Author: Philip SPRINGUEL, PMP

Dear members and colleagues,

As we approach summer holidays, your newsletter this month reminds you to place the 29 October PM Conference on your agenda. A special message from Chapter President Mafalda Amaro offers many reasons why, while key details and links are conveniently laid out in Alpha Ziman’s pre-event summary, reminding you to sign up now to ensure your early bird registration.

This month’s feature recap from authors Joachim Dehais and Adi Muslic, relates highlights of the PMI Global Summit Series held 29 and 30 April in Lisbon, Portugal, where together they led a session on the topic "Harnessing AI for Success in a Multicultural World." Reminding us that AI is no longer a future trend, the authors present their unique approach helping project managers analyze themselves, their stakeholders and environments.

Alp Camci introduces three new Chapter members this month, and Mariia Fufaieva highlights another career-building volunteer opportunity to help shape the Chapter’s communications strategy.

React quick-as-you-can to this month’s reminders, then keep up with our social media while you enjoy your summer break,

Philip SPRINGUEL, Newsletter Copy Editor

Author: Mariia Fufaieva

Join the PMI Switzerland Communications & Marketing Team!

Are you creative, proactive, and passionate about communications? We're looking for a volunteer to help create engaging content, design visuals in Canva, and promote PMI Switzerland events and initiatives.

Requirements:

• Canva knowledge
• Support promotional campaigns
• Create communications strategy
• Develop visuals (e.g. flyers, banners, etc.)
• 6+ hours / month

Benefits:

• Expand your professional network across Switzerland
• Gain hands-on marketing and communications experience
• Build your portfolio with real campaigns and projects
• Develop leadership and stakeholder management skills
• Earn volunteer recognition and PMI PDUs

Interested? We'd love to hear from you!

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Mariia Fufaieva

Author: Alpha Ziman, PMP, PMI-PBA, CAPM

Early Bird Registration Now Open - Save CHF 100 Until 31 July 2026

The landscape of project leadership is evolving rapidly. From artificial intelligence and digital transformation to sustainability and increasingly complex stakeholder environments, project  professionals are being asked to navigate new challenges while continuing to deliver successful outcomes. 

To explore these opportunities and challenges, PMI Switzerland invites you to join the PM Conference 2026 on 29 October 2026 in Zurich. Bringing together approximately 200 project professionals, executives, innovators and decision makers, the conference will provide a unique platform to learn from industry leaders, exchange ideas with peers and gain practical insights into the future of project leadership.

This year’s theme, Swiss Iconic Projects and Innovation - The Future of Project Leadership, reflects the growing importance of innovation, adaptability and responsible leadership in today’s project environment.

Who will be on the Programme Agenda

While the full speaker lineup will be announced very shortly, we are pleased to confirm that leaders and experts from some of Switzerland’s most recognized organizations are already confirmed including representatives from: 

• UBS
• Holcim
• Sunrise
• Nestlé

And many more industry-leading organizations are to be announced in the coming weeks. 

Why Attend?

• Earn 10 PDUs towards maintaining your PMI certification
• Learn from leaders behind major Swiss projects and transformation 
• Discover practical application of AI in project management and project delivery 
• Gain insights that can be applied immediately within your projects and organizations

Registration Information 

Date: 29 October 2026 (Full Day Event)

Venue Location: SIX ConventionPoint, Zurich CH-8005, Switzerland 

Early Bird Pricing ends on 31-July-2026

• PMI Member: CHF 395
• Non-Members: CHF 495

After 31 July, registration fees will increase by CHF 100

Special Discount Offered to Students

Don’t miss the early bird deadline. Now is the ideal time to secure your place at PMI Switzerland’s flagship event for project professional Register Here

Partner With Us: 

Interested in featuring your projects on our conference screens, hosting a booth or becoming a sponsor? We would be delighted to hear from you. For more information or general questions, please contact the 2026 PM Conference Team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We look forward to welcoming you to Zurich on 29 October 2026 

Alpha Ziman

A special message from our Chapter President

Dear PMI Switzerland Member, 

As we approach our 2026 Annual Conference, I wanted to take a moment to speak directly to you, our community. 

This year’s event is not just another conference. It’s a gathering of Switzerland’s most committed project management professionals, built around a theme that reflects where our discipline is heading and what it demands of all of us: Swiss Iconic Projects and Innovations – The Future of Project Leadership. 

Our conference will explore and highlight how Switzerland’s companies and industries continue to shape the future of our profession and projects of our communities. This is an opportunity to celebrate Swiss innovations, ingenuity, resilience and leadership. 

We are working to build a programme that is practical, inspiring and genuinely relevant to the challenges you face. I look forward to welcoming you on 29 October 2026. 

Mafalda Amaro, PMI Switzerland Chapter President 

Authors: Adi Muslic, PMP and Joachim Dehais, PMP

PMI Global Summit Series (GSS) is the regional flagship gathering for project leaders, enterprise partners, chapters, and practitioners looking to share real-world perspectives on navigating change, shaping what’s next, and staying relevant as the pace accelerates.

The PMI Global Summit Series, held this year in Lisbon, Portugal, 29 and 30 April 2026, brought together project leaders from around the world under the theme “MORE, Together. When we share in our growth, we go beyond what is possible.” The message was clear: our profession is changing, shaped by the rapid rise of AI, new demands for faster governance and broader leadership in business transformation. For those of us working in Switzerland—where projects often sit at the intersection of strict regulation and high innovation—these signals are especially relevant. 

Transformation and why it fails

A keynote on why transformation efforts fail and how change can become more durable was especially relevant in a time when organizations are under pressure to modernize quickly.

One of the most important takeaways is that AI is no longer a "future" trend; it is a present capability that we must integrate responsibly into our delivery environments.

However, AI is not a substitute for project leadership. Instead, the role of the Project Manager is evolving from simple task execution to orchestration and alignment across complex ecosystems. As we heard during the summit, the way we see ourselves is how others will see us; we must adopt a mindset that sees uncertainty as an opportunity.

AI in multicultural transformation

Our session struck at the heart of the matter, "Harnessing AI for Success in a Multicultural World." 

During this presentation, we delivered elements of our special approach, along with audience-customised prompts to help project managers analyze themselves, their stakeholders, and their environments, all to shape a better future, faster.

With this exclusive method merging personality, social, and cultural modeling—including frameworks like Hofstede’s famous Cultural Dimensions—we helped participants understand stakeholders at a very deep level with AI. When practicing AI to navigate cultural complexity and reduce conflict in political environments, participants could immediately notice and address blind spots, increasing stakeholder satisfaction even in the complex scenario they had to face.

By the end of the session, attendees had a new and practical approach to secure stakeholder engagement and project success in their own work environments.

Past technology into future humanity

Beyond AI, the summit highlighted that transformation is less about technology and more about decisions. A major blocker in many organizations is "decision latency"—the delay between needing a decision and actually making it. @Yolanda Cabrera

To combat this, we should aim for "one decision, one owner" and make ownership explicit rather than just sending "FYI" updates. Especially in "giga projects," the biggest risk is often not technical, but the political layer where priorities shift and governance changes. @Edoardo Favari

The changing role of PMOs

The summit also provided a fresh look at the evolving role of the PMO. As organizations adopt frameworks at scale, the PMO must become more than just a reporting hub: Future-ready PMOs should be adaptive, data and value-driven, and act as a coach to the rest of the organization. By propagating system thinking, the PMO can help bridge the gap between high-level strategy and daily execution. @Jens Korneck

Finally, the event reminded us that community matters more than ever. Professional resilience depends on our ability to share knowledge across sectors and borders.

Whether you are in pharma, finance, or technology, the goal remains the same: to act as a "translator" between technology and business priorities while staying focused on what truly matters—understanding people.

Let’s carry this energy back to our projects in Switzerland. The future belongs to those who can combine human judgment with AI-enabled delivery.

Joachim Dehais and Adi Muslic