Delivering Enterprise Value at the Speed of AI

AI accelerates work, but without connected context, speed only widens the gap between strategy and execution. Join PMI’s former Global Chairman Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez and Atlassian to explore how leading organizations adapt at speed and govern portfolios dynamically.

AI is accelerating execution. But without connected business context, speed doesn't close the strategy-execution gap. It widens it.

HBR Author & PMI's former Global Chairman Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez joins Sapphire Reels, Head of Strategy Collection GTM PMM at Atlassian, to explore how modern leaders are rewiring the way strategy connects to work. Antonio brings the Project Economy lens: why traditional operating models were built for steady-state maintenance, not dynamic transformation, and why running more projects faster creates waste at scale. Sapphire brings the platform lens: how connected context, living strategy data, and dynamic portfolio governance give leaders the visibility to actually act on what AI surfaces.

Together they cover how to move from rigid annual planning to continuous outcome-based funding, why Mean Time to Pivot is replacing on-time/on-budget as the real agility metric, and what the operating model of 2026 actually requires.

What you'll learn:

  1. The AI Speed Paradox: Why disconnected operating models fail under high execution speed, and how connected context prevents strategy drift.
  2. The Accountability Gap: Why strategic clarity at the top rarely survives the handoff to execution, and how to close the gap without replacing everything your organization already runs on
  3. Dynamic Portfolio Management: How to move from rigid annual budgeting to continuous, outcome-based funding across people, AI agents, and compute.
  4. The New Agility Standard: Why Mean Time to Pivot (MTTP) is replacing on-time/on-budget, and what it takes to actually close decision latency.

 

Palestrantes

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez

HBR Author, Former Chairman of the Project Management Institute (PMI)

Described by Harvard Business Review's Adi Ignatius as "the father of modern project management," Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez is the most influential thinker of the 21st century in elevating project management to the executive level. With 35 contributions in HBR — more than any other author on the subject — and two appearances on the Thinkers50 ranking of the world's most influential management thinkers, he has reshaped how a generation of leaders deliver change. He is the author of Powered by Projects: Leading Your Organization in the Transformation Age (HBR Press, 2026) and The HBR Project Management Handbook (HBR Press, 2021), a Fellow and former Chairman of the Project Management Institute (PMI), and Vice President of the Association for Project Management (APM). Through Projects & Co, he has advised more than 100 organizations on accelerating transformation and building lasting internal capability, and has trained over 10,000 leaders worldwide. He has delivered more than 800 keynotes and teaches at leading business schools.

Sapphire Reels

Head of GTM Product Marketing, Strategy Collection, Atlassian

Sapphire é a líder sênior de marketing de produto à frente da estratégia de lançamento no mercado da Strategy Collection, o produto de gerenciamento estratégico de portfólio da Atlassian desenvolvido para executivos. Com mais de uma década de experiência em SaaS B2B empresarial, ela entende de produto, posicionamento e estratégia do comprador. Antes de vir para a Atlassian, ela passou sete anos na Pluralsight desenvolvendo a função de marketing de soluções do zero. A Sapphire é conhecida por transformar histórias complexas de produtos em mensagens com as quais os compradores se identificam, sejam diretores de inovação, tecnologia ou pessoal. Quando não está colocando o posicionamento à prova sob o olhar cético das partes interessadas, ela está refletindo sobre por que tantas estratégias boas se perderem em algum lugar entre a diretoria e o backlog. E ela mora em Seattle.