Olympic champion David Popovici and actor and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds take the same stage at IMPACT SEE’26, on 29–30 September, in Bucharest. Alongside them, on the event agenda, are approximately 200 speakers: a psychiatrist from Stanford who studies dopamine addiction, ministers, central bank governors and company leaders from across the region. For Ryan Reynolds, it is his first official appearance in Romania.
IMPACT SEE’26, presented by Mastercard, returns to Bucharest for its third edition, on 29–30 September, at Romexpo and Face Convention Center. More than 2,500 participants, approximately 200 speakers and eight thematic directions — among them two new ones, Investment & Startups and Culture — on three main stages and in the Impact Bookstore.
„To See What Follows, You Have to Look Beyond Your Own Field”
„To see what follows, you have to look beyond your own field. Technology changes what is possible, culture changes what people want, and capital decides what gets built. The advantage comes from understanding how these changes connect,” says Krystian Wolak, founder and CEO of Impact. „At Impact SEE you can test your ideas with people from other industries and from other markets. Our ambition is simple: two days in Bucharest that continue to work for you long after you leave.”
The Attention Economy, From Two Opposite Directions
For Ryan Reynolds, creativity has become a business asset. What he built with Maximum Effort, Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile shows how a distinctive voice can bring clients and new markets faster than a big production budget. His first official appearance in Romania takes place on the second day of the event, in a conversation about entrepreneurship.
A day earlier, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist at Stanford and author of the volume Dopamine Nation, holds a keynote about what happens to people in an environment built to capture their attention permanently. Then she takes the stage alongside Ömer Tetik, CEO of Banca Transilvania, and Cosmin Vladimirescu, General Manager Mastercard Romania and Croatia, for a discussion about the dopamine economy: how much of an organisation’s performance depends on the ability of the people in it to still concentrate. Also about the relationship between brand and business speaks Louise McEwen, Chief Marketing Officer at McLaren Racing, in a fireside chat moderated by Sergiu Mircea (Banca Transilvania).
The Only Person in the Room Whose Profession is Concentration
Olympic champion David Popovici brings the other face of the same discussion: what it means, in practice, to build your performance on sustained attention, in a context that works against it. He will speak alongside Raluca Negulescu Balaci, executive director of the UiPath Foundation, in a conversation about excellence, access to opportunities and the role of technology in forming the next generation of leaders, moderated by Michael Atalla (UiPath).
Where the Next Growth of Southeast Europe Comes From
Ilian Mihov, economist and former Dean of INSEAD, analyzes the forces that will decide the competitiveness of the region in the next decade, alongside Bartosz Ciołkowski (Mastercard) and Erdem İnan, CEO of Trendyol Group. The discussion then moves into the area of public policies, with the Minister of Finance, Alexandru Nazare, and the Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism, Ambrozie-Irineu Darău, and extends regionally: the governor of the National Bank of Moldova, Anca Dragu, Emir Kurtić, vice-governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Endrit Yzeiraj, deputy to the Albanian minister of Finance, Michał Baranowski, undersecretary of state in the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, and Victor Negrescu, vice-president of the European Parliament.
Artificial Intelligence, from Demonstration to Operation
Kelly Devine, president of Mastercard Europe, opens the AI & Cybersecurity direction with a simple question: what problem are we actually solving? The program includes an intervention by Diellei, minister of state for artificial intelligence of Albania, and a debate about Europe’s capacity to develop and scale AI, with Stefan Andonovski, the minister of Digital Transformation from North Macedonia, Nedim Baytorun (Vodafone Romania) and Marek Cynowski (Adobe). In banking, Tsvetanka Mintcheva (UniCredit Bulbank) and Dana Dima (BCR) discuss where AI reduces costs and where it builds relationships, and Richard K. LaTulip (Recorded Future) speaks about the real cost of security errors.
The Room Matters as Much as the Stage
More than 35% of participants are at C-level. At last year’s edition, two companies signed a collaboration agreement before the event ended. For founders, Radu Georgescu (SeedBlink) and Maya Zlatanova (TrialHub) bring the two perspectives that matter: the capital available in the region and the experience of changing a conservative industry. Curated networking, executive formats, and the Evening Networking Cocktail are built for such encounters, and the list of confirmed companies is published in advance so that participants can plan their discussions before arriving in Bucharest.
