CIO 100 Leadership Live Agenda
Explore the latest event agenda below, and check back soon for updates.
Wednesday, February 4
The CIO role has become more strategic as they build the next-gen IT infrastructure in an AI-world. Cyber resilience is important for time threat detection and response plus business continuity solutions to keep your operations humming and your data secure. As data and AI become core to digital business, CIOs need to focus on few of the many important priorities including building cyber-resilient AI ecosystems, managing data sprawl and security, aligning infrastructure with evolving threat landscapes, empowering intelligent, secure decision-making at scale. Discover how CIOs and IT leaders can effectively traverse the impact of data, AI and cyber resilience as the new-age cyber risks emerge in an AI-everywhere world
The accelerating pace of technical innovation is driving rapid turnover in the skills necessary for organizational success, leaving IT leaders and individual professionals uncertain about where to place their upskilling bets. The CIO roundtable will share practical insights, use cases, expert viewpoints on how agentic AI is transforming their organization and leading to business growth?
Beyond the technology itself, this session will explore the critical shift from managing systems to orchestrating a hybrid workforce where human ingenuity and autonomous agents coexist. Participants will discuss how to redefine role architectures, move from one-off training to continuous ‘learning journeys’ and foster a culture of curiosity that survives rapid disruption. By examining the evolving partnership between the CIO and the broader C-suite, we will uncover how to build a high-performing IT organization that doesn’t just keep pace with Agentic AI but uses it as a catalyst for long-term talent retention and competitive advantage.
We kick off the day by exploring the legacy of the CIO 100, a prestigious benchmark of excellence that has evolved into a worldwide phenomenon over the decades. This session highlights its transformative journey in India, where it has become the definitive platform for connecting top-tier tech leaders and fostering a high-impact community of visionaries. Join us as we set the stage for a day dedicated to the leadership, innovation, and synergy that define the modern CIO.
AI will still dominate IT leaders’ agenda, but it shouldn’t at the expense of vast amounts of burgeoning, off-Broadway tech. While 2026 will continue to be about AI, especially agentic AI, it’s important that CIOs examine every technology adjacency in their business and IT outlook. What are six strategic imperatives as tech investments for CIOs and tech leaders to focus in 2026?
AI’s emergence as a transformative force is spurring CISOs to rethink how their teams operate to harness the technology’s potential and better defend its use across the organization.This increasing use of AI for security process is transforming CyberOps, boosting the effectiveness and productivity of security professionals, and changing how cybersecurity work gets done.
As organizations shift from experimental AI to “Agentic” operational reality in 2026, the traditional security perimeter has dissolved. Innovation now pulses through decentralized LLMs, private RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) clusters, and autonomous AI agents. To survive this shift, enterprises must move beyond static “allow or block” policies toward Architecting Adaptive Trust.
This session explores the convergence of Netskope One SASE and Data-First AI Security. We will lay the blueprint and demonstrate how the Netskope Zero Trust Engine provides the continuous telemetry needed to govern AI interactions in real-time. By unifying networking and security into a single, cloud-native fabric, organizations can finally treat data governance not as a hurdle to innovation, but as its primary accelerator.
From escalating AI-enabled threats to budgets that don’t scale alongside expanding threat landscapes, security leaders are reshaping their agendas to address several key long-standing and emerging concerns.The CISO job is tough, and it’s getting tougher: 66% of security leaders surveyed for the 2025 State of Cybersecurity report from professional association ISACA said their roles are more stressful today than they were five years ago , CISOs are dealing with rising risks, competing priorities, limited budgets, and more. The Captains’ table discusses the top three issues / concerns faced by CIOs / CISOs and their teams in 2026 and why ?
To prepare your business for the data and AI era, you need to have a holistic DPDP strategy for privacy across data and AI life cycle. How do you build org level blueprint for it? Can you have an integrated approach across Consent, cookie, Data principal rights, DPIA, technical safeguards, unlock data with exceptions and verifiable mathematical proof, AI red teaming, safe AI inference and Agentic Security?
Join us to get a 360 degree perspective of DPDP requirements and how to implement in on ground with a unified approach across life cycle which can make data a profit Center, while meeting regulatory obligation.
In today’s hyper-distributed work environment, the traditional office perimeter has vanished. To thrive, organizations must empower their workforce to access critical business applications from anywhere, on any device, without exposing the network to evolving cyber threats.
This topic delves into how Accops redefines remote access through a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) framework. By integrating Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), and Secure Access Gateways, Accops enables a “work-from-anywhere” culture that is both seamless for the user and airtight for the enterprise.
Thursday, February 5
IT leaders are ramping up their strategic focus this year, in part to convert early AI experimentation into initiatives that deliver measurable business results. Get deep-dive insights into changing CIO role, advent of Gen AI , new tech priorities, business climate for 2026. The CIO Tech Poll gauges which technology areas IT leaders will focus on over the next 12 months, and to measure the direction of spending within those categories. The keynote will cover Status of tech spending, AI initiatives, Status of tech adoption, security’s role within the organization, Implementing and evaluating new vendors and tools.
As the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act reshapes India’s regulatory landscape, the simultaneous explosion of GenAI introduces complex new privacy challenges. This session explores the intersection of compliance and innovation, offering CIOs a roadmap to navigate legal nuances without stifling growth.
Agentic AI’s reasoning and planning capabilities can help supercharge your IT org by making decisions and handling tasks with little or no human intervention.How can agentic AI help your organization work faster and more productively? Discover eight ways this powerful new technology can be used to speed operations and cut costs.
Forget tweaking your tech stack — if you’re not rebuilding for agentic AI, you’re already falling behind the next wave of enterprise disruption.our role as CIO is to engineer the foundation — a resilient, adaptive and scalable stack — that turns this generational tech into a competitive advantage.What are the foundational considerations for architecting your Enterprise IT for the age of autonomous agents?
The AI debate is stuck in extremes: automate everything or fall behind resisting change. This session introduces a third path, Mission Control architecture, where AI has real agency to act autonomously while humans retain strategic oversight. Inspired by NASA, we’ll explore how service operations can use AI agents to deflect routine tickets, copilots to assist agents with responses, and insights to surface trends proactively without losing control. You’ll learn how to calibrate agency by deciding what AI handles independently, where humans stay in the loop, and where humans must lead for sensitive, complex, or strategic decisions.
The rapid rise of AI capabilities is ramping up the pressure for business transformation and cloud strategy.Gen AI may be creating the pressure, but with the right mindset, it can also be part of the solution.Effective Gen AI implementation requires an outcomes-focused approach supported by AI-ready data operations and aligned with the organization’s overall risk appetite. Here’s a end user keynote on how to ensure your Gen AI journey is headed in the right direction.
“Embracing Secure AI with Zscaler” delves into how organizations can confidently leverage generative AI while maintaining rigorous security standards. The presentation highlights best practices for securely adopting both public and private AI environments, addressing the unique challenges and opportunities each presents. It emphasizes the importance of proactive measures to safeguard sensitive data and uphold compliance amid the evolving threat landscape. Attendees will gain insights into Zscaler’s robust capabilities for detecting and preventing AI-driven cyberattacks, ensuring seamless and secure integration of AI technologies to foster innovation, operational efficiency, and business resilience.
As organizations discover new opportunities created by AI, many are investing significantly in GenAI, as part of their cloud modernization plans.They are using the considerable power of this fast-evolving technology to tackle the common challenges of cloud modernization, particularly in projects that involve the migration and modernization of legacy applications — a key enabler of digital and business transformation.
As digital adoption and AI become part of everyday life, fraud is no longer just an enterprise risk — it is a personal safety issue affecting employees, their families, and loved ones. From phishing and social engineering to deepfake-enabled scams and identity misuse, today’s fraudsters exploit human trust, urgency, and digital behavior, not system vulnerabilities alone. This keynote focuses on the evolution of fraud in a hyper-digital, AI-driven world and, more importantly, the role CXOs play in creating awareness beyond the workplace. The session will highlight common fraud types cutting across industries, why even digitally savvy individuals fall victim, and how awareness — not fear — is the strongest line of defense. CIOs and CXOs will gain practical guidance on how to educate employees and extend safety conversations to their households, embedding fraud prevention into daily digital habits. The goal is simple yet powerful: to help leaders protect not just organizations, but people and trust in the digital ecosystem.
Modernizing the application stack is critical and, increasingly, businesses see GenAI as the key to success. The solution—GenAI—is also the beneficiary. Indeed, more than 80% of organizations agree that scaling GenAI solutions for business growth is a crucial consideration in modernization strategies.
In an era where technology evolves at breakneck speed, a business’s capacity to compete and survive in the digital economy relies on its IT competencies. application rationalization isn’t about discarding the past; it’s about streamlining the present to build a foundation for a future-proof, efficient application ecosystem. Here’s a CIO panel on how to make application portfolio modernization and rationalization (APMR) a key differentiator.
As we head into 2026, sustainability is no longer a “nice-to-have” but a core component of IT strategy and budget allocation. This session explores how CIOs can shift from reporting on ESG to driving it, embedding green principles directly into technology procurement and infrastructure.
A CIO’s guide to networking infrastructure involvesaligning with business goals, conducting a current-state analysis, and developing a future-proof strategy. Key steps include evaluating modern needs like AI support, cybersecurity, and cloud integration, assessing infrastructure against business objectives, and creating a strategic roadmap that includes modern capabilities like Wi-Fi 7 and private 5G where applicable. A focus on talent, vendor consolidation, and leveraging network infrastructure for competitive advantage is also crucial.
Not every system is built for the AI era. As new models and workloads push the limits of what legacy environments can support, IT leaders are rebuilding the IT stack for an AI-first world. It’s an evolution thatmeans re-evaluating which legacy systems are holding you back, embracing hybrid flexibility, and building a secure foundation that’s designed for intelligence at scale.
Data is now a living organism driving company success. To thrive, businesses must embrace AI-powered, automated data management across five critical pillars – Data Platform, Data Enginnering,Analytics & Reporting,Data Science & AI, Data Governance.
AI and data are feeding each other — build the right strategy and you’ll unlock smarter decisions, better agility and a real edge.Developing a new age architecture that harnesses this relationship is critical for organizations striving to achieve agility, accuracy and competitive advantage in the era of intelligent automation.
The emergence of AI marks a point of inflection in the evolution of the top tech exec position, with greater strategic responsibilities and career growth on the horizon for those who embrace the challenge that change brings. Over a few short years, AI will transform organizations, org charts, and roles. The CIO position will not be exempt.
Complexity remains the defining characteristic of the cybersecurity agenda as organizations grapple with accelerating threats and an expanding portfolio of specialized tools. While AI’s rise presents an opportunity to simplify and solidify the cybersecurity landscape, there are growing concerns the technology will unleash new attack vectors, increasing vulnerabilities and amplifying risks
As we move into 2026, the CIO’s mandate has evolved from managing infrastructure to becoming the architect of business resilience. In an environment where AI-driven threats are becoming industrialized, the challenge for CIOs is to move beyond fragmented, siloed security tools toward a unified platformization strategy. Beyond managing infrastructure, the session focuses on how technology leaders can dismantle fragmented security silos to build a unified, strategic architecture that aligns with business outcomes.
AI agents are helping companies work as one fluid system, cutting friction, boosting people’s impact and reshaping how businesses run from the inside out. Data, decisions and experiences can flow intelligently across every layer of the organization when the right architecture and mindset are in place. That’s the next frontier of transformation and it’s already taking shape. The CIO roundtable will share practical insights, use cases, expert viewpoints on how AI agents is transforming their organization and leading to business growth?
This transition toward an autonomous enterprise requires more than just deploying new tools; it demands a fundamental rethinking of the integration between data silos and user interfaces. As AI agents move from experimental pilots to core operational drivers, the focus shifts to creating a ‘seamless fabric’ where workflows adapt in real-time to business needs. We will examine the governance frameworks necessary to maintain trust and transparency in an agentic world, while exploring how these intelligent flows liberate talent from repetitive orchestration. By aligning architectural readiness with a forward-leaning organizational culture, CIOs can ensure that AI agents don’t just automate tasks but fundamentally elevate the entire enterprise experience.
Join us for an open dialogue on the power of peer-to-peer connectivity within Foundry’s Global CIO Community. In this session, we’ll move beyond the stage to converse directly with you about the resources, collaborative forums, and exclusive networks that span across 20+ countries. Discover how our global ecosystem enables India’s tech leaders to exchange battle-tested strategies with international peers, ensuring that every CIO in our community has a front-row seat to the global tech transformation.