By Sarah Nicastro, Founder and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service

At our recent London event, I welcomed Rob Stephenson, keynote and TEDx speaker, mental health advocate, author of Music is the Answer, and Founder of Choose Your 3, to deliver a guest keynote. Before we got into the “task” of the day that everyone was expecting to tackle – knowledge sharing among peers on how to navigate today’s biggest service challenges and opportunities – I wanted to offer leaders a session focused on them.

Why? Because I believe we’re at a pivotal role in service where strong leadership is more important than it’s ever been. And we often get right to it, without much thought to what such an important role requires of the individuals living it.

I’ve known Rob since 2024 when he appeared on UNSCRIPTED as a feature for Mental Health Awareness month. When we began planning the London event, he immediately came to mind as someone who would perfectly set the tone for the day – and that he did.

Rob spoke about the importance of wellbeing, but more specifically about how to manage energy. He shared different types of energy and talked about why it’s crucial for leaders to do this for themselves before they can create a space for their teams to do the same. It was an important message, one that I plan to revisit in a future article (and hopefully another podcast!).

But Rob also shared not only his love of music, but his belief in how it can help us conserve, create, and shift energy. He asked the room to share in a Slido one song that always lifts their mood, and it was so fun – and interesting – to see the different responses pop up.

The Day as a Mixtape

On last week’s podcast, Berend Booms of Future of Assets guest hosted to share his key reflections from the event. Berend and I have been working closely together for the last year-plus to create Future of Assets, but a fun fact is that the London event was actually our first time meeting face-to-face. I asked him to do the summary podcast because I felt, having planned the event myself, his perspective as a more objective party would be more interesting.

It was indeed, and if you haven’t yet, you should have a listen. But my favorite part is that he took a cue from Rob’s keynote and selected a musical track to pair with each session of the day. How creative and fun is that?

So much so that I felt it was deserving of its own recap, here, as a documentation of the “soundtrack” of Future of Field Service Live London 2026. Without further ado, here’s the tracklist:

The White Stripes – We’re Going to Be Friends. Berend chose this track for my opening keynote on the three seismic shifts I am witnessing in service. He said, “The song that I would pick for Sarah’s opening session is We Are Going to Be Friends by The White Stripes. First of all, it's a vibe thing, right? It catches the vibe of the event really, really well. But it also pays respect to Sarah's friendly disposition and how she goes out of her way to make sure that everyone feels welcomed, feels included. Even myself, someone outside of the field service ecosystem, I could come in, I could participate and have a fantastic day.”

Bill Withers – Lovely Day. Berend chose this track for Rob’s guest keynote to honor the exercise Rob asked the audience to take part in. “This is the song that I picked during Rob’s prompt as the one song that never fails to bring me energy and never fails to set me right. It always just puts me in a great mood and I'm ready to start the day.”

ACDC – High Voltage. Berend chose this song for my interview with Natasha Nelson, CTO for Services at Schneider Electric, who spoke about the company’s journey of incorporating agentic AI into services. “So, a great song that I think fits Natasha's background really well, and it's also a classic for me, is ACDC's High Voltage.” Not only is this a nod to Schneider’s business, but perhaps also to the power – and delicacy – of expanding AI’s role in service.

X – Xzibit. This is Berend’s pick for my interview with Patrycja Sobera, SVP and GM of Digital Workplace Solutions at Unisys, who spoke about her award-winning shift to XM (experience management) and from SLAs to XLAs (experience level agreements). “I really enjoyed the session and going through my notes, the very first thing I actually put down was the big X, right? X for X factor, X for experience, X for expanding, X for XLA. And in my mind, there's only one song that is going to do justice to this, and that is X by Mr. X to the Z Xzibit. If I recall correctly, his first bar in that song is ‘the first day of the rest of my life.’ I really like that; I think it fits the forward look and building that future together through events and through communities like Future of Field Service exceptionally well.”

Bonnie Tyler – Holding Out for a Hero. The next session was a workshop given by Simone Schneider and Torben Petersen of Simon-Kucher, based on our joint research around the potential for service growth. They spoke about the opportunity that exists to better leverage field technicians to contribute to revenue. “Thinking about that maintenance technician showing up to save the day, there's only one song that comes to mind that fits that perfectly for me, and it is Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero. This is your cue to check out that song once again. It is a banger.”

Queens of the Stone Age – Go with the Flow. Next up was a Think Tank on the human side of digital transformation, which featured Clinten van der Merwe of TOMRA, Yasir Sheikh of Honeywell Technologies, and Nick Vandivere of IFS Nexus Black. “My song pick for this one was heavily influenced by Clinten’s comments, but I'm going with Queens of the Stone Age, Go with the Flow, which is one of my favorite songs by them, actually. It's a great song first and foremost, but it's also a great reminder of what we're all facing, right? This hesitation, this fear that we have, and how can we all deal with this change? We can all go with the flow when it comes to transformation.”

The Beatles – With a Little Help from My Friends. This is the song Berend selected to represent our ‘grand finale’ of the day, which was our announcement and celebration of this year’s Stand Out 50 leaders. “Roy Dockery, one of the judges this year, explained really well this feeling that I think a lot of people have where we mostly recognize sales; we mostly recognize revenue and revenue creation. Where are we rewarding people for showing great leadership? Doing so helps people feel seen, it helps them feel understood, it helps them feel appreciated, it helps them feel supported by having people take an interest and taking your peers into consideration. And I think Sarah summed it up perfectly, saying that leadership is action, it is not a position. So, my suggestion for a song to listen to in this case would be the Beatles’ rendition of With a Little Help from My Friends.”