Talent Acquisition

From recruiting astronauts who can spend months together in isolation to assembling teams capable of landing on the Moon, exploring Mars and solving problems no one has encountered before, NASA has spent decades answering questions that every organization is now beginning to face.

The future of talent isn't simply about hiring faster. It's about identifying potential before it is visible, building teams that thrive under pressure, preparing for jobs that don't yet exist and ensuring people and AI work together when the stakes are highest. After all, if little green men did appear tomorrow, your hiring process probably isn't ready for them.

Join former NASA Associate Administrator Robert Gibbs as he explores what every business can learn from one of the world's most mission-critical organizations.

In this session, you'll discover:

• What 'mission critical thinking' looks like and how leaders can apply it to building future-ready organizations on Earth
• Why hiring for curiosity, adaptability and judgment increasingly matters more than hiring for experience alone
• How NASA identifies talent for missions that may not launch for another decade and what this teaches us about Strategic Workforce Planning
• Where AI agents can transform sourcing, workforce planning and talent decisions and where human judgment must remain firmly in control
• What recruiting astronauts reveals about resilience, collaboration, trust and leadership under extreme pressure
• How to build teams capable of solving problems that have never existed before in an age where AI is changing every role
• Why the organizations that thrive won't simply automate recruitment, but will redesign how humans and AI make better decisions together