
Creating an Effective
Learning Ecosystem
In-Person | Tuesday 17 March 2026
London, UK
9.00 – 15.30 GMT
Event
Learning is an essential foundation for innovation, growth and high performance. The need for organisations – and the people who work in them – to learn fast has never been more important.
In this event, we will examine the key elements of an effective ecosystem, exploring how to bring them together to maximise the strategic contribution of learning. This includes aligning learning to business strategy, stakeholder engagement and governance, learner-centric design, technology, learning culture and data and evaluation. Attendees can expect practical insights and strategic challenge, with a focus on practical application in their business context.
Learning Objectives
- Gain a clear understanding of what makes a learning ecosystem effective.
- Critically assess your organisation’s learning effectiveness and identify gaps and opportunities to increase the strategic impact of learning.
- Explore how to align learning strategy, technology and culture to support growth.
- Leave with practical ideas, frameworks and lessons learned from other organisations.
Who is this event for?
Heads of Learning & Development, senior HR practitioners who are responsible for developing and implementing learning strategy for their organisation.
To register for this event please ensure you are logged in. If you are not a member and interested in attending, please contact us below.
If you would like to amend or cancel your booking please contact events@crforum.co.uk.
Location
One Moorgate Place
London
EC2R 6EA
Pre-Event Masterclass
This pre-event masterclass is hosted by CRF Partner, Center for Creative Leadership. This is included within the event but requires additional registration. If you are interested in attending, please contact events@crforum.co.uk.

The Role of Learning Ecosystems to Create Resilient Leaders in an Uncertain Business Landscape
Tuesday 17 March, 09.00 – 09.50
In this breakfast masterclass, we explore how HR Leaders can help their organisations navigate a highly uncertain business environment. Participants will gain insights into building resilient organisations, leveraging innovative learning strategies, and developing leaders who can thrive amidst uncertainty. Join us to explore actionable strategies for fostering a culture of continuous learning and resilience in your organisation.
Agenda
| 08:45 | Masterclass Registration | |
| 09:00 | Masterclass Begins | |
| 09:50 | Masterclass Ends | |
| 09:30 | Main Event Arrival & Registration | |
| 10:00 | What’s Holding Learning Back? | Amanda Nolen, Nick Shackleton-Jones, Gillian Pillans |
| 10:15 | Table Discussion | |
| 10:30 | Research Overview | Gillian Pillans |
| 10:50 | Beyond Content: Building Learning Ecosystems | Peter Sheppard |
| 11:30 | Coffee Break | |
| 11:55 | Research: Learning Experience | Gillian Pillans |
| 12:00 | Creating an Effective Learning Ecosystem | Nick Shackleton-Jones |
| 12:50 | Lunch | |
| 13:35 | Research: Learning Environment | Gillian Pillans |
| 13:40 | Learning Culture: Putting Humans at the Center | Johanna Bolin Tingvall |
| 14:05 | Research: Technology and AI | Gillian Pillans |
| 14:10 | Learning in the AI Era: From Content to Capability | Amanda Nolen |
| 14.50 | Table Discussion: Developing our Capability | Gillian Pillans |
| 15:05 | The Capability of the Learning Leader | Nick Shackleton-Jones, Peter Sheppard, Johanna Bolin Tingvall, Gillian Pillans |
| 15:25 | Summary and Close | Gillian Pillans |
Speakers

Johanna Bolin Tingvall
Sr Director of Human Growth & Performance, On
Johanna Bolin Tingvall is an international leader in Talent and Development, with more than 25 years of experience helping organisations grow through people. She has worked across industries and company sizes – from nimble start-ups to global multinationals – always with a focus on enabling expansion, growth, and impact through culture and leadership.
Johanna is the Sr Director of Human Growth & Performance at On, a global sportswear brand since a few months, and before that she spent a decade at Spotify, where she led global Learning & Development and Talent Growth, shaping a culture of continuous learning and empowering homegrown talent. She also headed up Employee Experience, driving initiatives that strengthened culture, connection, and community across the company. Passionate about building environments where people and businesses thrive together, Johanna brings both vision and hands-on experience to the future of work conversation.

Peter Sheppard
Global Head of Learning impact, Innovation and Skills, EY
Peter is a global talent leader at EY focused on building a world class L&D ecosystem for over 400,000 colleagues in 150 countries. He leads a team working on learning and development technologies, innovation, credentialing, job and skills architecture, impact, optimisation, and planning.
Peter joined EY in 2025 and previously worked at Ericsson, Philips Electronics, and IBM where he has worked in a variety of HR and Learning roles. These have including periods of acting in the Chief Learning Officer role, driving learning excellence to transform the function, talent management, HR operations, and HR Business Partner roles. Peter has been working in the HR and talent space for over 37 years having been driven by the need for the HR to be business relevant as well as contributing to people’s personal growth. Peter and his teams have won awards with Brandon Hall; Learning Technologies and he is a regular panelist / speaker at conferences.

Amanda Nolen
Strategic Advisor, Sana, NED, Totara, and Venture Partner and Investor, Emerge Education
Amanda is recognised as a global expert in skills and learning strategy and technology. She helps companies like Google, HSBC and Novartis deliver business results by shifting to skills-based organisations, while advising startups and scale-ups on their own strategy, go-to-market, positioning and more. She is strategic advisor at Sana, Non Executive Director at Totara, venture partner and LP at Emerge Education, faculty at IE University, a regular speaker at events such as WebSummit and Learning Technologies, and the author of a popular LinkedIn course on the Future of Workplace Learning.
Born in the United States but based in Spain for over two decades, Amanda is also 100% fluent in English and Spanish.

Nick Shackleton-Jones
CEO and Founder, Shackleton Consulting
Nick Shackleton-Jones is the author of How People Learn, a book which introduces the first general theory of learning and describes how to apply it. An industry revolutionary, he introduced the ‘courses to resources’ mantra and pioneered human-centred learning design (5Di). A track record of shaping future learning approaches for public & private organisations, he is winner of several awards for people development, strategy, innovation, & learning content (including the Learning & Performance Institute’s Award for Services to the Learning Industry, 2017). He is the former CLO at Deloitte UK & now CEO at Shackleton Consulting.

Gillian Pillans
Research Director, Corporate Research Forum
Gillian has worked as a senior HR practitioner and OD specialist for several organisations including Swiss Re, Vodafone and BAA. Prior to her HR career, she was a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and is also a qualified solicitor. Gillian has written various CRF reports on subjects including HR strategy, organisation design and development, leadership development, coaching and diversity.
