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L&D Leaders happen

A small crew running a curated peer space for 200+ mid-to-senior L&D leaders, powered by Howspace. We facilitate, we listen, we build with the community.

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A note from Emilia

L&D Leaders started because I kept having the same off-the-record conversations with people in this field, and they were always the best ones. This community is the space I wish I'd had a decade ago. No pitches, no promotions, just senior L&D people thinking out loud together. Come as you are, we saved you a seat.

Emilia Åström Community Lead
The team

The people behind the community

Community Lead

Emilia Åström

LinkedIn

Emilia has spent ten years building facilitation practice online, back when most people were still running Zoom calls and calling it a community. She has worked from South America, North America and Europe, and it shows in the way she reads a room.

Speaks about How to build communities that people actually show up to, and why the best learning tends to happen off the agenda

"The best L&D conversations always happen after the presentation ends. That's the space we're building."

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Founder · Howspace

Ilkka Mäkitalo

LinkedIn

Ilkka is Chief Evangelist at Howspace by day and a big band conductor by night. He is the reason Howspace has AI built into the platform, and he spends a lot of his time on the difference between AI that helps people think together and AI that just does the thinking for them.

Speaks about AI that helps people learn together rather than on their own, and how organisations really change from the middle out

"You cannot buy trust in a Slack channel. You build it by showing up and shipping something useful."

Podcast Host

Hanna Liimatainen

LinkedIn

Hanna started her career in communications and then went deep into systems thinking and digital facilitation. She cares about how workplaces make people feel like they belong, what women in leadership actually need that nobody is offering, and how to stop treating L&D like a delivery service.

Speaks about Belonging at work, what women in leadership need, and how to stop delivering learning at people

"I like the guests who tell you what didn't work. That's where the real story is."

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Hosted by Hanna, the L&D Leaders Podcast

Ongoing conversations with the people shaping L&D, in your ears wherever you listen

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FEATURED IN

Ep #01 with Katarina Noén, Head of Learning for Sweden at Ericsson

 In this episode, Katarina shares how she helps people learn and grow inside a global, fast-moving tech organization. We discuss what it takes to build future capabilities at scale, why social learning matters, and how to keep learning connected to real business needs. Katarina talks about working across functions and industries, and creating spaces where people learn from each other through real projects, mentoring, and communities.

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