Some events let you attend. Some events make you feel you belong.
Impact is the second kind for me.
I first stepped onto a stage at Impact back in 2018. Since then, I’ve watched this conference grow from an ambitious gathering of Central European business and political leaders into something genuinely world-class — a place where the most important conversations of our time don’t just happen in theory, but face to face, in front of thousands of people who actually make decisions.
This year was the 11th edition. Two days. Nine stages. 649 speakers. Nearly 6,000 participants. And an energy that, no matter how many years in a row you show up for it, still hits you differently than anything else on the calendar.
What Impact Is — For Those Who Haven’t Been
Impact is hard to describe to people who haven’t experienced it. It is technically a conference — two days, multiple stages, the Pozna? Congress Center buzzing from morning to evening. But calling it a conference is like calling the ocean a large puddle.
It is a living ecosystem. Ideas land differently here. People listen differently. Conversations that start on stage continue over coffee, over dinner, in the corridors. There is an energy to Impact that I have never felt at any other event in my career — and I’ve hosted a few.
And every year, I leave thinking: how do they keep making it better?
The Main Stage: Where History Speaks
The lineup for Impact’26 was extraordinary, even by Impact’s own standards.
Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland, opened the conference and set the political temperature for everything that followed.
Daron Acemoglu, the 2024 Nobel Laureate in Economics, asked the question that hung over the entire two days: in the age of artificial intelligence, who actually gains — and who loses?
Amal Clooney appeared for a fireside conversation on justice, solidarity, and what it means to keep fighting when the law itself is under pressure.
Scott Galloway gave the kind of talk that makes you want to call someone you love immediately afterwards. And Jeff Koons spoke on what happens to creativity in the age of the algorithm.
Justin Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada, made the case for something that felt almost radical in the current climate: optimism — not as naivety, but as a strategy. It was a masterclass in composure.
The Mastercard Stage: Finance in Depth
My domain for both days was the Mastercard Stage — dedicated to global finance, banking, and digital commerce. The themes: the systems that make everything else possible.
Over two days, we central bankers and the CEOs of some of Europe’s most important financial institutions. The conversations ranged from economic innovations in the CEE and SEE regions to agentic AI reshaping how we shop, from payment interoperability across European borders to whether banks as we know them still have a future.
I also had the pleasure of moderating my own panel — Big Vision, Macro Forces — on building competitive advantage in European banking and digital commerce. Five panelists, five very different perspectives, and exactly the kind of conversation Impact exists to make happen.
The Thing About Impact
After seven years, I should probably be used to it. I’m not.
What keeps bringing me back isn’t just the speaker quality, the production, or the scale. It’s the intent behind it. Impact is built by people who genuinely believe that bringing the right people together — and creating the conditions for real conversation — changes things. Not as a tagline. As a practice.
To the entire Impact team — thank you. For the trust, year after year. For continuing to push the format. For running an event that always makes me better at what I do.
And to the speakers, panelists, and everyone in those rooms: the conversation doesn’t end when the mic goes off. That’s the whole point.
See you at Impact’27.