The event explores the key trends transforming companies and redefining the strategic role of HR. Regional and local experts will discuss changing organizational structures, leadership resilience and ongoing transformation.

The biggest HR challenges in Hungary today are attracting and retaining the right talent in a market shaped by skills shortages, an aging workforce, and rising salary expectations. HR leaders also face growing pressure to manage wage tensions, support succession planning, and respond to different generational needs while keeping employees engaged.

At the same time, digitalization, AI, and automation are forcing companies to rethink roles, build new skills, and invest more in continuous learning. These themes will also be reflected at the event through sessions such as “The Future of Leading Humans and Robots” by Jeremie Brecheisen, managing partner for international markets at Gallup. He will explore how leadership must evolve in a workplace increasingly shaped by both people and technology. Overall, HR is expected to balance business sustainability with employee expectations in an increasingly complex and fast-changing environment.

Two developments will be discussed in depth during parallel workshop sessions at the conference: Pay transparency, and the advent of AI in HR. The workshop on pay transparency, organized by Wolf Theiss, will help participants understand Hungary’s legal landscape around the EU Pay Transparency Directive and prepare for the organizational changes it will require.

Strategic Compliance

It will also show how timely and strategic compliance can go beyond obligation and become a real competitive advantage. An interactive roundtable discussion will follow the workshop, during which representatives from various industries and academia, including Howmet Aerospace, Manpower, Nexon and professors from both ELTE and Covinus universities, will discuss the corporate and social impact of pay transparency.

The AI expert talk, brought by Simonyi & Tóth, will showcase how artificial intelligence and human judgment can work together to shape a more effective, objective, and human-centered HR function. The session will cover topics ranging from recruitment and selection to the EU AI Act, with a focus on responsible and practical AI adoption. A panel discussion closes the AI session, bringing together corporate and academic experts from Baker McKenzie, the Central European University, Hammel & Hochreiter, and Hybridge Consulting.

Since disruption is the norm, the conference will kick off with an outside-of-the-box opening keynote speech by astronomer László Kiss, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He will help put the shifting forces of transformation into perspective, using examples of cosmic change, helping transfer the mindset and curiosity needed for space research into building better systems for humans.

See amcham.hu/events for more details.

This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of April 24, 2026.