Financial Services - APAC HR Leadership
Into The Unknown in an AI World.
A 1-day workshop for BNP Paribas’ most senior HR leaders - designed to shift mindset, not just build skills. Now being rolled out across three other parts of the bank.
30
APAC HR ExCo leaders
1 day
Hong Kong, April 2026
3×
Other business units now rolling out
C-Suite
CHROs and Heads of HR
The Challenge
The leaders driving transformation were the ones who needed it most.
BNP Paribas APAC was navigating one of the most complex periods in recent organisational history. Efficiency mandates, AI augmentation, stretched teams, and the relentless pace of change had created a high-stakes dual mandate for senior HR leaders: manage your own teams through disruption while simultaneously driving transformation across the broader people agenda.
The problem ran deeper than skills. The real challenge was mindset. Senior HR leaders - experienced, successful, and capable - were operating from patterns that had served them well in a different environment. What got them here, the thinking went, would take them there. But the environment had changed fundamentally, and small adjustments to existing behaviours wouldn’t be enough.
BNP Paribas needed a programme that would shift how their most senior HR people thought about change - not just equip them with new tools.
What EP Did
Into The Unknown - reframed for the AI era.
Explore Performance designed and delivered a bespoke 1-day workshop in Hong Kong for the BNP Paribas APAC HR ExCo - approximately 30 participants including Heads of HR across APAC markets, APAC Heads of Centres of Excellence, the HR COO, and the CHRO.
The programme was built around EP’s Into The Unknown simulation - the Tasman Sea crossing - but recontextualised specifically for the AI transformation moment. The expedition became the lens through which participants examined their own relationship with uncertainty, disruption, and the pressure to lead others through change they hadn’t fully processed themselves.
The day was structured around six building blocks:
01
Reframing change
Moving from reactive to intentional - understanding the current transformation landscape and what it means personally and organisationally.
02
Leading through complexity
Practical frameworks for navigating ambiguity, constrained resources, and competing priorities while modelling psychological resilience.
03
New ways of working
Identifying specific, credible behaviours that demonstrate AI-aware, technology-forward leadership - and how to embed them without overwhelming already-stretched teams.
04
Team engagement and wellbeing
Tools to diagnose team health, have honest conversations about fatigue and morale, and take meaningful action in resource-constrained environments.
05
Elevating HR’s strategic presence
Building a sharper, more confident positioning of the HR function as a genuine strategic business partner - not just a people function.
06
Personal commitment
Each participant left with a 30/60/90-day action plan - specific, observable behaviour changes mapped to their own role and context.
The expedition footage provided the emotional anchor for every conversation - making abstract challenges like anti-fragility, bold decision-making, and leading without certainty visceral and real rather than theoretical.
The Outcome
One workshop. Three immediate roll- outs.
The programme landed with sufficient impact that BNP Paribas moved immediately to roll it out across three other parts of the bank. That decision - taken within the organisation after experiencing the programme - is the most honest measure of success available.
Participants left not just with frameworks and tools, but with a fundamentally different relationship to the transformation they were being asked to lead. The expedition created a shared reference point - a common language for conversations about change, resilience, and what it actually takes to lead when the destination isn’t yet visible.
3×
Proof of impact
Now rolling out across 3 other BNP Paribas business units.
Why This Matters
The AI moment is a leadership moment.
Every organisation navigating AI transformation faces the same underlying challenge: it is not primarily a technology problem. It is a leadership problem. The question is not whether AI will change how your organisation works - it will. The question is whether your leaders have the mindset, the resilience, and the self-awareness to carry their people through that change effectively.
The BNP Paribas programme is a proof point that adventure-based learning is uniquely suited to this moment. The Tasman crossing - a world first achieved after 11 years of failure and recommitment - is the most honest possible context for a conversation about what it actually takes to pursue a transformation that hasn’t been done before.
EP can now offer this programme - Into The Unknown in an AI World - as a bespoke intervention for any organisation navigating the leadership dimension of AI transformation.
Programme Used
Into The Unknown - Tasman Sea Crossing
Recontextualised for AI-era leadership transformation. Delivered as a bespoke 1-day workshop for APAC HR ExCo, Hong Kong.