The Road Ahead: Workforce and Talent Priorities for 2027
Thursday December 3, 2026 @ 10 AM ET | Virtual
What should distributors be preparing for when it comes to talent and leadership? This forward-looking webinar explores how workforce strategies are evolving and what it takes to build and lead teams in a changing environment. Join us for an executive-level discussion on the skills, roles, and priorities shaping 2027, and how to position your organization for success.
This session is part of a 3-part webinar series from McKinsey & Company. Registration includes recordings from the past two webinars which can be found below.
What you’ll learn:
- How workforce models and roles are evolving
- Talent attraction, retention, and development priorities
- Leadership strategies for a changing workforce
Meet Some of our Previous Speakers
Lindsay (Sackellares) Bauser
Associate Partner
McKinsey & Company
Lindsay (Sackellares) Bauser is an Associate Partner out of our Atlanta Office. Lindsay has deep experience across multiple distribution subsegments specifically in in tech-enabled sales and go-to-market strategy.
Stephen Xu
Partner
McKinsey & Company
Stephen Xu is a Partner out of our Toronto Office. Stephen leads McKinsey’s gen AI and R&D efforts within our QuantumBlack Labs. He transforms our clients’ core business processes using AI, gen AI, and agentic AI; he leads in building code assets to accelerate and scale deployments.
Richelle Deveau
Partner
McKinsey & Company
Richelle Deveau is a Partner out of our Southern California Office. Richelle advises high-tech companies on innovation, growth, and go-to-market issues including channel strategy, pricing, and customer success. She also co-leads McKinsey’s efforts in AI-enabled Sales.
Maria Valdivieso
Partner
McKinsey & Company
Maria Valdivieso is a Partner out of our Miami Office. Maria advises clients across industries – Telecom & Media, Technology, Energy & Materials – on sales transformations & salesforce productivity. She also co-leads McKinsey’s efforts on AI-enabled growth within sales organizations.
Mallya Perdur
Partner
McKinsey & Company
Mallya Perdur is a Partner out of our Houston Office. Mallya specializes in pricing & sales topics, supporting our clients in Energy & Materials with AI strategy & growth. He also leads McKinsey’s CustomerOne team, McKinsey’s platform for commercial analytics.
Meet the Moderator
Mike Hockett
Executive Editor
Modern Distribution Management
Mike Hockett has served as MDM’s executive editor since early 2022. He oversees MDM’s editorial content and direction, coordinates with contributing authors, conducts interviews with executives in the wholesale distribution space and serves as the editorial face of MDM at industry events. He has extensively covered the distribution and manufacturing sectors since 2014.
Missed the Previous Webinars?
June 4: The Road to Future-Ready Distribution: Operational Priorities
What does it take to move from strategy to execution? Building on the SHIFT keynote, this webinar explores how distributors are putting future-ready strategies into practice. Discover what the operational priorities, key investments, and real-world approaches shaping the next 6–12 months, so you can focus on what will drive the greatest impact.
September 10: The Road to Technology and AI: From Hype to Scaled Impact
AI is everywhere, but where is it actually delivering results? This webinar explores how distributors are moving beyond experimentation and beginning to scale AI and technology across their organizations. As a preview to the Sept. 16-18 NAW Innovators Summit, we’ll highlight what’s working today and what it takes to implement successfully, giving you a clear path from strategy to execution.
This webinar sponsored by:
