Schedule

Start your day with a delicious breakfast while connecting with fellow attendees. Fuel up, make introductions, and get ready for an inspiring day of learning, collaboration, and innovation at Ignite B2B

Welcome and introduction to the event. Overview of the day's agenda and key goals.

B2B research rarely fails because the data is wrong—it fails because it doesn’t earn the influence needed to drive decisions. Insights teams often deliver rigorous findings, only to see them stalled, debated, or overridden by instinct, politics, or urgency. In this session, competitive intelligence and insights expert David Kalinowski introduces a practical, human-centered framework for building credibility and accelerating decision confidence in complex B2B environments. Rick Marchetti, AVP of Strategic Research, Planning & Execution at The Hartford, adds a real-world practitioner perspective on how insights are evaluated, challenged, and ultimately acted upon inside a large enterprise. Together, they explore how credibility is established early, how insights must align with real decision dynamics across functions, and how research teams can reduce hesitation when certainty is limited and stakes are high. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies and tools to ensure their insights are not just informative—but indispensable when it matters most.

In B2B organizations, insights leaders must navigate complex buying ecosystems, disparate stakeholders, and hard-to-reach customer populations—while still delivering measurable business impact. In this candid panel, senior brand-side insights executives share how they are leveraging AI-powered solutions, advanced analytics and smarter activation strategies to meet rising internal expectations and accelerate decision-making. From influencing cross-functional buying committees to translating research into revenue-driving action, panelists will discuss their most vexing challenges, emerging industry shifts and how they are redefining the strategic role of insights within their organizations.

Take a short break to stretch, grab a coffee, and chat with fellow participants. Use this time to exchange ideas, meet new colleagues, and build connections that can spark future collaboration.

AI is rapidly reshaping B2B sales – but adoption is uneven, and skepticism is still high. Get first-hand the eye-opening findings from Boston Consulting Group’s original “qual at scale” study with ~400 B2B sales professionals. Expert researchers unpack where AI is creating real value for sales professionals today, the barriers to maximizing its potential, and What Sellers Want from AI in the future. Along the way, they’ll share lessons learned in how to design research that credibly captures early-stage B2B adoption and drives stakeholder action.

What participants will gain
· A clear read on AI sentiment + trust barriers shaping adoption in B2B sales teams
· Today’s proven AI use cases vs. the “next frontier” sellers are asking for
· Tactics for credible, influential B2B research: engaging hard-to-reach pros, blending qual + quant, and using authentic respondent voice to drive alignment & action

Presented By:
- Kelly Kutas, Senior Director, Center for Customer Insight and Customer Demand & Innovation, Boston Consulting Group
- Sarah Kim, Senior Knowledge Analyst, Boston Consulting Group
- Aneesh Dhawan, CEO & Founder, Knit

We'll have topical conversation starters to choose from to help break the ice and facilitate connections - or chat about your latest favorite streaming binge.

Presented by: Howard Fienberg, SVP, Advocacy, Insights Association

As AI becomes standard in research workflows, B2B researchers must scale faster without sacrificing UX rigor. This session introduces a “Hybrid AI” methodology for developing personas and user journeys—using AI to map complex B2B ecosystems and synthesize niche audience data, while validating outputs through core UX principles. You’ll learn how to combine speed and depth to deliver high-impact insights that maintain human-centered integrity and strengthen stakeholder alignment.

Learning Objectives:
- Integration Framework: Identify where AI can accelerate synthesis within the B2B research lifecycle—without replacing primary data validation.
- Validation Techniques: Apply methods to ground-truth AI-generated personas against qualitative UX standards.
- Stakeholder Influence: Communicate the value of AI-augmented insights as a complement to rigorous research, not a substitute.

Transforming how a large B2B organization communicates isn’t easy—it’s complex, slow, and requires enterprise-wide alignment. Yet many B2B organizations remain stuck in product-focused marketing, even as buyers demand more personalized, human-centered engagement. In this session, we’ll share how one of the world’s largest healthcare services organizations is shifting from transactional marketing to a proactive, persona-driven strategy. Currently in the midst of this transformation, the team has interviewed 106 hard-to-reach employers and brokers, mapped the full B2B decision-making ecosystem, and defined eight distinct personas with unique buying pain points. We’ll discuss how these insights are being activated across Sales, Tech, and Marketing through structured socialization and strategy sessions—along with the 2026 roadmap to pilot and scale personalization enterprise-wide, backed by senior leadership. You’ll walk away with practical takeaways, including:

- How to map influencing voices and pain points across complex B2B buying journeys.   
- Frameworks for turning research into real messaging change across teams.   
- Examples of how persona insights can spark cross-functional collaboration beyond Marketing

Presented by:
Brianna Sylver, Founder, Sylver Consulting
Allison Gormley,  Marketing Orchestration and Insights Senior Manager, The Cigna Group

Recharge for the final sessions and continue to forge valuable connections.

2026 Trends for the Contrarian Marketer is the latest installment from LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, offering a fresh, evidence-based perspective on what truly drives growth. Moving beyond conventional predictions, the series delivers principles designed to help marketers differentiate, gain market share, and accelerate performance. At its core, it addresses a critical question: Which trends will matter most for B2B marketers looking to stand out in 2026 and beyond? Presented in an engaging, interactive format, the Trends series translates complex industry findings into clear, actionable insights, making it both a strategic resource and a source of inspiration for modern B2B marketers.

Presented by:

- Danielle Hydro, Research Lead, B2B Institute, LinkedIn
- Derek Yueh, Partnership Lead, B2B Institute, LinkedIn

Wrap up the day's sessions with a relaxed networking reception. Enjoy light refreshments and drinks as you continue conversations, make new connections, and reflect on key takeaways with peers and speakers.