9:00 - 9:45 – Registration and welcome breakfast

9:45 - 10:00 – Welcome and introductions from Global Mobility Lawyer

10:00 - 11:00 – Plenary Session 1: Balancing talent access and local workforce protections in Asia-Pacific

Asia-Pacific’s rapid economic growth and innovation-led industries have created an acute demand for highly skilled foreign workers. At the same time, governments are introducing policies to protect and promote local labour, creating a regulatory friction point for multinational employers. This session will explore how multinationals can navigate these competing priorities: meeting talent needs through global mobility programmes while staying compliant with local labour rules and avoiding social or political backlash. The panel will provide practical insights on immigration policy, employment law, and strategic workforce planning across the region.

11:00 - 11:30 – Coffee break

11:30 - 12:30 – Plenary Session 2: Non-traditional visa hacks or compliance traps?

As businesses expand across the Asia-Pacific region, traditional immigration pathways are being quietly replaced by more flexible, non-traditional visa options. This panel explores the growing reliance on digital nomad visas, short-term business visitor categories, and even tourist visas to facilitate cross-border work, often in response to evolving workforce expectations and operational pressures. But while these routes can offer speed and agility, they also present significant legal, tax, and compliance risks, including regulatory penalties, reputational damage, and unintended permanent establishment or employment law consequences. Panellists will highlight common risk scenarios, recent enforcement trends, and the challenges of interpreting permissible business activities in a post-pandemic, hybrid-working world.

12:30 - 1:30 – Plenary Session 3: Data-driven mobility: Strategy, scrutiny, and crisis readiness

Global mobility programmes are undergoing a fundamental shift – from operational support functions to strategic, data-led drivers of workforce planning and risk management. At the same time, governments across the globe are investing heavily in migration data analytics to inform policy development, monitor compliance, and strengthen enforcement. This convergence is reshaping how organisations deploy talent across borders and how quickly they must respond when conditions change. This panel will explore the growing role of data on both sides of the mobility equation as well as how organisations can build robust, data-informed mobility strategies that stand up to geopolitical instability and deliver effective crisis response.

1:30 - 2:45 – Networking lunch and close of the Global Mobility Masterclass

This Masterclass is followed by IEL's Asia-Pacific Employment Summit. Further details on this are available here.