Kim Rohrer is a veteran People/HR leader, writer, speaker, founder, and advisor with 15+ years of experience building human-centered cultures at high-growth companies. Today, Kim shapes the future of work through a Patchwork Portfolio of offerings, ranging from HR Strategy (seeing around corners) to Storytelling (communications and employee experience). In addition to serving as a founding member and advisor to several HR communities, she is the author of I Care Too Much (newsletter), creator and host of So Drama (podcast), and habitual starter of new projects (too many). This might be the first time she’s come under word-count.

Delayering, player-coaches, spans of control blowing out.

The manager role is being rewritten and nobody agreed on the new job description. Two teams go head to head on one question: do we need managers anymore?

Expect unfiltered positions from people who have added management layers and taken them out again inside real companies, a moderator keeping them honest, and a live audience vote that settles it.

Bring your own view. You'll need it when voting opens.

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What you'll leave with:

1. A working definition of what a manager is actually for in 2026, including where new model holds up (if there is one) and where it falls over.
2. The strongest case from both sides, argued properly, so you can pressure-test your own structure instead of copying whatever the last big flattening announcement did.
3. Practical signals for when to add or strip a management layer, and what you have to fund instead when you take one out.