AGENDA

Welcome to BeyondTheBlack London! Hear from our CEO, Owen Ryan, and regional leader, Philippe Omer-Decugis, as they kick off the day with insightful addresses, weaving in real-world success stories from customers, including Allianz and ExxonMobil.

Join BlackLine CTO, Jeremy Ung, as he explores why AI, the most transformative innovation of our time, can only have its power unlocked with uncompromising trust. In this session, discover the rise of Agentic Financial Operations, the new paradigm where AI’s potential becomes reality. We’ll showcase how BlackLine’s platform, powered by Verity™ AI, revolutionises how finance operates by empowering your teams with a trusted, governed, and auditable digital workforce.

In an era saturated with AI hype, finance leaders face a critical challenge: how to harness the true power of agentic AI without making expensive missteps. This panel of leaders from EY, Deloitte, and SAP moves beyond theory to provide a strategic framework for implementing Agentic Financial Operations effectively, ensuring your investment translates into real-world value. Join us to de-risk your AI strategy and learn how to build a resilient finance function poised for the future.

Join James Cracknell, double Olympic gold medalist and winner of six world championship titles, as he draws powerful parallels between the resilience and strategic foresight required in the world of extreme adventure and today’s finance function. By translating lessons from treacherous expeditions and elite teamwork, this keynote provides a compelling framework for overcoming high-pressure challenges, recovering from setbacks, and building a world-class organisation.

Wrap Up with Philippe Omer-Decugis

Join BlackLine and Bidfood to learn how to transform your collections team from a reactive cost center into a strategic cash flow engine. This session details a modern, data-driven approach where AI handles routine work, freeing your team to focus on high-impact activities. You will leave with a practical playbook to accelerate cash flow and significantly improve working capital.

Join this session to:

• Explain the limitations of traditional, reactive collections processes.
• Identify data-driven strategies to prioritise collection efforts effectively.
• Describe how a modern model powered by Verity improves working capital and cash flow.

Join SAP’s Global Finance team and Heineken to learn how they leverage the combined power of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP accounting automation solutions by BlackLine. This session will reveal how they bring transparency and structure to the financial close, transforming it from a mysterious "black box" into a streamlined, automated process. You'll also learn about the latest R2R innovations, including embedded AI, designed to accelerate period-end close and free up your team for more high-value activities.

Join this session to:

• See why the partnership between SAP and BlackLine delivers the “gold standard” for record-to-report
• Explore the latest architecture, now enhanced with seamless integration between SAP Accounting Automation by BlackLine and SAP Advanced Financial Closing.
• Hear firsthand how SAP’s own finance organisation uses this powerful solution to gain greater efficiency, transparency, real-time reporting, and risk reduction.

What if closing the books took seconds, not days? In this session, experts from EY explore and push the boundaries of what the Future of Controllership can be, moving beyond traditional close into real-time finance operations and compliance, and using AI and technologies like BlackLine to re-imagine the function. 

Join this session to:

• Explore the future of Controllership and the transition to real-time financial operations.
• Understand how AI and modern accounting technologies enable transformation beyond the traditional close.
• Learn how to shift the focus of Controllership to value creation and how others are already pushing the boundaries

Today’s complex global environment, with its expanding entities, currencies, and regulatory demands, puts immense pressure on finance teams to deliver more in less time. In this session, Accenture will explore how leading organisations are embedding AI into their BlackLine-powered processes to move beyond a faster close toward one that delivers superior visibility and insight. You'll hear real-world examples of AI as a force multiplier, driving everything from intelligent task prioritisation and anomaly detection to predictive alerts and auto-generated commentary.

Join this session to:

• Understand how a practical AI integration framework can sit on top of your existing BlackLine environment.
• Learn where AI can add value, where caution is necessary, and how to govern it responsibly.
• Gather the key inputs needed to build a credible business case for AI-driven financial close automation.

Join Reckitt, a global health and hygiene leader, and BlackLine for a look inside a landmark finance transformation. Discover how this partnership turned a fragmented financial close into a controlled, end-to-end record-to-report powerhouse. This session provides a practical blueprint for leveraging automation to drive efficiency and strategic value across your finance operations.

Join this session to:

• Discover how standardising critical close activities can unlock control and visibility.
• Learn strategies for automating manual tasks to free up teams for strategic work.
• Understand how to build a future-ready finance function with a unified platform.

Finance transformation is no longer optional. Speed is the only variable that matters.  Yet most organisations still try to “boil the ocean,” delaying value until the end of a multi-year program. In this session, experts from Clearsulting will explore a better pattern: run transformation as a big program made real through incremental wins - delivering measurable outcomes early, then compounding them through fast follows and scale.

Join this session to:

• Learn how to structure large finance transformations to deliver measurable value early through MVPs and incremental wins. 
• Understand how to design for speed by aligning outcomes, KPIs, and governance to accelerate time to value. 
• See how fast follows turn early success into sustained momentum, scaling impact without big bang disruption.

Discover the next evolution of finance with BlackLine Verity™, the suite of trusted, purpose-built AI for the Office of the CFO. This session will provide an exclusive look at the new and upcoming capabilities within Verity, moving beyond the hype to showcase how agentic AI is delivering real value today. Join us to see what's new, what's next, and how you can prepare for the future of intelligent financial operations.

Join this session to:

• Explore the latest agentic AI capabilities within Verity™.
• Get a sneak peek into the 2026 product roadmap.
• Identify practical opportunities to apply Verity™ AI to drive greater efficiency, control, and strategic insight within your finance organisation.

Intercompany operations are often fragmented and complex, but transforming them can unlock significant enterprise value. In this session, experts from Deloitte will demonstrate how to leverage Artificial Intelligence to prepare robust and compelling business cases to fund the transformation of your end-to-end intercompany processes. You will learn how AI can streamline the business case process by rapidly analysing data to quantify value, identify pain points, and ultimately secure the necessary funding.

Join this session to:

• Discover how to leverage AI to analyse contracts and transaction history to build a compelling business case.
• Learn to identify and quantify key value drivers such as optimised working capital, tax efficiency, and reduced FX risk.
• Understand how to construct an achievable, AI-powered business case to gain stakeholder buy-in and unlock funding.

Global finance teams often struggle with fragmented journal entry processes, manual approvals, and limited visibility across complex ERP landscapes. In this session, Capgemini will share how a global enterprise transformed its Record-to-Report operations by implementing BlackLine’s Journal Entry solution across hundreds of legal entities running SAP and Oracle. By centralising journal processing, standardising templates, and introducing automated approval workflows with a full electronic audit trail, the organisation significantly improved transparency, operational efficiency, and control across global finance operations.

Join this session to:

• Understand how finance teams can centralise journal entry management across multiple ERP systems.
• Learn how to use standardised templates and automated workflows to streamline processing and strengthen compliance.
• Gain insights on using automated audit trails to improve governance and successfully scale your automation strategy across global R2R operations.