The future of work is on everyone’s agenda. This event brings thought leaders together to share cutting edge ideas on the future, from both a people and technology perspective.
It will allow an understanding of the key drivers of change and enablers of innovation that will shape how, where and when work takes place. Our conference programme will explore future technologies, cutting edge award-winning workplaces and people, change and engagement within the financial sector.
Content to be announced.
Content to be announced.
Fast‑growing tech companies with distributed teams, remote workers and accelerating AI are rethinking both the office and the operating systems they run on. This session explores the shift from traditional workplaces to “commons”; intentional, clubhouse‑ and coffee‑house‑inspired spaces that support strategy, creativity and culture for global hybrid teams. The speakers will share how this evolution unfolded inside their organisations and why high‑autonomy, high‑alignment models need new governance, rituals and purpose‑driven spaces. The session will illustrate how commons‑style approaches are shaping Vancouver’s workplace culture and innovation districts such as Downtown Vancouver, Granville Island and False Creek Flats.
Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant and False Creek neighbourhoods have become the centre of BC’s life‑science boom, home to major biotech campuses and new innovation facilities. This session explores how the city’s biotech scaleups are shaping these districts, from a growing headquarters and manufacturing footprint in Mount Pleasant to the expanding adMare Innovation Centre, which supports early‑stage life‑science companies across the region. The speakers will discuss how intentional workplace programming, flexible lab infrastructure and proximity to the Broadway health‑research corridor are accelerating Vancouver’s biotech ecosystem.
Content to be announced.
Content to be announced.
Work has changed dramatically in the past decade, but leadership systems largely have not. In this talk, Drew Jones explores why many organizations remain stuck in personality-driven and proximity-based models of management that rely on visibility, office presence, and informal power. These systems struggle to scale and break down in distributed and AI-enabled environments.
Jones introduces an alternative: system-driven organizations built on a clear Digital Culture Playbook; defining decision frameworks, accountability systems, results-based performance and coaching-oriented leadership. With work coordinated digitally, the office can evolve into something new: the Community Office, a place designed not for routine tasks, but for connection, learning/mentoring, collaboration and shared culture.
Content to be announced.
Vancouver’s progressive, autonomy‑driven culture makes traditional return‑to‑office mandates both ineffective and culturally misaligned. Unlike Toronto’s rapid push back to the office, Vancouver behaves more like Scandinavia—employees expect empowerment, not enforcement. This session explores how People & Culture teams are meeting leadership expectations by creating purposeful moments, curated programming and shared experiences that make the office genuinely worth coming to. We’ll highlight strategies that naturally lift occupancy and show how intentional connection turns the workplace into a meaningful space where diverse people come together.
Content to be announced.
Content to be announced.
Vancouver is moving beyond a downtown‑centric model toward a right‑shaped mix of HQs, spokes and flexible third‑place environments. As organisations demand greater portfolio agility, shorter commitments and turnkey solutions are reshaping leasing strategies. Diverging market dynamics – elevated downtown vacancy and stronger suburban absorption – are accelerating moves into emerging hubs such as Mount Pleasant, the Broadway health sciences corridor and False Creek Flats. Powered by government‑supported innovation zones and a fast-growing biotech ecosystem, these hubs are redefining expectations for lab‑enabled workplaces, creative environments and hybrid‑ready R&D space.
AI and proptech are moving from isolated pilots to the operational backbone of Vancouver’s workplaces, linking building systems with occupancy insights to enable predictive maintenance, targeted energy reduction and more responsive space management. With hybrid work still unsettled and budgets under pressure, workplace leaders must demonstrate to the C‑suite how their spaces are truly performing — from utilisation and team engagement to the effectiveness of the work being done. At the same time, Vancouver’s drive toward zero‑emissions buildings, embodied‑carbon limits and ambitious climate‑action targets is turning building operations into an ongoing cycle of optimisation, carbon management and low‑carbon material choices as standard practice.
With Vancouver’s slower return‑to‑office momentum, compared to Toronto or Seattle, organisations are shifting to hybrid as an operating model built on clear rhythms, leadership alignment and a purposeful in‑office experience. The focus is on persuasion over mandates, using hospitality, community‑building and wellbeing‑centred design – choice‑based settings, quiet refuge, sensory zoning, daylight and acoustic comfort – to draw people in. A broader Canadian design reset is also reshaping briefs; democratic co‑creation, locally sourced materials and Indigenous‑led, reconciliatory approaches. Together, these values create workplaces that signal belonging and identity. Culture, not compliance, drives occupancy.
