Heading to INSEAD ETA Conference May 9 — what should I ask?

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April 22, 2026

by a searcher from University of Greenwich in Amsterdam, Netherlands

In about three weeks I am taking the train to Fontainebleau for the INSEAD ETA Conference. Two days, around forty sessions, hundreds of European searchers, investors, and service providers in one place. The conference is sold out and running plenaries across two amphitheatres to fit the demand. Covering the whole thing for Buyout Diary. The 2026 INSEAD Report ships 16 May. I am writing in here before I go because the report will be better if it reflects what this community actually wants to know, instead of my own assumptions about what matters. What is the single biggest question you would want answered from the INSEAD room? It could be about European capital structures. It could be about financing in a specific country. It could be about how investors are behaving in 2026, or what is happening in a specific sector. It could be about something that comes up in your search every week that you have never seen written about clearly. Drop it in the comments. I will carry every question into the sessions and the hallway conversations on 9 May, and credit everyone who contributes in the acknowledgements of the final report. For context, I have been writing about European ETA full-time for about a year. Newsletter is at around seven hundred subscribers, mostly searchers and investors across NL, DACH, Belgium, and the UK. Last autumn I was on a panel at RSM in Rotterdam. INSEAD will be the first of three reports I write this year, with IESE and RSM still to come. Looking forward to your questions. 👉 My survey: https://tally.so/r/VL1kEl
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Reply by a searcher
from INSEAD in Boulder, CO, USA
@redacted‌ - I'll be there in May and also helped organize last year's. Happy to chat!
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Reply by a searcher
from INSEAD in Washington, DC, USA
@redacted‌ I would be curious about how investors are looking on the use of AI in the search process - do they want searchers to use it in a certain way, are they looking for theses that include margin improvement by using AI (or other tech), and any other impact that they're looking for. I'm curious about investors needing to show their LP's that they're taking the affect of AI into account in their investments...
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