The World Business Forum returns to New York on November 4 and 5, 2026, bringing 2,500 senior leaders to the Javits Center for two days of talks on leadership, strategy, and the changes reshaping large organizations.
Organized by WOBI, this year’s New York forum runs under the theme Transcend: Building Limitless Organizations. The premise, as the organizers frame it, is that resilience is no longer enough on its own. Companies that have spent the past few years absorbing shocks, from supply disruptions to rapid shifts in technology, are now being asked to build structures that can grow beyond those pressures rather than simply withstand them.
That framing has been the forum’s draw for more than two decades. Since 2004, the World Business Forum has positioned itself as a meeting point for senior executives looking for a competitive edge, curating business thinkers to address the friction points that hold organizations back. The New York edition remains its flagship stop in the United States, staged this year in the Javits Center’s convention halls in Manhattan.
The 2026 lineup reflects the mix the forum is known for, pairing established management authors with former chief executives and specialists in artificial intelligence. Jim Collins, widely regarded as one of the most influential management thinkers of his generation, opens the first day with a session on leadership. He is followed by Renée Mauborgne, an INSEAD Distinguished Fellow and co-author of Blue Ocean Strategy, on growth strategy, and by psychologist Daniel Goleman, a pioneer of emotional intelligence research, on the human side of leading teams.
The first day also includes Jennifer Colosimo on high-performance teams and Liz Wiseman, the leadership expert and bestselling author of Multipliers, on talent.
The second day, on Thursday, November 5, turns more directly to change and technology. Malcolm Gladwell leads the morning with a session on leading change, followed by Zack Kass, former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI, on AI strategy. In the afternoon, Indra Nooyi, the transformational former chief executive of PepsiCo, speaks on business transformation, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, founder and chief executive of 01.AI and former President of Google China, addresses AI transformation, and Omar Johnson, a marketing executive formerly with Beats by Dre and Apple, closes the program on brand strategy.
The prominence of artificial intelligence in the program, with two dedicated sessions and references across the leadership talks, mirrors where many large employers are spending in 2026. For attendees, the value is less in any single prediction than in hearing operators, authors, and investors describe the same shift from different seats inside the economy.
A New York ticket also extends beyond the two days in the room. Pass holders receive on-demand access to World Business Forum events taking place in other cities globally, expanding the program from the New York speakers to more than 30 world-class speakers across the 2026 tour, along with a year of access to WOBI’s learning platform and its library of more than 300 hours of masterclasses and courses. The New York program also qualifies for up to 10 ATD recertification points.
For senior teams, that structure has turned the forum into something closer to a strategic offsite than a conventional conference, a place to align on a shared language for the year ahead before returning to separate markets and divisions.
The World Business Forum New York 2026 runs November 4 to 5, 2026, at the Javits Center in New York. Registration and the full agenda are available through WOBI’s official site.
