Tal­entor Glob­al Sum­mit 2026: Sail­ing the Balt­ic from Stock­holm to Helsinki

Conference rooms with an ocean view are hard to come by in landlocked Switzerland. That made the 360-degree view of the Baltic Sea at this year's Talentor Global Summit all the more impressive. The summit took place on a cruise ship, with around 60 partners from 25 countries sailing from Stockholm to Helsinki. Denise Stuker and Adriana Qamar came aboard for Coopers and Coopers Executive. Day one was all about AI, and day two was all about sales.

epunkt, our partner firm in Austria, used its keynote to show how to implement AI successfully, from evaluation all the way to rollout, and did not shy away from sharing honest lessons learned. Tech case studies from across the network and a prompting hackathon made it clear how quickly AI is moving from an interesting topic to an everyday part of executive search.

Under this title, Denise shared how we built the Coopers Executive brand and what it takes to evolve from a supplier into a trusted advisor. The questions and conversations that followed showed that this shift is on the minds of colleagues in other countries as well.

The real value of the Talentor network shows in the searches we work on together. Right now, for example, partner firms in India, Sweden, and Germany are joining forces to recruit new managing directors for a pharmaceutical company. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands are teaming up to fill a chief operating officer position for a technology manufacturer.

For companies in Switzerland, this means that filling a leadership role abroad with Coopers Executive does not mean giving up our guidance throughout the recruiting process. Thanks to Talentor, companies get the best of both worlds: the trusted working relationship with us and the local market expertise of partner firms we know personally.

For Adriana, this was her first Talentor summit. She made connections around the world right away and saw firsthand that the close relationships in this network are not built only in workshops, but above all in the moments in between. That was most evident in the evening: The Baltic Sea stayed calm, but the Talentor dance floor did not.

A heartfelt thank-you to Talentor International for organizing the event on land and at sea, and to Thomas Lindquist and Capus AB (Talentor Sweden) for their hospitality.

The next summit will take place in Madrid, and we are already looking forward to it.