Beyond the Event: Insights from Perseus Epic 2026
We just returned from Perseus Epic, our annual leadership event where over 275 people came together in Whistler, Canada for a meaningful week together. Many of the challenges we face are shared across our software businesses. Epic is designed to create an opportunity to learn from one another and exchange what’s working and what isn’t.
Our community came together to develop more than 80 sessions spanning AI, product development, leadership, sales, marketing, customer experience, and addressing other challenges facing vertical market software (“VMS”) businesses today.
Below are a few highlights from the event:
AI Fundamentals
Paul Cirstean, Head of Innovation at Yonder, joined us for a session on AI Beyond the Next Quarter. His message was particularly relevant at a time when so much of the conversation around AI is focused on immediate productivity gains.
Paul challenged leaders to think further ahead. As AI changes how software is built and operated, the goal isn’t simply to do today’s work faster. It’s to consider what will continue to differentiate your business tomorrow and into the future.
His advice centered on three areas:
- Stay close to your customers: Customer intimacy remains the strongest advantages of a VMS business. Listen carefully to customers, understand how their needs are evolving, and use those insights to determine where your product can add more value.
- Strengthen customer trust: As AI becomes embedded in more products and processes, trust becomes even more important. Outputs need to be relentlessly validated, while customer data and systems need to remain secure.
- Maintain an entrepreneurial mindset: Your product vision extends well beyond the next quarter. Leaders need to remain curious about where their markets are going, what customers will need next, and where new opportunities could emerge.
Give Good Ideas Room to Grow
We also welcomed Martijn Ivens from PharmaPartners. His session, From Product Champion to AI-First Venture, explored lessons from building new initiatives and why giving people the opportunity to pursue good ideas matters.
Three principles were at the centre of his experience: empowerment, commitment, and entrepreneurship.
- Empowerment: trust people to explore ideas worth pursuing, while documenting both successes and failures so others can learn from them.
- Commitment: go beyond encouraging experimentation. New initiatives need dedicated people with the time and ownership to move them forward.
- Entrepreneurship: accept that not every experiment will succeed. The objective is to stay curious, actively seek feedback, learn quickly, and continue improving.
It was a useful reminder that experimentation isn’t just about having ideas, organizations must create the conditions for those ideas to be tested.
Backing AI Initiatives with Investment
We put many of the principles Martijn spoke about into practice through our AI competition. Twenty teams from our operating businesses submitted proposals for AI-enabled solutions designed to address real customer pain points. Four finalist teams took the stage to pitch their ideas to the audience at Epic.
Congratulations to the two finalist teams from Aspen and RO Writer who were selected to share $500,000 in funding to continue developing the ideas they started at Epic. The goal was to take experimentation beyond the event, giving promising ideas the resources and runway to see where they can go.
Our Collective Experience is an Advantage
Perseus businesses operate independently across different geographies and industries, but many of the challenges our leaders face are shared.
Epic gives us the opportunity to learn from people solving those challenges every day and bring new ideas back to our businesses. That same philosophy continues year-round through peer groups, roundtables, and ongoing collaboration across Perseus.
We’re looking forward to seeing what our teams do next, and where this year’s AI competition winners take their initiatives with new investment behind them.
Until next year!
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