The Green Agenda creates new needs to connect people across disciplines, institutions, and teams. Recently, I had the opportunity to moderate several conference panels addressing the Green Agenda from different perspectives: the role of finance ministries and central banks in promoting green finance, innovative green finance products in the financial sector, skills needed in public institutions to advance the agenda, and how public leaders can become role models in implementing the agenda in the face of complexity. Following these moderations, colleagues encouraged me to reflect on some lessons learned during the preparation and execution of my moderation roles and to share some tips and tricks.

Step 1 – Finding your fit within the event

Start your preparations by grasping the bigger picture – note any initial insights or ideas that jump to your mind, but do not get stuck in the finer details. Of course, studying the draft outline and agenda can give you a good initial sense of what the event aims to achieve, and how your own panel fits within the overall flow. Give it a couple of days to process the information. Try to find out what could be your unique, memorable contribution.

Any event materials that you can get will give you a good initial sense; however, to read between the lines, nothing is better than having a coffee chat with the organizer. Find out what they hope to get from your contribution. Do some initial brainstorming together – dare to think out of the box. The organizer invited you for a reason – do not hesitate to ask why they chose you for this role.

Panel discussions are often used in conferences, with panels scheduled before and after yours. In such case, it is particularly important to find out how your panel fits into the flow. If the organizer connects you with the other moderators, you can get a good sense of how the discussions are handed over to you and how you can hand over the discussion to the next moderator.

Step 2 – Gather information about the speakers and format

After having grasped your panel's unique place in the event, focus on how the individual speakers will fit into it. Often, you might not yet know all the people who will speak on your panel. A web research can provide some good initial insight – look into their biographic background, review their earlier conference contributions, and check out relevant publications. While you may not have time to study these materials in detail, scanning them and picking out a few key facts will help you understand who are the people behind the names listed for your panel. As you gather information, continue noting down any insights or ideas this research provides you.

Again, take the opportunity to talk to the organizer to understand why each speaker was invited and whether there were any specific pre-agreements oregarding their interventions. This may include finding out whether any speaker has expressed concerns about receiving open questions from the audience. If the organizer or you such concerns about direct questions, check whether a virtual chat or comment function is feasible and whether somebody from the organizing team could prefilter questions.

There is always a way to interact with the audience, but you need to see what the organizer envisages, and what is technically feasible. Surely, the easiest way to promote interaction is to ask the audience polling questions and have them vote by raising their hands. However, in case you ninvite interventions from the audience, be prepared for the possibility that nobody dares to come forward with a question or comment, which could lead to an awkward silence. Ahead of the event, you might identify somebody in the audience you know and prepare them to intervene, if needed; or you could simply have backup questions or comments ready, and check whether anybody in the audience has similar thoughts.

Sometimes, you or the organizer might be worried about reaching out to the audience due to time constraints. Prepare yourself to capture questions and comments from the audience without necessarily directing them to the panel members for their reactions. It is fine to leave some questions unanswered. You could, for example, capture them as input for the next session, or invite participants to explore them bilaterally with the speakers during networking conversations in the next break.

Step 3 – Script out your first story flow

In the previous steps, you did information gathering. Now comes the time to sketch out the script for how the panel could flow. In this third step, you start taking an active role vis-a-vis your panelists. Your task is to bring out the best in them, helping them to be themselves and to share their unique stories, good practices, and lessons learned that will most resonate with the audience. For such scripting, I typically draw colored lines across my notes, testing different discussion flows and framing guiding questions for each part of the panel discussion.

I recommend opting for a few rounds of shorter interventions rather than a single, lengthy one. Shorter contributions are easier to manage. You might even decide upfront (or later while moderating the panel) to allow only certaom panelists to contribute specific rounds of interventions.

Choose a flow that best fits the audience. When you do the scripting, the organizer may already have an initial list of registered participants. This information can help you get a better feel who your panel will be addressing. Typically, a conference audience is quite diverse, so you need to ensure that the panel interventions will align with the audience's level of understanding and anticipated expectations.

Step 4 – Meet and listen to the speakers

To refine your script, organize a preparatory meeting with all panel speakers together; or, if time allows, schedule bilateral meetings. If possible, invite the organizer to join, too. Start with a good introduction round, so that all panelists truly get to know each other. I typically use the introduction to cross-check some of my initial knowledge about the speakers (from step 2) and get a better idea who they really are. I usually ask them what aspect of the panel topic they find most exciting. Tapping into the positive emotions also helps them easier open up in front of the other panelists.

Share with the speakers how you have understood the purpose of the panel (from step 1) , and take the time to gather their feedback – finetuning a common purpose will be the first step to ensure joint ownership of the panel. Give each speaker the opportunity to express their initial thoughts on how they plan to contribute. You will see that some speakers have a clear idea already, while others may only have a few initial thoughts but want to elaborate on them more. Be compassionate with what they share, and ask questions to challenge any initial ideas and trigger new ones. You might need to reassure the speakers that they have enough insights on the topic, e.g., by pointing out why you believe that certain aspects of their thoughts could be of interest to the audience, and reminding them that they are in the panel for a reason.

Dare to share your initial script – if possible, adjust it based on the initial ideas shared by the speakers. If this does not come naturally to you, it is also fine to check-in with every speaker after the preparation meeting, aligning your script with their ideas. At this stage, try to keep notes at this stage in a way that everybody can see and follow them (e.g., using a virtual whiteboard like Miro or cloud-shared document). If facilitating the preparation meeting and taking notes at the same time makes it difficult for you to focus, ask somebody else to help you with this (or use AI-based transcription of the meeting).

To support the panelists in their further preparation, indicate the time you plan to allocate for each intervention and panelist. Clarify how you will prompt each speaker for their interventions. It can be liberating for your moderation role to address any common concerns among panelists about the time available, and a shared understanding that you aim to bring them all into the discussion equally. Ask for short interventions, and point out that you may not be able to give each speaker the floor the same amount of times or on each question. Encourage the panelists to react to each other. Note that you might need to interrupt speakers if time becomes tight. Agree on how you will signal when a speaker should wrap up their intervention. For example, I have used a secret signal where I point a piece of paper toward the speaker, which works quite well.

End of Part I, read PART II with Steps 5 and 6.