Case Studies
EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE DESIGN & EVENT PRODUCTION
4) Global Leadership Xchange
Turning a bi-annual executive meeting into a branded leadership event leaders looked forward to
30+
global leaders onsite
40+
remote participants
3 days
immersive experience
MY ROLE
Creative Director • Experience Designer • Executive Presentation Coach • Event App Designer • Visual Identity Lead • Hybrid Participation Architect
THE CONTEXT
The Global Leadership Xchange (GLX) is a bi-annual summit bringing together approximately 30 senior IT leaders from around the world in Stuttgart for three days of strategy, collaboration, and team building, with an additional 40+ senior managers participating remotely through a hybrid experience.
I led the creative direction and experience design for the entire event ecosystem, from the annual theme and visual identity to executive presentations, engagement activities, gamification, and the event app. Every year, from concept to close.
THE PROBLEM
Executive meetings at this level have a natural tendency to become slide marathons. Agendas fill up. Presentations multiply. By day two, even the most engaged leaders are sitting through content rather than participating in it.
The GLX also had to work across two very different participation modes, 30 people in a room in and 40+ joining remotely, without the remote experience feeling like an afterthought. That's a harder design problem than it sounds.
And underneath both of those challenges was the real one: how do you create genuine alignment across a global leadership organization operating across regions, disciplines, time zones, and competing priorities, in three days?
A meeting ends when the agenda runs out. An experience stays with people long after they leave the room. The goal was never to run a better meeting, it was to design something worth remembering. they are now, and why that matters.
The shift was treating GLX as a branded experience rather than a scheduled event. That meant every element, the theme, the visuals, the activities, the event app, the presentations, had to work together as one cohesive journey rather than a series of agenda items.
WHAT WE BUILT
Each year's GLX was built around a fully developed theme, Tour de France, Formula 1, and others, that became the foundation for every touchpoint of the event. Not as decoration, but as a genuine strategic metaphor that shaped how leadership talked about the organization's direction and what it takes to get there.
Visual identity system
Annual theme, branding, templates, stage graphics, and all event visuals designed from scratch each year
Executive coaching
Direct partnership with senior leaders to simplify messaging, sharpen story flow, and redesign presentations
Gamification
Collaborative activities woven through the event to drive cross-functional interaction that felt natural, not forced
Custom event app
Schedules, workshop selection, real-time navigation, designed as an extension of the event brand itself
Hybrid experience
Remote participation designed to feel connected and present, not bolted on as an afterthought
Video & animation
Opening animations, session transitions, and digital assets that carried the theme throughout
The executive presentation work deserves its own mention. Working directly with senior leaders to strip away complexity, sharpen their narratives, and redesign their slides is a different discipline than producing communications from scratch. It requires trust, honesty, and the ability to serve someone else's voice while making it significantly better.
WHAT HAPPENED
The GLX evolved from a standard executive meeting into something people genuinely anticipated. Leaders came in engaged and left aligned, not just informed. The themed experience gave the event a shared identity that carried meaning beyond the three days.
The gamification and collaborative activities did something that no presentation could: they created cross-functional interaction that felt natural rather than forced. People who operated in silos all year found common ground in the room.
Most importantly, GLX became a repeatable framework, a recognizable annual event with its own identity, energy, and place in the organization's leadership culture. That kind of institutional staying power doesn't happen by accident.