The European AI Conference 2026

The European AI Conference 2026 is a highly curated event, gathering 300 pre-approved leaders of Europe's AI Ecosystem for a full day of discussion, learning & networking.

A Highly Curated Audience

To ensure the highest quality of discussion, attendance will be strictly limited to:

80 AI Builders & Tech Leaders

80 Product Management Leaders

60 Enterprise AI Strategy Leaders

30 European Startup Hub Leaders

50 VCs & Irish AI Startups (chosen from 500 applications; to be approved one month before the event)

Agenda (Link)

Confirmed Panellists:

Brian McGeough, Chief Information Officer, Creditsafe

Manuela Locarno Ajayi, SVP and Board Member, TomTom

Philipp Nieland, Co-Founder, Nikulipe; Co-Founder, PPRO

Dave Fleming, Founder, Stealth

Product Track Roundtable Moderators:

Alan Clarke, Chief of Product and Trading, Flutter

Dervilla Mullan, VP of Product, Sprout Social

Fionn Delahunty, Head of Product, Synthflow AI

Kevin Stembridge, Head of Strategy, Körber Pharma

Gus Iwanaga, VP of Product - Commerce, commercetools

Jeferson Zanim, Chief Product Officer, Mater Private Network

Somnath Biswas, Head of AI Products, The AA

Ryan Jude Soosayraj, VP, Mindset AI; Ex-Product Leader at Cognizant, Indeed & Workshare

Florence Jumpp, Chief Product Officer, Bite

Mark Brophy, AI Product Leader; Ex-Product Leader at Genesys, TripAdvisor and Ding

Haidee McMahon, CPO | Head of Labs, EIDA Solutions

John Martin, Chief Product Officer, Flagstone

Startup Track Roundtable Moderators:

Mary Rodgers, CEO, Portershed

Martina Fitzgerald, CEO, Scale Ireland

Frank Brennan, CEO, Republic of Work

Niamh Sterling, All-Island Director, HBAN

Barry Brennan, Venture Partner, Elkstone

Faye Walsh Drouillard, Founder & Managing Partner, WakeUp Capital

Eric Risser, CTO & Co-Founder, Shepherd

Werner Schmidt, CEO & Co-Founder, Lative

Amy Neale, General Partner, Delta Partners VC

Eamon Curtin, Director Start-Ups & Entrepreneurship / IGNITE Programme Director, University College Cork

AI Builder Track Roundtable Moderators:

Alan Smeaton, Professor of Computing, Dublin City University

Siddhant Mohapatra, Head of Global Data & Analytics - AI, Trust & Safety, Ads, Vendor Management, Legal, Ops, Pinterest

Emanuele Sparvoli, Senior Director of IT, Fin

Nitin Sinha, Director, Principal AI Architect - Forward Deployed Engineering - Applied AI, Service Now

Barry Duffy, VP Digital & Data, FINEOS

Shay Weiss, Director of Engineering & AI Transformation, Walgreens Boots Alliance

Tiago Nascimento, Head of IT Delivery, HCLTech

Kevin Collins, Founder, echofold

Andrea Farber, VP, Software & Data Engineering | Financial Crime Solutions, Mastercard

Clive Foley, Director of AI engineering, Marsh McLennan Agency

Enterprise AI Strategy Track Roundtable Moderators:

Grainne Maycock, Chief Revenue Officer, Acolad Group

Denis Vukosav, VP of Technology - AI Strategy & Transformation, State Street

Mina Henein, Ph. D., VP of Artificial Intelligence at The Citco Group

Stanislava Trajlov, Head of Data, Vhi

Niall Byrne, VP Autonomous Networks, Amdocs

Manuela Locarno Ajayi, SVP and Board Member, TomTom

Satyanarayana Vuppala, Head of Gen AI Security, Dun & Bradstreet

European Startup Hub Track Roundtable Moderators:

Liam Cronin, Director of Innovation, University College Dublin

Jean Arnaud, Director of AI Programmes, ESMT Berlin

Niamh Collins, Centre Director, The Guinness Enterprise Centre

Eoghan Powell, Innovation Centre Director, WorkIQ

Ronan Cunningham, Director, DCU:Innovate

Greg De Temmerman, PhD., Managing Director, Deeptech & Ecosystem, Techleap

Karsten Deppert, Co-Founder, E-commerce Park of Scandinavia

Gil Azevedo, Executive Director,  Unicorn Factory Lisboa

Roundtable Discussion Topics

To ensure conversations tackle the most pressing, real-time challenges in the industry, our roundtables are uniquely community-driven. Upon registering, attendees have the exclusive opportunity to propose and moderate a discussion topic within their specific peer group.

Expect dynamic, peer-matched deep dives across our five core tracks:

AI Builders & Tech Leaders: Technical discussions on implementation, coding, infrastructure & deployment, alongside strategic sessions on architecture, team building & scaling.

Enterprise AI Strategy Leaders: High-level discussions on enterprise ROI, compliance, risk & internal AI transformation.

Product Management: Focused conversations on AI product strategy, roadmapping & defining success metrics.

Irish AI Startups: Dedicated sessions on the local fundraising landscape, strategic partnerships & building defensible moats.

European Startup Hubs: Conversations on how accelerators, incubators, and other ecosystem organisations must adapt to the AI age.

About Startup Network Europe

Startup Network Europe is an Irish Company that has hosted over 300 Corporate, Mid-Market & Startup Conferences across 50 European Cities since 2019. Our most notable events include:

The Dublin AI Conference 2026 (evening event)

The European Chief Product Officer Conference 2026 (full-day event)

The London AI Startup Conference 2025 (full-day event at Google’s London HQ)

The European AI Conference 2024 (full-day event at Google’s EMEA HQ)

The London Chief Product Officer Conference 2023 (evening event)

The European Startup Conference 2022 (speakers included Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak)

Previous Speakers at Startup Network Europe events

Corporate Leaders

Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder, Apple

Benjamin Faes, CEO, RWS Group

Jörg Koletzki, Chief Information Officer, AerCap

Nathalie Roos, CEO, Lipton Teas and Infusions

Brian McGeough, Chief Information Officer, Creditsafe

Dr. Ingo Stürmer, CTO, Volvo Autonomous Solutions

Peter Wanda, CDAO Shared Services, Zurich Insurance

Katarzyna Stoltmann, Head of Data Science & AI, AstraZeneca

Louise Dennehy, Chief Information Officer, Central Bank of Ireland

Susie O'Donoghue, Global Head of Data & AI, William Grant & Sons

Political & Ecosystem Leaders

Minister Emer Higgins T.D.

Roxanne Varza, Director, STATION F

Lord Mayor of Dublin Councillor Ray McAdam

Gerard de Graaf, EU Ambassador to Silicon Valley

Brigitte Baumann Gervais, President Emeritus, EBAN

Neeta Patel CBE, CEO, The Centre for Entrepreneurs

Gilles Babinet, Co-Chair, The National Digital Council of France

Markus Blume, Bavarian Minister of Sciences and the Arts, Member of the Bavarian State Parliament

Unicorn Founders

Sabeer Bhatia, Co-Founder, Hotmail

Joel Perlman, Co-Founder, OakNorth Bank

Razvan Ranca, Co-Founder & CTO, Tractable

Dmitry Gurski, CEO & Co-Founder, Flo Health

James Eddison, Co-Founder, Octopus Energy

Spenser Skates, Co-Founder & CEO, Amplitude

Jan Goetz, Co-Founder, IQM Quantum Computers

Product Leaders

Rhiannon White, Chief Product Officer, Clue

Marija Nakevska, Chief Product Officer, Pleo

Piero Sierra, Chief Product Officer, Skyscanner

James Colgan, Chief Product Officer, Spendesk

Katya Denike, Chief Product Officer, Holland & Barrett

Sponsorship Enquiries

[email protected]

https://europeanaiconference.com/partners/