We are excited to welcome Ben Hartfield, Senior Director, and Sabine McGuin, European Sales Director from The Hackett Institute as our guest speakers for the next Collaborator Connect session, taking place online on Monday 28 April at 3:00pm. This session will dive into one of the most important and fast‑moving topics shaping Shared Services and Global Business Services today: Generative AI.
Ben is a Senior Director and the global lead for The Hackett Institute, the professional development division of The Hackett Group. Ben works with a wide and varied range of global clients, supporting their talent strategy and helping them to maximise the opportunities and benefits that the education programs from The Hackett Institute have to offer.
Ben is passionate about how the working environment is changing, the impact that technology and digitisation will have on people, and how organisations must adapt to enable them to embrace and maximise the opportunities that lie ahead.
For over 25 years Ben has been involved in education, talent management and development, helping clients all over the globe to achieve people excellence through the deployment of numerous attraction, training, development and engagement initiatives.
Sabine leads Sales and Client Services for The Hackett Institute across Europe, working closely with senior leaders to develop future‑ready talent strategies. With over 20 years at The Hackett Group, Sabine brings deep experience across advisory, transformation, and marketing, giving her a well‑rounded perspective on how organisations drive performance through people, process, and technology.
In her role, Sabine partners with organisations to address the workforce challenges created by automation, digitisation, and AI, helping them re‑skill and up skill employees through The Hackett Institute’s professional development and certification programs.
Known for her collaborative and practical approach, Sabine draws on more than 25 years of client service experience to help organisations translate strategy into action and achieve measurable business outcomes. She regularly speaks with clients and industry audiences on talent transformation, capability building, and the evolving skills required in modern business services.
Gen AI is rapidly shifting from an emerging innovation to a transformational force across business services. As organisations move beyond early experimentation, many of us are now asking the critical questions:
✅ What exactly is Gen AI?
✅ How is it different from the AI we already use?
✅ What impact will it have on our people, our roles, and the skills our functions depend on?
Ben and Sabine will break down these topics in clear, practical terms, separating hype from reality and explaining how Gen AI differs from the predictive, rules‑based AI models traditionally used in shared services today.
The session will also explore how new agentic AI models are set to reshape:
Members will come away with a grounded, realistic understanding of how Gen AI is evolving, and what it means for the future of their operations, people, and talent pipelines.
We look forward to seeing everyone online next month!!
