The LSE Department of Management was delighted to welcome Amazon Web Services Executive in Residence, Phil Le-Brun, to uncover how becoming an Octopus Organization can unlock agility and real transformation.

Organisations today face a paradox: we strive for agility and innovation yet remain trapped in rigid systems designed for control and efficiency. Massive top-down transformations often make things worse. Is there a better way?

Phil introduced The Octopus Organization, a bold new approach inspired by one of nature’s most adaptable creatures. Like an octopus – intelligent, resilient, and decentralised – organisations can thrive by balancing cohesion with autonomy and tapping into the distributed intelligence of their people.

Drawing on experience with global companies and sharing 36 common “antipatterns” that hold us back, he revealed practical levers for meaningful change. Discover how to move beyond bureaucracy and nurture a living, learning system built for continuous transformation.

Phil Le-Brun is an executive in residence at Amazon Web Services and a former corporate VP and international CIO at McDonald’s Corporation. At McDonald’s he co-led the consolidation and modernisation of technology across thirty-eight thousand restaurants globally. In his current role, Phil engages with Fortune 500 executives and their teams and with public-sector customers to mentor, advise, and guide them on their journeys to become more adaptable organisations. He is a sought-after speaker and has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal and the Guardian.

Dr Will Venters, an Associate Professor of Digital Innovation and Information Systems within the Department of Management at LSE, chaired the event. His research focuses on the distributed development of digital ecosystems. His recent research has focused on cloud computing, AI, the API Economy, and Agile Development. He has researched the organisation of distributed work and systems in various organisations including government-related organisations, the construction industry, telecoms, financial services, health, and even particle physicists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

With policymakers moving quickly on AI safety, from the EU AI Act to the US AI Action Plan, new research argues that uniform, one-size-fits-all rules could unintentionally entrench the largest AI firms and narrow the space where start-ups innovate.

In this episode, Dr Pavel Kireyev, Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Department of Management at LSE, discusses his recent research, User preferences for large language model refusals: implications for moderation and market structure.

Dr Kireyev argues for asymmetric regulation of AI firms, enforcing stricter guardrails for the largest firms and carefully scoped flexibility for smaller and open‑source providers, thereby offering a better balance between safety, innovation, and competition.

Dr Kireyev conducts research with data-driven companies and studies innovative marketing technologies, platforms, and marketplaces. He uses modern quantitative methods to uncover how organisations can effectively coordinate their pricing and advertising strategies across multiple platforms, benefit from new resources such as crowd intelligence, and manage data to improve decision-making and market design in multi-sided marketplaces.

Banning technology can look like a quick fix - it reduces distraction and reassures parents, but in the long run, it isn't a sustainable solution. In reality, it risks widening the digital divide. Students in schools that integrate tools, such as smartphones, will learn faster, adapt better, and move ahead, shaping them to thrive in the digital economy of tomorrow.

In this episode, Dr Aaron Cheng, Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Innovation in the Department of Management at LSE, discusses the findings of his recent paper From Smartphones to Smart Students: Learning vs. Distraction Using Smartphones in the Classroom, which shows that when used correctly, smartphones can be useful tools that enhance learning rather than detract from it.

Banning smartphones ignores the reality that they are already central to students’ daily lives. Used wisely, smartphones can foster real-time collaboration, instant access to information, personalised learning, and responsible digital citizenship — skills essential for the modern world.

Dr Cheng's findings strongly advocate a balanced, practical approach to smartphone use in education. Instead of banning them, educators and policymakers should focus on turning these devices into structured, valuable learning opportunities.

Dr Cheng studies the economics of digitisation and AI and their implications for sustainable business and society. Grounded in experimental and observational evidence, his research identifies causal effects and structural mechanisms by which digital innovation redistributes key inputs — time, space, attention, labour, and capital — and transforms individual choices and institutional dynamics.