After seven weeks of exploring systems thinking through the lens of leadership, culture, and transformation, the 2025 Cosmic Conference comes full circle with a powerful closing conversation.

Professor José Santos, Affiliated Professor of Practice in Global Management at INSEAD, joins Marilyn Zakhour to challenge and deepen the conference’s central idea: Is the system really the strategy?

Together, they explore how leaders can move from managing parts to understanding the whole and why seeing organizations as living, interconnected systems may be the most strategic mindset of all.

They discuss:
🔹 Why most leaders struggle to see systems and how to learn to see them
🔹 The difference between simple, complicated, and complex systems
🔹 How emergence and interaction shape performance over time
🔹 Why resilience comes from managing relationships, not parts
🔹 How imagination, observation, and time help leaders design better systems

This closing session is a reflection on the essence of systems thinking, a bridge between theory and practice, between how we lead and how we live.

Culture isn’t the soft stuff, it’s the system that makes everything else work.

In this lively conversation, Marilyn Zakhour and Tala Ode from Cosmic Centaurs unpack how culture shows up not in slogans or posters, but in the invisible systems that shape how organizations operate: how decisions are made, how meetings run, how feedback flows, and how people feel when they show up to work.

Using the Omnichannel Organization™ framework, they explore how leaders can design culture through structure, process, people, and controls, so that it’s not an HR initiative, but a way of working that delivers results.

Together, they discuss:
🔹 Why culture isn’t a “project” but the operating system of an organization
🔹 How strategy and culture reinforce (or destroy) each other
🔹 The signals your org structure and workspace send about your values
🔹 How to measure and reward cultural behaviors, not just performance
🔹 What startups and fast-growing companies must know about scaling culture

This episode redefines culture as something built, measured, and lived. A system that connects purpose to practice.

Time is the one system every leader struggles to manage — and the one that reveals how well all the others work.

In this energizing conversation, Diren Bhatia, entrepreneur, coach, and founder of Cloudscape Technologies, joins Tala Ode to explore how leaders and founders can redesign their relationship with time. From his own journey of moving from a 14-hour-day founder to a “part-time CEO,” Diren shares how systems, rituals, and mindset shifts can help leaders free themselves from firefighting and refocus on what really matters.

Together, they explore:
🔹 Why working harder isn’t the answer — designing smarter systems is
🔹 How to move from founder to CEO and build teams that thrive without you
🔹 The art (and unlearning) of delegation and trust
🔹 Simple rituals and rhythms that reclaim focus, energy, and white space
🔹 Why every effective system must be agile, imperfect, and human

This conversation is a powerful reminder that time freedom isn’t about doing less — it’s about doing what matters most, by design.

What does it take to lead transformation across one of the region’s most complex organizations, and make it human?

In this powerful conversation, Ibraheem Sheerah, Chief Transformation Officer at Saudia Group, joins Marilyn Zakhour to share how he led one of the Kingdom’s most ambitious transformation journeys, reshaping not just an airline, but the ecosystem around it.

Through stories that span from listening to a security guard’s advice to engaging pilots, suppliers, and customers in change, Ibraheem reveals how transformation begins with humility, courage, and deep listening.

Together, they explore:
🔹 How to turn resistance into ownership across large systems
🔹 Why leaders must build connection before they build change
🔹 How to balance structure, speed, and humanity in transformation
🔹 What it means to lead through polarities: vision and detail, authority and service
🔹 Why every sustainable system starts with gratitude and self-work

This conversation is a masterclass in leading with purpose, conviction, and care, a reminder that real transformation is not about control, but about trust.

How do you nudge a 13,000-person organization to move from managing change to creating the conditions for change?

In this conversation, Chun Feng “Breeze” Dong, Associate Director of Organizational Development at Roche, joins Marilyn Zakhour to share how she and her team applied systems thinking to enable large-scale learning, collaboration, and innovation across global teams.

Drawing from years of experimentation inside one of the world’s leading healthcare companies, Breeze shows how transformation becomes continuous, not episodic when leaders think like gardeners, creating the right conditions for people and ideas to grow.

Together, they explore:
🔹 How systems thinking helped unlock collaboration across 140 countries
🔹 The power of identifying “cultural carriers” to drive change from within
🔹 How transparency, purpose, and learning can fuel self-organized innovation
🔹 Why leaders must trust the wisdom of the system instead of controlling it
🔹 How to stay grounded and human while navigating large-scale change

This is a story of what happens when leadership evolves from fixing parts to evolving the whole.

Parenthood is one of the most complex systems we’ll ever navigate — and for working parents, it often runs in parallel with another: work.

In this heartfelt conversation Faten Fathallah, Marie Nakhle, Marilyn Zakhour, Tala Odeh, and Zeinab Makke from the Cosmic Centaurs team join Hadeel Kabosh to explore how they design, adapt, and sustain systems that help them thrive as both professionals and parents.

Together, they reflect on:
🔹 How motherhood reshapes priorities, time, and definitions of success
🔹 Why community, communication, and boundaries are essential to balance
🔹 The rituals, processes, and rules that keep their households (and sanity) in check
🔹 What organizations can do to better support parents in the workplace

This conversation is a celebration of intention, imperfection, and the invisible systems that make it all work.

What does it mean to bring humanity back into our systems, and to see ourselves as part of them?

In this conversation, Dr. José-Rodrigo Córdoba-Pachón, Associate Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, joins Marilyn Zakhour to explore the intersection of systems thinking, rituals, and the art of being. Together, they reflect on how leaders can find balance between doing and being, structure and spontaneity, efficiency and presence.

They discuss:
🔹 How philosophy, poetry, and systems thinking can inform modern leadership
🔹 The role of rituals in creating meaning, boundaries, and connection
🔹 Why reflection and lightness are essential to navigate complexity
🔹 How to design systems that leave space for silence, creativity, and humanity

This conversation invites leaders to slow down, question assumptions, and rediscover the simple, human truths at the heart of every system.

Innovation rarely fails because of a lack of ideas. It fails because the systems around it are built for compliance, not experimentation.

In this episode, Wissam Adib, Executive Coach and former Advisor at the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, joins Marilyn Zakhour to explore what it really takes to build systems that foster innovation at scale. Drawing on two decades of experience shaping national innovation frameworks in the UAE, Wissam shares lessons that apply to both governments and organizations everywhere.

Together, they explore:
🔹 How to build a system that makes innovation repeatable and sustainable
🔹 What it means to balance governance with experimentation
🔹 Why ambidexterity is a core leadership muscle
🔹 How leaders can separate themselves from the systems they shape
🔹 What organizations can learn from the UAE’s journey of embedding innovation

This conversation blends systems thinking, leadership, and strategy with practical insights from one of the region’s most experienced innovation architects.