Dr Ilona Boniwell
Dr Ilona Boniwell, PhD, is a leading figure in positive organisational psychology and executive coaching, with over 25 years of experience in research, teaching, and consultancy. She wrote or edited 12 books and delivered over 300 keynotes, including a TEDx talk. Passionate about applications of psychological science, Ilona taught and trained tens of thousands of business leaders, HR professionals, trainers and consultants how to optimise well-being and engagement, enhance resilience, develop talents and leadership and use insights from psychological assessment. Her approach blends experiential learning, gamification, and thoughtfully crafted pedagogical design.
Her main expertise lies in the areas of positive psychology, coaching psychology, positive organisational psychology, organisational behaviour, leadership, change management and positive education. Her specific research interests include resilience, subjective time use, time perspective, eudaimonic well-being, measuring well-being and engagement at work, tangible pedagogical tools and applications of positive psychology to business, executive and team coaching.
In addition to teaching on Grande Ecole and Open Executive Education Programmes, Ilona is teaching and provides academic directorship for many custom programmes. She has worked with Schneider, Club Med, L’Oreal, Microsoft, SNCF, EDF, Sanofi, Bull, Mars, Eric Bompard, BNP Paribas, Sanofi, Sodexo, HP, Unilever, Nestle, Fitbit, Facebook, Petit Bambou, Viatris, Tahakom, KSA Ministry of Culture, Bupa Arabia, and many others.
Ilona is a Visiting Professor at Musashino University, Faculty of VIA Institute of Character and CEO of Positran. She founded and was the first Chair of the European Network of Positive Psychology (ENPP), serves on the Board of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and is a co-editor of the Applied Positive Psychology Journal.
Playing Positive Psychology: Tangible Gamification for Engagement and Wellbeing
Positive psychology has long emphasised the importance of engagement, meaning, strengths, agency, and social connection in supporting sustainable performance and wellbeing. At the same time, coaching, training and development professionals continue to search for approaches that move beyond insight alone toward lasting behavioural change. This keynote explores how tangible gamification can bridge these two domains by transforming abstract reflection into embodied, interactive, and emotionally engaging experiences.
While gamification is increasingly present in learning and coaching environments, many approaches rely on superficial mechanics such as points, badges, and competition, often generating short-term motivation without deeper psychological impact. In contrast, tangible gamification uses physical artefacts, collaborative challenges, storytelling, and structured interaction to create psychologically meaningful experiences that foster curiosity, autonomy, connection, and commitment.
Drawing on research from positive psychology, motivation science, and coaching practice, the keynote demonstrates how tangible tools — including cards, visual mapping systems, and serious games — can support strengths development, resilience, collective intelligence, and purposeful action. Particular attention is given to how these approaches enhance psychological safety, deepen engagement, and create space for reflection and growth in both individual and team settings.
Through practical examples and case studies, participants will discover how tangible gamification can help people explore possibilities, clarify goals, strengthen relationships, and sustain motivation while remaining grounded in authentic human experience rather than purely digital or performance-driven systems.
The session also examines the conditions under which gamification supports flourishing — and when it risks undermining autonomy, meaning, or intrinsic motivation. Emphasis is placed on ethical facilitation, experience design, and creating environments that encourage experimentation, ownership, and positive change.