In 2026 We are starting our chapters around the World.

We have identified our key markets, and in these chapters we will be hosting local meetups, events and they will be key for how we connect our community worldwide

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Why disappearing interfaces force senior operators to reassess identity, risk, and long-term responsibility as they move into advisory and board roles.

After seniority, the challenge is no longer access to information. It is relevance. Most public discourse in commerce and technology continues to optimise for speed, novelty, and visibility.

Senior responsibility, however, shifts toward risk, second-order effects, and decisions that remain consequential years after execution ends. This is the point at which much industry content stops being useful.

This is why the session with Steven Kainth mattered.

Steven works at the intersection of consumer technology, behavioural adoption, and long-term product strategy.

His experience advising global organisations such as Meta and EssilorLuxottica has placed him close to decisions where cultural acceptance, regulatory exposure, and identity shape outcomes more than features or performance metrics. His perspective is informed by what succeeds or fails after launch, not during announcement cycles.

For senior professionals moving into advisory, board, or portfolio roles, this distinction is critical. This session was not about smart glasses as a product category. It examined what changes when interfaces disappear and technology moves closer to the human body, identity, and health. These conversations rarely surface in public environments.

A central insight from the session was that adoption failures are rarely technical. They are cultural. As Steven stated,

Earlier in a career, leaders evaluate tools primarily on efficiency and capability. After seniority, the evaluation shifts toward symbolism, social permission, and long-term behavioural impact. Wearable interfaces are not neutral. They express identity before they deliver function.

This helps explain why large technology firms now seek legitimacy through established brands. Meta’s expanded partnership and minority equity stake in EssilorLuxottica between 2023 and 2024 reflects this understanding.

It aligns with McKinsey’s Global Consumer Sentiment research conducted across the United States and Europe between 2022 and 2024, which shows that trust and cultural legitimacy consistently outweigh technical differentiation in sustained adoption.

Privacy was reframed not as a technical blocker, but as a generational dividing line.

Pew Research Center studies published between 2019 and 2023 in the United States show younger cohorts trading privacy for participation and convenience at significantly higher rates than older generations.

For senior decision-makers, this reframes privacy risk as a moving social baseline rather than a fixed principle.

Another critical shift discussed was the move from data capture to contextual understanding.

Unlike smartphones, which require intentional activation, wearable interfaces observe continuously.

This reflects principles articulated by MIT Media Lab research on ambient computing between 2018 and 2022, where technology becomes infrastructural rather than interactive.

Health emerged as the least obvious yet most consequential vector. Preventative signals and biometric patterns reposition smart glasses from consumer electronics into health infrastructure.

According to the World Health Organization’s World Report on Vision, published in 2019 with global scope, close to half the world’s population is projected to require vision correction by 2050, with accelerated growth in urban Asia and Europe.

WHO infographics on global myopia prevalence anchor the scale of this shift. At senior levels, this convergence raises governance and responsibility questions that sit firmly at board level.

The E-commerce Berlin Expo is the largest pure-play B2B ecommerce event in Germany, gathering operators, brands and technology leaders from across Europe. Their tenth edition takes place on February 17 and 18, 2026 at Messe Berlin and is expected to welcome more than fourteen thousand attendees.

These insights do not emerge in open forums designed for visibility or scale. They surface in closed environments where senior professionals can speak without performance pressure or simplification. After seniority, the challenge is no longer execution. It is judgment under uncertainty.

EVOLVE exists to capture these moments and compound them into institutional memory. By curating proximity between experienced operators across markets, EVOLVE preserves patterns that remain useful long after surface narratives expire. This is how senior professionals navigate transitions, advisory responsibility, and long-horizon impact with clarity rather than noise.

If you’d like to learn more how to partner with us during 2026 please email us at [email protected] or [email protected]

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