Leo Judkins brings the Leadership Hot Seat format to the SBC Leaders Summit in Cascais

Leo Judkins brings his Leadership Hot Seat format to the in-person agenda of the SBC Leaders Summit in Cascais on Monday, 28th of 2026. The workshop arose at the request of Rasmus Sojmark, founder of SBC, after seeing the weekly sessions Judkins leads for members of his mastermind; the dynamic places attendees at small tables and uses a timer to enforce concrete decisions.

Leadership Hot Seat: mechanics and goals of the workshop

The format of the Leadership Hot Seat is deliberately simple and operational. Attendees are divided into tables of four or five people; the groups will be rebalanced between rounds, akin to a poker tournament. Each participant has two minutes to present a live challenge and eight minutes to receive feedback from the rest of the table before the rotations commence.

Judkins explains that the timer "is there to prevent people from hiding." The intent is explicit: to transform a conference discussion that leaves notes into an outcome that "goes on the participant's calendar," not into a notebook. In his description, the hot seat produces a concrete decision and an immediate plan, rather than a long list of open tasks.

Why Judkins criticizes traditional panels and what the workshop aims to achieve

Judkins contrasts the hot seat with conventional conference panels. According to his experience, panels often leave delegates with an extensive list of ideas and no clear next step; the hot seat forces focus and prioritization.

His recommendation to participants is to go "narrow and deep" rather than broad and superficial: bring a specific problem, explain why it matters, and detail what has already been tried. That precision accelerates collective diagnosis and enables the solution to be scheduled immediately.

The origin of the workshop and SBC's involvement

The jump from the online mastermind format to the congress room occurred when Rasmus Sojmark, founder of SBC, saw Judkins' weekly sessions and proposed to replicate the dynamic at the SBC Leaders Summit. That connection links Judkins' existing online format with the in-person audience at the summit. Sojmark's invitation represents a direct commission to transform a closed group practice into an expanded exercise for industry leaders.

The workshop will take place in Cascais within the congress schedule; having the format within the event entails both logistical adaptations (rapid table rotations) and a pedagogical intention: to teach attendees to use time pressure to produce actionable decisions.

Executive culture, noise, and the era of artificial intelligence

In a conversation with Charlie Horner, host of iGaming Daily, Judkins expressed skepticism about the idea that leaders are now more open about their struggles. He doesn't believe openness has increased; his perception is different: "people are fed up with the alternative" — a culture where public visibility is confused with leadership.

Judkins points to three elements of that alternative: the culture of exhibitionism linked to artificial intelligence, noisy WhatsApp groups, and networking events that are actually disguised business opportunities. These factors, he says, generate noise and tend to reinforce echo chambers within senior management rather than break them.

"People are fed up with the alternative," Judkins stated during the interview with Charlie Horner.

Curiosity as a key trait and the vision for boards

Looking to the future, Judkins identifies curiosity as the quality that will separate the strongest leaders. He cites the perspective of Andrew Bulloss, Partner and Head of Global Gaming Practice at Odgers, on what boards are looking for in a CEO: a combination of internal and external focus. That balance, according to Judkins, is precisely what the Leadership Hot Seat aims to foster: compelling leaders to look outside their office and subject their problems to quick, practical scrutiny.

The reference to Andrew Bulloss underscores what skills boards value: not only operational execution but also the ability to learn and openness to external feedback.

Practical implications for attendees in the industry

For executives and middle managers in the iGaming sector, the proposal offers concrete tools for decision management. The format rewards specificity of the problem and clarity regarding prior attempts. Among the practical advantages are:

• reducing the time to an actionable decision;

• receiving feedback from peers with industry experience;

• practicing concise presentation of challenges under time pressure.

The hot seat does not promise miracle solutions; rather, it provides a mechanism for a specific challenge to turn into a scheduled action.

Where this workshop fits into the industry agenda

The Leadership Hot Seat arrives at a time when industry conferences are seeking more interactive formats. SBC's adoption of the workshop, following Rasmus Sojmark's intervention, turns the session into an experiment in scaling mastermind practices to the congressional scope. Interested attendees can find information within the programming of the SBC Leaders Summit in the events section of the congress.

For those following Judkins' work, the hot seat is the condensed version of his weekly mastermind sessions: the same dynamic of presentation and feedback, but accelerated and with room rotations. Interested parties in community models and executive training can compare this practice with other products and services in the sector within our coverage of b2b.

Watch the full interview

The conversation between Leo Judkins and Charlie Horner is part of the iGaming Daily interview series and can be found on the GamblingTV.com platform. The segment details the mechanics of the workshop, the genesis of SBC's invitation, and Judkins' views on executive culture and the qualities boards should seek.

The session in Cascais is posed as a test to bring a closed mastermind practice to the mass congressional format, with the explicit intention of forcing decisions and reducing the echo chamber affecting many iGaming executives.