After three long years, we’re thrilled to welcome back our customers, partners, and others in our community back to Workday Rising Europe. Read on to find out what happened as we opened our doors on day one of our marquee customer event in Stockholm.
My my, just how much we’ve missed gathering in person as a community! Workday Rising Europe is back. After three long years of connecting online via digital-only experiences, our signature customer event returns in person to Europe — and better than ever before. Over the next three days we’ll be joined by more than 2,600 customers, partners and other members of our community at Stockholmsmässan in Stockholm, Sweden. Here’s how day one came together.
Stockholmsmässan is a venue well accustomed to star quality, so it’s only right that Workday Rising Europe should return with an international superstar on the bill. On Tuesday evening, and with energy levels skyrocketing, our Welcome Keynote featured Björn Ulvaeus, the legendary Swedish singer and member of the musical group ABBA, to kick off a week of fun and celebration.
The keynote’s central theme was “changemakers,” and that is not a subject lost on Ulvaeus and his bandmates. In his fireside chat with the music journalist, presenter and DJ Goldierocks, Ulvaeus discussed how ABBA has pioneered and innovated since the 1970s to change with the times. The ABBA Voyage experience is the band’s latest inception, blurring the lines between the physical and digital worlds, bringing the magic of ABBA to life using motion capture technology.
Before Ulvaeus took to the stage, our Chief Marketing Officer Christine Cefalo told in-person attendees why the theme “Changemakers” was chosen for the Workday Rising Europe event.
“Over the last few years our customers looked at challenges as opportunities to innovate, and they made things better than they were before,” Cefalo said. “It became clear that our customers weren’t just going through change, they were making it, and it was incredible to see. So this week we’ll not only celebrate Changemakers, we’ll also help our customers continue to drive change in their organisations.”
Cefalo highlighted how the Workday community is now represented by more than 60 million workers, and re-emphasised how Workday is investing $1 million in organisations that reskill people for in-demand jobs in a low carbon economy.
“Over the last few years our customers looked at challenges as opportunities to innovate, and they made things better than they were before,”
Christine Cefalo
Chief Marketing Officer
Workday
Earlier in the day, executives came together from many of our customer and prospective customer companies, including CEOs, CFOs, CHROs, and CIOs. The event was hosted at the stunning Fotografiska museum set in a beautiful quayside spot in Stockholm.
Attendees were able to connect with world-class peers and hear from a curated line-up of prominent leaders in business and beyond, including Steven Bartlett, British entrepreneur and television personality, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the 26th Prime Minister of Denmark, and Natasha Kaplinsky (OBE), an English newsreader, TV presenter, and journalist.
Stephen Bartlett, host of “The Diary of a CEO” podcast, which regularly attracts over 10 million listeners each month, spoke of the importance of purpose. “You actually have to reverse engineer your company culture from what your company set out to achieve in the world…your company culture shouldn't be plucked from thin air, it should be ingrained in your mission and what you're trying to achieve,” Bartlett said.
Finally, let’s take a look at our news announcements from Tuesday:
There is so much more to come, including Wednesday morning’s Innovation Keynote! To learn more, be sure to read our Workday Rising Europe Daily report and check back for more recaps this week on the Workday Blog.
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