Talent Management

AI is changing how engineering teams work. Faster iteration. More output. Less time spent on the basics. But turning that speed into real delivery isn’t straightforward. At this Future Form session, we’re looking at what it actually takes to move from faster development to shipping real value. Speakers: **Brian Scanlan\, Senior Principal Engineer \| Intercom** Brian will share how they’re increasing engineering throughput using AI inside a large SaaS codebase. What’s improved, where it’s worked best, and the practical challenges that come with scaling it beyond demos. **Luca Lanziani\, Head of DevOps & Platform Engineering \| Nearform** Luca will explore what happens around the code. Because when development speeds up, the constraints shift. Platform, delivery pipelines, team structures. The organisations that benefit are the ones that adapt. Join us for pizza, drinks, and practical insights of where AI can genuinely accelerate delivery, and what needs to change to make that happen. **If you’re working hands-on with AI tools or responsible for how software gets delivered, this session is for you.**

**Looking for a business networking event in London?** Join us in Canary Wharf to connect with **founders, entrepreneurs, and professionals across business, finance and tech**. Event by tech startup **GMax Card** and **Getshop Today**. **What to Expect** A focused mix of founders, business owners, and professionals across tech and finance — the kind of room that feels both high-quality and easy to be in. The setting is lively but designed for real conversations, with space to connect naturally rather than forced networking. Our hosts are available from the start to help with introductions if needed. **Meet and Connect with:** * Startup founders & entrepreneurs * IT, tech & product professionals * Business owners & consultants * Finance, banking & investment specialists * International professionals based in London **How the Evening Runs** 18:30 – Arrival & welcome 19:00 – Optional introductions 19:30 – Open networking 21:30 – Close **Venue: Market Halls, Canary Wharf** Located in the heart of Canary Wharf, **Market Halls Canary Wharf** offers a lively yet polished setting for professional networking. Our event will take place in the **upper floor bar area**, ideal for natural business conversations. The venue is easily accessible via the **Elizabeth line**, with quick connections from both the City and Central London. **Entry & GMax Cards** Free RSVP: Includes full access to the networking event Upgrade your networking: Paid tickets include a contactless GMax Card (when available) **Dress Code:** Smart casual. As this is a business networking event, we recommend dressing as you would for a client or professional meeting. ⚙️ **Co-organised by tech startups:** * [GMax Card - Digital and contactless business cards](http://www.gmaxcard.com/) designed for modern networking. * [Ciitab - AI-powered LinkedIn networking tool](http://www.ciitab.com/) to help you build and nurture professional connections at scale. * [Getshop Today - Create your own independent online store on a UK-built platform](http://www.getshop.today/), so you’re not dependent solely on global marketplaces like Amazon or eBay. **Important Details:** * Age & ID: 18+. ID may be required for alcohol purchases. * Photos & Video: Filming and photography by [CineEye - video production and commercial photography in London](http://www.cineeye.co.uk/). Images may be used for promotion - inform organisers on arrival if you do not consent. * Dress Code: Business/Smart. Please see above for more info. * Liability: Attendance is at your own risk. Organisers and venue accept no responsibility for loss, injury, or damage to you or your property. **Register Early!** We look forward to welcoming you - register early and [join this Meetup group](https://www.meetup.com/london-entrepreneur-startup-network-tech-business-ecommerce/) or [follow us on Linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/company/gmax-card) for future event alerts.

Dive into the world of film at our event hosted by the London Film Circle! Join us for an exclusive evening where we celebrate the magic of film, television production, and screenwriting in the heart of London. Whether you are a film enthusiast, aspiring artist, writer, or simply love watching movies, this event is for you. Engage in conversations with industry professionals, discover new talents, and connect with like-minded individuals who share a passion for the art of storytelling. Explore the creative process through discussions on film and video production, comedy in TV shows, and the latest trends in the film industry. Whether you are an actor, director, producer, agent, sound engineer, editor, or simply a film buff, this event is a must-attend. Unleash your creativity, exchange ideas, and be inspired by the vibrant community of artists and musicians within the London Cine Circle. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of an unforgettable cinematic experience!

**Looking for a business networking event in London for finance, banking, fintech** \- while also connecting with founders\, tech professionals and the wider business ecosystem? Join us in Canary Wharf for a **founder-led networking evening** co-organised by London tech startups **GMax Card** and **Ciitab**. **What to Expect** * Connect with professionals in **finance, FinTech, investment banking, B2B and tech** * Build valuable business relationships across the **finance, business and startup ecosystem** * Exchange ideas, spot trends, and uncover opportunities * A lightly structured event - not a random mingle, not an overcrowded conference An atmosphere that feels **high-quality yet relaxed**, with space for real conversations. Hosts are there from the start to help with introductions. **Who You’ll Meet** * Finance, banking & investment professionals * FinTech & B2B specialists * Startup founders & entrepreneurs * Business owners & leaders * Tech, product & IT professionals * International professionals on a business trip to London **How the Evening Runs** **18:30** \- Arrival **19:00** \- Short introductions **19:30** \- Open networking **21:30** – Close Hosts are there from the start to help with introductions. **Venue: Market Halls, Canary Wharf** Located in the heart of Canary Wharf, **Market Halls Canary Wharf** offers a lively yet polished setting for professional networking. Our event will take place in the **upper floor bar area**, ideal for natural business conversations. The venue is easily accessible via the **Elizabeth line**, with quick connections from both the City and Central London. **Entry & GMax Cards** * **Free RSVP**: Event access * **Paid ticket (when available)**: Includes a contactless **GMax Card** (ask host to claim; not distributed automatically) **Dress Code** Business / smart casual **Important Info** * 18+ (ID may be required) * Photos/video by CineEye Audiovisual Production Studio (inform us if you prefer not to appear) * Attendance is at your own risk. Organisers and venue are not liable for any injury, loss, or damage. **Limited spots - register early!**

Join us on Wednesday 6th May for our next AI Exchange event, hosted by AWS at their Holborn HQ. Here's what's on the agenda: **[WeBuild-AI](https://www.webuild-ai.com/)** are making the case that bigger isn't always better. Their talk breaks down how small language models, through distillation, fine tuning and low rank adaptation, can deliver the same results as larger models, at a fraction of the cost. **[Nova Intelligence](https://www.novaintelligence.com/)** are tackling a problem that doesn't get talked about enough, most AI agents simply weren't built to work with enterprise software like SAP. Their talk discusses how they have solved that, and what it looks like when AI works as well in the enterprise world as it does everywhere else. **[AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/)** are tackling the question underneath all the others, not how to use AI, but what it's doing to the human mind. Their talk explores how cognition is shifting, which human traits become more valuable as AI takes on complexity, and what genuine human AI partnership actually looks like. As always, doors open at 6:30pm and talks start at 7pm sharp. We have a tight capacity for this event, so please RSVP as soon as you can to secure your space. **Agenda:** **[Adel Rahimi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelr/) @ [WeBuild-AI](https://www.webuild-ai.com/)** "**Small Language Models: Practical AI for the Real World"** Large language models have dominated the AI conversation, but a quieter revolution is underway. In this talk, we'll explore the rise of small language models and why they matter now more than ever, from reduced infrastructure costs to data sovereignty and the ability to run AI on-premise or at the edge. We'll dive into the techniques that make small models punch above their weight, including distillation, quantisation, fine-tuning and low-rank adaptation. Whether you're navigating regulatory constraints, working with limited compute, or simply looking for a more practical path to production AI, this session will give you the tools to think smaller and smarter. Bio: Adel is a Principal Engineer at Webuild-AI. He has a decade of experience in building and scaling AI and ML solutions at different industries and different company sizes, ranging from series A to unicorns and more recently he was a Sr. AI Engineering Manager at Procter & Gamble. He has also published several research papers in the areas of AI Explainability and NLP and is an advocate of safe and explainable AI. **[Marcello Urbani](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcello-urbani-4730b75/?skipRedirect=true) @ [Nova Intelligence](https://www.novaintelligence.com/)** "**Bringing Agentic AI to the SAP Ecosystem"** Most enterprise software wasn't built with AI agents in mind — and mainstream agents weren't built for enterprise software. SAP is the sharpest example: code lives in the system, not a filesystem, and git-based workflows simply don't apply. Nova closes that gap — an agentic assistant that speaks SAP natively. This talk covers the mismatch problem, how we designed Nova around SAP's environment, and what it looks like when an AI agent finally works as well on SAP as it does on mainstream systems. Bio: Marcello is a software engineer with over two decades in the SAP ecosystem, most of them building DevOps tooling at Basis Technologies. Last year he joined Nova Intelligence to focus on AI applied to SAP systems. An active open source contributor, he is best known for abapfs, a VS Code plugin that enables ABAP development directly in the editor. **[Elliott Almeida](https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliott-almeida/) @ [AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/)** **"The Cognitive Partnership: How AI is Reshaping Human Intelligence"** This session explores the profound psychological transformation at the intersection of human cognition and artificial intelligence. Moving beyond tactical implementation, we examine how AI is fundamentally altering our cognitive identity and which human psychological profiles naturally thrive in AI collaboration. Drawing on the "Missing Middle" philosophy and the tension between cognitive offloading and scaffolding, we investigate the paradox of augmentation: as AI handles increasingly complex cognitive tasks, what uniquely human capacities become more valuable? We hope to see you there for another great AI filled evening! **Sponsors...** The AI Exchange is brought to you in partnership with[ LinuxRecruit](https://www.linuxrecruit.co.uk/) and[ AWS.](https://aws.amazon.com/) LinuxRecruit is building the next wave of Tech Unicorns in Europe. Whether you're hiring or exploring your next opportunity, [get in touch](https://www.linuxrecruit.co.uk/jobs). The types of roles we have currently are across Founding Engineers, Engineers across Product, Software, AI/ML, Data and Platform Infrastructure/DevOps.

Aktualisierung: Wegen des kalten Wetters wir treffen uns im Pub Queen's Head (nicht im Biergarten). Der Pub befindet sich nicht weit weg von den U-Bahn Stationen Hammersmith und Kensington Olympia entfernt. Deutschprachige jeder Stufe herzlich willkommen. \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- Please note that you're attending the event at your own risk. The event organiser won't accept any risk or liability at this event.

As official AI Community Partner for the **Digital Marketing World forum,** we (AI Professionals Network) are pleased to offer **discounted and complimentary tickets for the upcoming event at Excel in London on 6-7 May 2026.** This is a prestigious London event focused on AI and Digital Marketing. Join **3,000+ CMOs, marketing directors and senior leaders** for two days of insight, innovation, and networking covering **• AI, Agentic & Hyper Personalisation** **• Digital Transformation & Leadership Strategy** **• Content Video & StoryTelling Marketing** **• Influencer & Creator Economy** **\* Omnichannel Marketing and more** For full details on the event: [https://www.digitalmarketing-conference.com/global](https://www.digitalmarketing-conference.com/global) **To register for your special tickets visit: [https://aiprofessionals.network/dmwf26](https://aiprofessionals.network/dmwf26)** Note: this event is also being promoted by other groups.

**Dear RPBO members,** We hope we find you well. We are thrilled to bring to your attention the third-party event organised by Future Romania, which is set to arrive in **London** between 8 and 10 May 2026. Over three intensive days, participants interested in Romanian public sector leadership will engage in high-level lectures, practical workshops, crisis simulations, public speaking training, and policy debates, led by top experts and international faculty. The program is completely free for selected candidates. If you are a young leader aged 18–32 or 33+ with potential and ambition to shape Romania’s future, don’t miss this opportunity! Registrations: [https://inscrieri.futureromania.ro/formular](https://inscrieri.futureromania.ro/formular) More info about Future Romania: https://futureromania.ro/en/

*❗️Event Announcement.* 🎟️ **Register via** [Luma](https://luma.com/5hfjgv9b) — we do not accept sign-ups through Meetup. 📅 **7th May** · Doors 6:00 PM, Start 6:30 PM **How Many SKILL. md Files Is a Profession?** *Discovering accounting's patterns from the corrections of human experts* **🎤***Nikolay Turusin, Data Science Lead · Anna Money* A profession decomposes into a finite library of procedural patterns — smaller than you'd expect. And you don't find them by interviewing experts. You find them by watching where experts correct the system. Nikolay is building a production UK Corporation Tax engine on GenAI. This is his field report: what the right unit of work looks like inside an LLM system, why this kind of automation suddenly becomes tractable, and what expert-bounded self-improvement means when you're shipping to real users. Candid talk. Open discussion. Bring questions.

Join fellow product people at **The Product Group London** on **Thu 7th May** for an evening of learning, sharing and networking. **Topic of the Night: Product Today: Surviving & Succeeding** Succeeding (or even surviving) in product management today, what does it take? On the night we’ll explore the current state of the industry and what’s required to succeed (and/or survive) now and in the future. Topics will include what’s changing about the role, what’s staying the same and what’s unknown? How is AI, economic uncertainty, changing company dynamics and the selective job market impacting the role? How do you succeed (or survive) today and in the near future incl. what to focus on and which skills to optimize for? **Featured Guest: David Eason, Principal Product Manager, Trainline** David is a Principal Product Manager at Trainline, where he has spent 7 years building and scaling customer-facing products. He currently leads monitisation initiatives, focused on driving meaningful revenue growth by expanding the core Trainline proposition. As a product generalist, David has delivered across all parts of Trainline’s web and app products in B2B and B2B2C spaces. His work has covered the full product lifecycle incl. launching new AI-powered tools in the product. Before joining Trainline, David worked at Ford, where he focused on experimental product development and collaborated with leading London-based software and design agencies. **About The Product Group London** The Product Group London is a monthly meetup designed to bring product people of all levels together for topical discussions, as a group and with our guest speakers. With attendees from startups to large enterprises, there is no shortage of opportunities to network and make new connections. And whilst the focus is on product management, we welcome product designers and engineers to join for some friendly and lively discussions. **A word about our sponsor and host, BrainStation** [BrainStation](https://brainstation.io/london) is a global leader in digital skills training, empowering businesses and brands to succeed in the digital age. Established in 2012, BrainStation has worked with over 500 instructors from the most innovative companies, developing cutting-edge, real-world digital education that has empowered professionals and some of the largest corporations in the world.

Join us on May 7th from **6:00pm** for a Data Streaming meetup hosted by **[Fresha](https://www.fresha.com/)**! 📍**Venue:** **Fresha** The Tower, 207 Old Street London, EC1V 9NR 7th Floor **PLEASE bring your PHOTO ID and REGISTER with your First and Last Name, Email. Thanks!** **DOORS CLOSE AT 7PM FOR SECURITY.** 🗓 **Agenda:** * 6:00pm – 6:30pm: Food/Drinks and Networking * 6:30pm - 7:00pm: Anton Borisov, Principal Data Engineer, Fresha & Nicoleta Lazar, Sr. Data Engineer, Fresha * 7:00pm - 7:30pm: Olena Kutsenko, Staff Developer Advocate, Confluent * 7:30pm - 8:00pm: Tom Scott, Founder & CEO, Streambased * 8:00pm - 9:00pm: Q&A Networking 💡**Speaker One:** Anton Borisov, Principal Data Engineer, Fresha & Nicoleta Lazar, Sr. Data Engineer, Fresha **Title of Talk:** Apache Fluss: Streaming Storage for Real-Time Analytics **Abstract:** Apache Flink has largely solved streaming computation, but state management remains a bottleneck. Operator state—often backed by RocksDB—is scoped to individual jobs, making it hard to share state across pipelines without re-emitting it through systems like Apache Kafka. This leads to expensive joins and added operational complexity. Apache Fluss (incubating) addresses this by externalizing state into a streaming storage layer backed by S3. Its PrimaryKey tables act as upsertable key-value stores with replicated changelogs, enabling shared state tables accessible from Flink, Spark, or native clients. With Flink 2.1’s Delta Join, both sides of a join can perform lookups against Fluss-managed indexes—eliminating the need for large join state altogether. In this talk, we’ll introduce Fluss, show key use cases like CDC enrichment and bilateral joins, and share lessons from running it in production on EKS —including the trade-offs and rough edges we encountered. 💡**Speaker Two:** Olena Kutsenko, Staff Developer Advocate, Confluent **Title of Talk:** The journey of a record from Kafka topic to analytics table **Abstract:** Modern data platforms increasingly rely on streaming systems like Apache Kafka as the source of truth—but turning event streams into reliable, queryable analytics tables is far from trivial. This talk explores what really has to happen when moving data from a Kafka topic into an Apache Iceberg table. Beyond simple ingestion, we will walk through the essential steps: schema evolution, data normalization, partitioning, exactly-once guarantees, late-arriving events, and table maintenance. Using Confluent Tableflow as one concrete example, we will examine how these challenges can be addressed in practice. Along the way, we will compare alternative approaches—such as Kafka Connect sinks, stream processing pipelines, and custom ingestion frameworks—to highlight trade-offs in correctness, latency, and operational complexity. The goal is not to promote a single solution, but to provide a mental model for designing robust streaming-to-lakehouse pipelines, helping you understand what matters regardless of the tooling you choose. **Bio:** Olena is a Staff Developer Advocate at Confluent and a recognized expert in data streaming and analytics. With two decades of experience in software engineering, she has built mission-critical applications, led high-performing teams, and driven large-scale technology adoption at industry leaders like Nokia, HERE Technologies, AWS, and Aiven. A passionate advocate for real-time data processing and AI-driven applications, Olena empowers developers and organizations to use the power of streaming data. She is an AWS Community Builder, a dedicated mentor, and a volunteer instructor at a nonprofit tech school, helping to shape the next generation of engineers. As an international speaker and thought leader, Olena regularly presents at top global conferences, sharing deep technical insights and hands-on expertise. Whether through her talks, workshops, or content, she is committed to making complex technologies accessible and inspiring innovation in the developer community. 💡**Speaker Three:** Tom Scott, Founder & CEO, Streambased **Title of Talk:** *Infinite Kafka? Rethinking Retention with Iceberg* **Abstract:** Apache Kafka is designed for high-throughput, low-latency event streaming, not cost-efficient long-term storage. Yet we constantly see cases like event sourcing, audit/compliance, and large-scale reprocessing forcing that pattern onto it. As retention increases, costs grow linearly to support edge cases, one-time runs, and “checkbox” use cases. Can Iceberg help here? In this talk, Tom explores a hybrid architecture that separates hot and cold data while preserving Kafka’s log semantics. Using a combination of Kafka and Apache Iceberg, he demonstrates how to extend Kafka into low-cost object storage, enabling effectively unlimited retention without sacrificing performance or access patterns. The result is a unified log that supports both real-time processing and long-term replay, removing the traditional trade-off between cost and capability in Kafka-based systems. **Bio:** Long-time enthusiast of Kafka and all things data integration, Tom has more than 15 years of experience in innovative and efficient ways to store, query, and move data. Tom is currently CEO at Streambased, a company focused on unifying operational and analytical data estates into a single, consistent, and efficient data layer. \*\*\* If you are interested in hosting/speaking at a meetup, please email community@confluent.io

**Building a great product is one thing—building momentum behind it is another.** Join **Senior Product Manager Adam Solaiman** and **User Experience Manager Tyson Smith** for a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to turn complex ideas into scalable products inside large organizations. In this session, they’ll share how teams move from ambiguity to execution—navigating organizational complexity, aligning stakeholders, and continuously evolving products after launch. You’ll walk away with insights on how to: * Build and sustain momentum across teams * Adapt to changing priorities without losing direction * Scale products thoughtfully in complex environments Whether you're driving a new initiative or growing an existing product, this conversation will give you practical strategies to keep things moving forward. Come connect, learn, and swap stories with fellow product professionals. \-\-\- Food and drinks will be provided by Switchbox, our generous host. Free parking will be available at the front and back sides of the Switchbox Office.

Private Group. Closed to the Public Knowing ourselves and understanding our abilities is the first step toward wielding our gifts with control and accuracy. In subsequent classes we will verify and hone our talents with activities and discussion. These are hands-on workshops and participation is expected. The goal of our series will be to develop expertise in areas of particular interest such as mediumship, channeling, divination, healing and, etc.. Our ultimate directions will be determined by class members as we evolve. I look forward to sharing and discovering with you. - Cynthia

Bring your business cards and network in person with other business professionals! Gold Star Referral Clubs is one of the most established professional networking organizations in the country, with multiple groups in central Ohio. Join us!

Customer identity resolution becomes increasingly complex as organizations scale across multiple systems, regions, and data formats. Traditional rule-based approaches often fail to keep up with data variability, require constant manual tuning, and struggle with real-time processing needs. This session presents a practical approach to building a scalable identity resolution pipeline using AWS services and modern AI techniques. The architecture combines data ingestion through Amazon S3 and AWS Glue, transformation pipelines using Spark on EMR, and machine learning models deployed via SageMaker for entity matching and standardization. Graph-based relationship modeling is implemented using Amazon Neptune to improve resolution accuracy by incorporating household and shared attribute context. We will walk through how machine learning models can be used for name and address normalization, how intelligent blocking strategies improve matching efficiency, and how feedback loops can be introduced to continuously improve accuracy. The session also highlights how serverless components such as AWS Lambda can be used for orchestration and real-time processing. **SPEAKER BIO** Mosaic Syed is a Senior Data Engineering and Cloud Solutions Architect with over 20 years of experience designing and delivering scalable, secure, and high-performance data solutions across global enterprise environments. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosaic-basha-syed-92300856 **CALL FOR SPEAKERS** Learn more: [https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/](https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/) **THANK YOU** *VEEAM* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Veeam*, please visit their website: [https://www.veeam.com/](https://www.veeam.com/) **DIRECTIONS** 8800 Lyra Dr #450 · Columbus, OH go to 4th floor. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

Start your week the right way with Manic Mondays. Giving you an enjoyable Bachata lesson with a push of cool moves. The second hour has Beginner/Intermediate Salsa on 1. You must understand basic Salsa skills to participate. 730pm-830pm Bachata Cool Moves 830pm-930pm Salsa On 1 (Beginner/Intermediate) $15 for One Class $20 for Both Free Parking & Plenty of Dance Space.

Practical AI for Power BI Developers A year ago, “agentic AI” was mostly hype for Power BI teams. Today, it deserves your undivided attention. For Power BI pros, there is now a real opportunity to reduce repetitive development work, accelerate delivery, and help developers do more, but only when strong DataOps practices are in place to make AI workflows effective. This session is a no-nonsense introduction to effective AI patterns for Power BI and Fabric development. Along the way, we will make sense of the growing pile of terminology, including skills, plugins, hooks, and MCP. You will see examples of how modern AI tooling can help with development tasks across Power BI and Fabric, along with the prerequisites, guardrails, and DataOps principles needed to use it responsibly. Whether you're burned out on AI hype or already using Copilot CLI daily, this session will show you the foundations that are finally making AI-assisted development genuinely useful.

At Evolve Synergy Sessions, you'll be part of a supportive mastermind where we share challenges, brainstorm solutions, and inspire one another to take bold steps in our businesses. Grow your network, gain fresh perspectives, and build meaningful relationships with like-minded women who are committed to success. Whether you’re looking to move the needle in your business or simply need a space to connect and recharge, this is the perfect place to fuel your entrepreneurial journey. [Add Event to Calendar](https://evolvecolumbus.eventcalendarapp.com/) \*\* Please note, we will be arriving around 8:15a for open networking! Get there early and get connected! Contact Alexis Morley at [alexis.morley@edwardjones.com](mailto:alexis.morley@edwardjones.com) or Terri Lawson at [terri.lawson@e-merge.com](mailto:terri.lawson@e-merge.com) for more information.