InnoVision 2026 Madrid: Rethinking Business Before Change Becomes a Shock
At GBSB Global’s Madrid Campus, an international conference will bring together research and practice around artificial intelligence, strategic foresight, adaptive leadership, and innovation.
“The three themes speak about the same thing: how to manage uncertainty in an intelligent way.” — Dr. Hind Naaman
On November 5–6, InnoVision 2026 will convene at GBSB Global Business School’s Madrid Campus and online. The second Global Conference on Business Transformation, Complexity, and Futures asks a demanding question: how can organizations lead through disruption rather than merely react to it?
Complexity is no longer an interruption
Technological disruption, geopolitical instability, climate pressure, and social transformation are not arriving one at a time. They are converging. For business leaders, this changes the nature of strategy itself. Plans built on stable assumptions expire more quickly; risks travel across systems; and decisions must often be made before their consequences can be fully known.
InnoVision 2026 responds to that reality by bringing foresight, leadership, and innovation into one conversation. Hosted by GBSB Global in collaboration with Sanjivani University and MESOS Business School, the hybrid conference is designed to connect academic rigor with the decisions organizations must make now.
The setting is significant. This will be the first international business conference organized at GBSB Global’s new Madrid Campus, near Retiro Park. Opened in October 2025, the campus combines restored architectural heritage with modern classrooms, collaborative spaces, digital infrastructure, a library, conference facilities, and a garden designed for informal exchange. InnoVision 2026 will transform that environment into a meeting point for scholars, students, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and business professionals from different countries and disciplines.
Dr. Wiktor Patena: AI is becoming a foresight question
For Dr. Wiktor Patena, Dean and Executive President of GBSB Global Business School, artificial intelligence is one of the forces adding most sharply to contemporary complexity. The pace of technological change unsettles organizations, employees, and students alike. Jobs are being redefined, and the shelf life of professional skills is increasingly difficult to estimate.
“There is always room for pessimism, but it is optimism that makes things happen.” — Dr. Wiktor Patena
Patena’s position is deliberately balanced. GBSB Global encourages students to use AI because it is already a fundamental business tool. At the same time, the School must protect academic integrity and distinguish a student’s own reasoning from machine-generated output. He described the institution’s progression from AI-detection experiments to oral defenses and proctored assessments—an operational example of a broader leadership challenge: adopting a powerful technology while maintaining standards, accountability, and human judgment.
The more consequential shift, however, may still lie ahead. AI is widely used to retrieve information, analyze data, and support knowledge creation. Patena argued that its next major frontier could be prediction: systems that do not simply explain what has happened, but anticipate what may happen next. Prediction platforms, scenario tools, and increasingly sophisticated models could reshape investment, risk management, market strategy, and organizational planning.
“The question is whether we are still in the loop—or whether someone will be creating this future for us, without us.” — Dr. Wiktor Patena
That question reaches beyond technology. If organizations become better at forecasting disruption, who interprets the forecast? Who challenges the assumptions inside the model? Who remains accountable when prediction becomes action? For Patena, foresight must therefore be treated as a structured organizational capability. Companies may need dedicated teams—or empowered internal challengers—whose responsibility is to look around the corner, test cumulative risks, and ask what could go wrong before a crisis makes the answer obvious.
Dr. Hind Naaman: foresight, leadership, and innovation must operate together
Dr. Hind Naaman, Head of Studies and Academic Operations at GBSB Global, connects the conference’s three themes through a single leadership imperative: managing uncertainty intelligently.
Foresight looks toward the horizon and asks what is coming. Responsive leadership provides the agility to act as conditions change. Innovation supplies the methods and tools to work differently from the past. None is sufficient alone. Together, Naaman explained, they represent “a rejection of the reactive mode”: organizations must identify change before it becomes a shock, prepare their response, and build the capacity to create new solutions.
Her distinction is especially important because many companies still isolate these capabilities. Foresight becomes an occasional planning exercise. Innovation is assigned to a single department. Leadership development appears as periodic training. In a volatile environment, Naaman argued, that is not enough.
“Businesses should make this a daily priority—an institutional priority. They need the adaptive capacity to work with what is coming.” — Dr. Hind Naaman
Adaptive capacity is not a slogan or a one-time initiative. It must be practiced through decision-making, organizational culture, curriculum design, and real-world experience. Naaman emphasized that this is also how GBSB Global approaches business education: students encounter change not only as theory, but through applied work that asks them to interpret emerging conditions and respond with disciplined creativity.
A conference designed to challenge assumptions
InnoVision 2026 is an academic conference, but it is not intended to separate research from practice. Patena highlighted the value of presenting work before peers: ideas are questioned, arguments are refined, and papers improve through informed criticism. The conference format turns research into a collective process rather than a finished product delivered from a podium.
Naaman extended that invitation further. A strong contribution, in her view, should begin a conversation. It should challenge a specific assumption, connect clearly to the real world, and say something precise enough for others to examine. Researchers should not attempt to cover everything. They should bring a well-defined question, explain why it matters, and remain open to perspectives from other disciplines.
That interdisciplinary exchange is built into the conference’s seven tracks: complexity, risk, and strategic foresight; leadership, governance, and organizational transformation; innovation, entrepreneurship, and digital transformation; sustainability, geopolitics, and global value creation; accounting, finance, and economics; marketing and business communication; and business administration and management.
From insight to institutional action
The most valuable outcome of InnoVision 2026 may not be a single prediction about the future. It may be a more demanding habit of thought. Organizations need mechanisms that keep foresight visible after the strategy meeting ends: people who question emerging risks, structures that connect innovation to operations, leaders who can change direction without losing purpose, and cultures in which difficult evidence can travel upward.
This is where Patena’s and Naaman’s perspectives converge. AI expands what organizations can see and model. Leadership determines how that knowledge is interpreted and governed. Innovation turns understanding into action. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty—a promise no credible leader can make—but to build institutions capable of meeting it with intelligence, responsibility, and imagination.
Join InnoVision 2026 in Madrid or online
InnoVision 2026 will take place on November 5–6, 2026, at GBSB Global’s Madrid Campus and online. Registration remains open until October 5. GBSB Global will cover the full €90 conference fee for registered participants in recognition of the official Madrid Campus inauguration through this international conference.
The standard initial abstract deadline has passed. The official conference platform states that exceptional late submissions may still be considered on a case-by-case basis only for authors intending to present in person in Madrid. Interested authors should send their abstract to research.centre@gbsb.global; consideration is not guaranteed.
Selected contributions may be considered—subject to additional peer review—for international journals indexed in Scopus or ABDC, track-aligned special issues, InnoVision 2026 conference proceedings with an ISBN, or edited volumes from international academic publishers.
InnoVision 2026 | November 5–6, 2026 | Madrid & Online | Registration deadline: October 5
Register and view conference details: InnoVision 2026 official conference platform