, the first angry customer, and the first judgement call under pressure all too often happen for real, with real consequences attached.
Helen will explore the gap between knowing something and being able to do it when it matters, and make the case for thinking differently about how organisations build human skills, so that the first time someone does something difficult can happen somewhere safe.
Kirstie Greany, independent researcher and advisor, and host of the Learning at Large podcast and roundtables, brings her session After the reckoning: what L&D is becoming and how to adapt your skills. With more than 20 years' experience consulting for enterprise L&D with a global EdTech company, Kirstie spends her time digging into the real questions facing L&D leaders, learning technology companies, and their customers, and finding honest, evidence-based answers.
Her starting point is that L&D is facing a reckoning, and that the role is breaking apart and reforming into something new. Drawing on fresh data and candid conversations with learning leaders, practitioners, and the technology companies that serve them, Kirstie will share an up-to-the-minute read on which L&D skills and services are fading and what is rising in their place. She will then turn the lens on the audience, looking at how to spot the skills that matter now, build them deliberately, and make adaptability a personal strength, with straight talk and practical guidance throughout.
Rounding off the trio is Robin Hoyle, Head of Learning Innovation at Huthwaite International, author of two books on learning and development, and chair of the World of Learning Conference, with more than 40 years' experience in the field. His session, Beyond Content: setting up learners to improve performance, starts from a simple and powerful premise: applying learning cannot be left to chance.
Robin will share his experience of designing learning interventions that help people apply new knowledge and skills in their daily work, while generating the evidence that coaches and managers need to support implementation and sustain transfer to the workplace. That includes building clear links between formal learning and continued learning in the flow of work, with support from both people and AI; it is a session packed with insight for anyone who wants their learning to lead to lasting change.
The three sessions sit alongside keynotes from Donald H Taylor and Susi Miller, new hands-on workshops led by Sascha Evans and Kurt Ewald Lindley, two expert panels on AI and evidence-informed practice, and further sessions still to be announced, with plenty of time throughout the day to catch up with old friends, meet new ones, and connect with the wider L&D community.
The Learning Network would like to say a huge thank you to the sponsors making Connect 2026 possible: headline sponsors Comtec and Evolve L&D, and sponsors L&D Free Spirits and INSERT SPONSOR NAME. Thanks also go to The CPD Group, which has accredited the conference, so every delegate can claim CPD points for the day.
With sessions of this quality on the programme, Connect 2026 is shaping up to be a day full of fresh thinking and practical ideas, and tickets are on sale now.
- Date: Friday 27 November 2026, all day from 08:00 to 17:30
- Venue: The Eastside Rooms, Woodcock Street, Birmingham, B7 4BL
- Tickets: On sale now at The Learning Network website: thelearning-network.org/event/connect-2026-building-the-future/