Tuesday 20 January 2026
18:00 – 19:00
(All times are local)
Welcome Reception
Hosted by Kevin Sorkin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Global Government Forum
Tuesday 20 January 2026
19:00 – 19:10
Welcome and Introduction
Siobhan Benita, Moderator, Global Government Forum
Tuesday 20 January 2026
19:10 – 19:30
Opening Address
Leo Yip, Head of Civil Service (HCS), Singapore Government
Tuesday 20 January 2026
19:30 – 19:40
Platinum Knowledge Partner Welcome
Ryan Oakes, Global Health and Public Services Industry Practice Chair
Tuesday 20 January 2026
20:30 – 22:00
Leading through global uncertainty
Leadership is key to achieving the key milestones for any public service. However, civil and public service leaders have indicated that there is a need to address what has been called “a crisis of global leadership”.
In this session, public service leaders will discuss the leadership challenges they face, and begin to set out the actions they are taking nationally to address them – and how international collaboration can help.
Leaders will discuss the pressures they face, across areas including economic growth, digital transformation and cybersecurity, and climate change. They will discuss how they understand the uncertainty they face, how they work to plan ahead in complexity, and the extent to which leaders can collaborate to respond to what one leader calls “the enormity of the challenges that we all face”.
This session will examine the key geopolitical and climate change challenges that leaders in government face – and how they, and global institutions, can respond.
Presenter:
- Lord Gus O’Donnell, Former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, United Kingdom
Discussions take place over dinner and the session ends at 22:00
Tuesday 20 January 2026
22:00
End of discussions for day one
Wednesday 21 January 2026
09:00 – 10:30
(All times are local)
Driving improved performance management in government
Governments around the world are focused on improving performance management in government. In the UK, the government has set out plans to implement improvement plans to drive better performance, while in the US, the Office of Personnel Management has set out plans to reform federal performance management with the aim to ensure federal employees are “held to the highest standards of performance and accountability”.
This session will look at how civil services around the world have implemented – and improved – civil service performance. We will discuss how to define the key performance metrics for civil servants in an age of AI, and look at the way that public service leaders can ensure that performance management is consistent across the entire organisation. We will also discuss how civil services can manage poor performance and the ways that civil servants can move on poor performers.
Including presentations and discussion
Presenters:
- Ms Tan Gee Keow, Permanent Secretary, Public Service Division, Singapore
- Marie-Chantal Girard, President, Public Service Commission, Canada
Session followed by refreshment break
Wednesday 21 January 2026
11:00 – 12:30
Streamlining government policy development to quicken delivery
Governments around the world are all looking to quicken how government works to be able to deliver more effectively.
However, delivering this change requires changing how policy is developed to make sure that systems are being built that are agile and able to make the most of technology in delivery of government services.
This session will look at how the government can rewire the work of policymaking to quicken delivery and ensure that the work of government can match the pace of developments in the modern world.
Including presentations and discussion
Presenters:
- Simone Morandi, Senior Managing Director, SEA, Greater China, India and ANZ Lead, Accenture Song
- Ben King, Secretary, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, New Zealand
- Didi Esther Walson-Jack, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Nigeria
Session followed by lunch
Supported by…
Wednesday 21 January 2026
13:30 – 15:00
Boosting government resilience
Boosting resilience is vital to building a robust public sector. Resilience means learning to recognise and manage risks, building more robust and secure systems, and understanding how to measure societal resilience across suppliers to government and more broadly.
This resilience is vital to the delivery of government, as robust services are needed to deliver modern public services.
Priorities for digital resilience are the need to understand the threats and weak points in their system; know how to seek help if they face problems; learn how to adopt their choices to become more resilient; and recover when things go wrong.
In this session, public service leaders will discuss how they can understand the resilience of the public services. The session will discuss how they can measure resilience – and the resilience thinking needed to make government more responsive to the challenges that have been identified throughout the summit.
Including presentations and discussion
Presenters:
- Keit Kasemets, Secretary of State, Estonia
- Catherine Little CB, Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service and Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office, United Kingdom
Session followed by refreshment break
Wednesday 21 January 2026
15:30 – 17:00
Empowering leadership literacy on tech and AI
AI is everywhere in the work of government – but sometimes it is not well understood by the leaders who are ultimately responsible for its use and impact on government.
Beyond technical skills, leaders need to drive a cultural shift and understanding of project management, and how to tie transformation into wider organisational visions.
This session will share insights on how leaders can use AI tools themselves. This session will discuss AI can be embedded in the organisation’s missions, and how AI agents can be effectively embedded in civil service teams.
Including presentations and discussion
Presenters:
- Dr Subho Banerjee, Deputy Commissioner, Australian Public Service Commission
- Joseph Leong, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Digital Development and Information; and Permanent Secretary (Smart Nation)(Cybersecurity), Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore
Wednesday 21 January 2026
17:00 – 18:30
Summary and Conclusion, followed by a networking reception
Thursday 22 January 2026
09:00 – 13:30
Visits programme
A series of learning journeys where delegates will undertake a programme of visits to see, in action, cutting edge public services.