Microsoft 365 ESPC 2026 Lists Harmetz With Teper in Opening Keynote

Microsoft's ESPC 2026 Keynote Lineup Puts Teper, Gatimu, Roine and Juvonen on Stage​

According to Microsoft's September 22 announcement, the keynote schedule is as follows, with all times in Central European Time:

The organiser confirms the event itself. ESPC's site lists ESPC26 at RAI Amsterdam and says it will bring together more than 1,800 IT professionals, developers, architects, Microsoft partners and business leaders in Amsterdam from 30 November–3 December 2026. Microsoft's audience figure is looser. Its September 10 preview says the conference will draw thousands of IT professionals, business leaders, developers, architects, and consultants to Amsterdam. Microsoft also describes itself as a headline sponsor, so treat its framing as coming from an interested party.

ESPC's keynote-speaker section confirms all four names. It lists Gatimu as Director, Microsoft SCALE Experience Group, AI & Collaboration, and Roine as an MVP with Not Bad Security. It also lists Juvonen's session under the same theme with slightly different capitalisation. The session times for December 2 and 3 appear only in Microsoft's announcement. The organiser's programme excerpt available at the time of writing does not yet confirm them.

ESPC26 Programme Pairs Adam Harmetz With Teper in the Opening Slot​

The two official sources disagree on the opening keynote. Microsoft's September 22 post calls it a Jeff Teper keynote titled "The AI-Powered Enterprise." ESPC's own programme for Tuesday, December 1, 9:00–10:00, shows a placeholder, "Microsoft Keynote Coming Soon," with two speakers: Jeff Teper and Adam Harmetz.

ESPC's speaker page names Harmetz as CVP of PM in Apps & Agents. It says Adam has 20 years of experience in content management and employee experience product design, and that his team is focused on modernizing the SharePoint product and helping generate the next decade of content management innovation with AI and agents. So the organiser currently lists five keynote speakers, one more than Microsoft's list.

This is a normal mismatch between a sponsor's blog and an organiser's working schedule, not a sign of trouble. It still has practical value. If Harmetz appears, SharePoint and content management will probably get more airtime in the opening hour than the "AI-powered enterprise" title suggests. That is an inference from his remit, not an announced agenda. Plan around the programme page, which the organiser updates, rather than the blog post.

Teper's "AI-Powered Enterprise" Pitch Centres on Agents and Copilot Studio​

Teper's role explains why his keynote carries weight for this audience. ESPC says he leads product, engineering, applied science, and design for the Microsoft Apps & Agents organization. Microsoft's September 22 post lists SharePoint, OneDrive, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and agents under his leadership. Those are the products many tenant admins and Power Platform teams work in every day.

According to Microsoft, the keynote will argue that the biggest AI value gains don't come from individual apps or personal productivity. They come when organisations connect people, knowledge, business processes, data, workflows and agents into a unified operating model. Microsoft promises strategy, discussion of product innovation, and demos. It does not say whether any product announcements are planned, so expect a strategy talk with demos rather than a launch event.

This is Teper's second ESPC opening in a row. Microsoft's earlier preview says that last year at ESPC 2025, Jeff Teper shared how organizations are adopting Microsoft Copilot, reimagining business processes, and creating new experiences through AI-powered agents and seamless integrations. The September 10 post also says he will cover the future of AI-powered productivity, the evolution of Microsoft 365, and what's next for organizations embracing Copilot, agents, and intelligent collaboration. Across both posts, the direction is consistent: agents and Copilot Studio are Microsoft's main theme for this audience.

Gatimu, Roine and Juvonen Shift the Keynotes Toward Adoption and Careers​

The three other keynotes deal less with product and more with how organisations and people adjust to AI.

Gatimu's fireside session on December 2 is aimed at leaders trying to get results from Microsoft 365 spending. Microsoft says she will share practical insights, real-world examples and best practices on collaboration, productivity and AI. ESPC describes her as a business solution architect who manages a customer advocacy team, which fits a session built around customer examples.

Roine's afternoon keynote is the only one given by a non-Microsoft speaker, and it takes the most pointed stance. ESPC says it is for every IT professional, consultant, and developer who's looked at the pace of change in the last two years and quietly wondered: what's left for me? Microsoft's description says Roine will argue for strengthening human skills that stay essential rather than trying to compete with automation. For an audience of consultants and IT staff, the question he raises is a real one.

Juvonen closes the keynote series on December 3 with a session on balancing AI adoption with human connection. It is aimed at people leading change, building solutions or supporting users. Juvonen also appears elsewhere in the schedule in a more technical role, as the next section shows.

The Monday Tutorials Hold the Technical Detail for ESPC 2026​

For technical staff, the tutorials and breakouts matter more than the keynotes. ESPC says that on Monday, November 30, every four-day ticket includes one full-day tutorial, chosen from 11 on offer. Microsoft's preview lists 128 sessions as well. More precisely, its at-a-glance list gives more than 100 speakers, 128 sessions, 11 tutorials and nine content tracks. The organiser rounds these to 100+ speakers, 100+ sessions and 11+ tutorials. Both sets of numbers are promotional counts.

The published Monday tutorials cover much of a Microsoft 365 admin's workload in 2026:

• Andrew Connell and Mark Rackley compare Copilot Studio and the Agents Toolkit for extending Microsoft 365 Copilot with custom agents (level 200).
• Katerina Chernevskaya, Bülent Altinsoy and Laura Luisa Rosenberg cover choosing between Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry or both for agent architecture (level 300).
• Tatu Seppälä, Claire Edgson and Mikko Koskinen cover agent governance with Defender, Entra, Purview and Agent 365 (level 200).
• Vlad Catrinescu and Drew Madelung cover governance, skills and agents for the AI-era SharePoint administrator (level 300).
• Paolo Pialorsi and Vesa Juvonen, both from Microsoft, explain when to use each Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility option (level 200).
• Joanne Klein and Chirag Patel cover risk, compliance and investigations in Microsoft 365, and Aleksandar Nikolić covers using AI to simplify Azure scripting and management.

The Tuesday breakouts right after Teper's keynote follow the same pattern. They include a session on Model Context Protocol (MCP) for non-developers, a talk on detecting and containing supply-chain attacks with App Governance, and a session on staying in control of Microsoft 365 governance "in an AI and Agent world." ESPC's featured sessions also include a talk on Copilot licence spending titled "The Copilot Tax." Not every session at the event follows Microsoft's messaging.

The programme labels each session by track, audience and level. Levels run from 100 (introductory) to 400 (advanced), so you can filter out keynote-style talks if you want implementation detail. The tracks include Copilot, Agents, and AI; Security, Compliance, and Governance; Operations, Admin, and Management; and Data, AI, and Analytics.

What this means for you​

If you're deciding whether to attend, base the decision on the tutorials and breakouts rather than the keynotes. Keynote content will reach the wider community quickly after the event. The full-day tutorial on agent governance or Copilot extensibility is the part you can only get by being there.

• ESPC 2026 runs from November 30 to December 3, 2026, at RAI Amsterdam, and Monday is tutorial day for four-day ticket holders.
• Jeff Teper's opening keynote is scheduled for December 1 at 9:00 CET, but ESPC's programme currently lists Adam Harmetz alongside him, so check the organiser's schedule before building your plan.
• The December 2 and 3 keynote times for Gatimu, Roine and Juvonen come from Microsoft's announcement and have not yet appeared on ESPC's programme.
• Teams working on Copilot Studio agents, Microsoft Foundry or agent governance with Entra, Purview and Defender should compare the Monday tutorials, because you can choose only one.
• Use the programme's level ratings to separate strategy sessions (100–200) from implementation sessions (300–400).
• Expect the opening keynote to focus on strategy and demos; Microsoft has not said it will announce any products.

ESPC 2026 looks set to be Microsoft's main European stage for its agents-first pitch to the Microsoft 365 community. The detail admins can actually use, such as governance controls, extensibility choices and licensing arguments, will come from the tutorials and community sessions. The next concrete step is the organiser replacing its "Coming Soon" placeholder with a final title and speaker list for the December 1 keynote, which will show whether the opening hour covers Teper's enterprise-AI strategy, Harmetz's SharePoint work, or both.