Speakers

Jason Averbook has spent thirty years doing one thing: getting inside the gap between where organizations say they are with technology and where work is actually happening. That gap has a structure, a sequence, and closing it is what Now to Next was built to do. Now to Next is the AI studio Jason co-founded with Jess Von Bank in 2026, built at the intersection of practitioner intelligence, original research, and the conviction that AI transformation isn't a technology problem — it's a structural one. The studio produces three things that compound together: continuous market signal, a practitioner community called Now of Work where the real work gets figured out in real time, and a build practice that rewires organizations from the starting point of what AI makes possible. The intellectual foundation for Now to Next is three decades in the making. Jason co-founded Leapgen in 2018, building it into a leading digital transformation firm in HR technology before its acquisition by Mercer in 2023. At Mercer he led global HR transformation strategy and drove the firm's generative AI practice. Across those thirty years, one conviction has stayed constant: human transformation precedes digital transformation. Technology amplifies what exists. If the operating model doesn’t change, neither does the outcome. Most AI initiatives fail not because the technology is wrong, but because nobody rewired first.