Insights from award-winning IT projects, presented by CIOs
2026 agenda
Thursday, September 24
Digital transformation has largely been about adapting to one technology at a time. The next wave will be different. As AI, digital twins, quantum computing and tokenisation mature simultaneously, CIOs face a once-in-a-generation opportunity – and risk – to redefine how value is created, delivered and captured. This keynote explores why traditional transformation approaches may no longer be enough, how technology convergence will reshape competitive advantage, and what leaders should be doing today to ensure their organisations become the disruptors rather than the disrupted.
The agentic age is here, but for most business leaders, the ROI is unclear and the risks are real. This session cuts through the hype to show how AI can become your greatest growth lever – and expands on Meta’s vision for an agent-led future where AI doesn’t just answer questions but works with your systems and people to scale customer relationships and future-proof your business.
- Why the agentic age is the biggest shift in customer engagement since the internet– and what it means for how you run your business
- The building blocks the agentic economy demands–and what happens when they work together rather than in silos
- What winning looks like today– real examples of businesses already driving growth through AI-enabled messaging at scale
- What it takes to deploy AI agents in the enterprise – from integrating with your existing systems to maintaining guardrails, compliance, and human oversight as you scale
CIOs share how they have moved beyond isolated AI experiments to embed AI as a core operating model across the enterprise. This discussion will cover governance frameworks, integration strategies and how AI is orchestrating workflows, decisions and customer interactions. Expect candid insights on preventing AI sprawl, balancing speed with ethical and regulatory obligations and translating investment into measurable business outcomes.
- How to translate AI investments into measurable business outcomes – at scale
What does “AI as an operating model” look like in practice and how does it drive revenue, efficiency and faster decision-making? - How to assess investment and the financial impact of AI?
How to demonstrate clear financial returns from these technologies, moving beyond “time saved” to measurable cost reductions or revenue gains? - How to prevent AI sprawl while enabling innovation across the enterprise
What governance, architecture and platform choices eliminate duplication without slowing teams down? - Where does accountability for AI-driven decisions truly sit?
How should ownership be shared between IT, business units and the board as AI becomes embedded in critical workflows? - How to balance speed with trust, risk and regulation
What does it take to operationalise explainability, auditability and compliance without stalling deployment? How do we accelerate delivery without compromising risk management?
*By invitation only
Customers expect instant, personalised and low-friction interactions, and WhatsApp is increasingly where those expectations are being set. For CIOs, the challenge is no longer whether conversational AI matters, but how to deploy it in a way that is secure, scalable and genuinely valuable to the business. This boardroom session will explore the question many leaders are asking internally but rarely debating with peers: how do we turn WhatsApp into a trusted enterprise channel for customer engagement without creating another siloed automation layer? The discussion will focus on what is relevant right now, from GenAI maturity and customer service transformation to the need for faster time-to-value, better orchestration and clearer board-level ROI.
What problem does WhatsApp conversational AI solve that other channels cannot?
How can CIOs connect AI, CRM and customer service into one coherent experience?
What governance and control are needed before scaling to production?
How do CIOs design for both automation and human handoff?
How should leaders measure impact across engagement, efficiency and conversion?
Legacy modernisation is a persistent priority – but where should CIOs focus, to drive real progress, without disrupting the business? This session examines how leaders are modernising core systems, integrating new platforms and increasing agility while maintaining stability. Expect pragmatic approaches to balancing transformation with continuity, reducing risk and unlocking value from existing estates – without slowing the organisation or overcomplicating the journey.
- Incremental vs big-bang transformation
What have organisations tried in practice and what lessons can be applied to avoid costly missteps? - How to manage risk when changing critical core systems
What approaches minimise disruption while maintaining business continuity and stakeholder confidence? - How can we reduce technical debt without slowing delivery?
What strategies enable CIOs to simplify legacy estates while continuing to innovate and scale? - What would leaders do differently if they were starting again?
What practical lessons from large-scale modernisation programmes can help shape smarter decisions today?
AI pilots are everywhere- but how do you turn experimentation into scaled impact? This session cuts through the noise to focus on moving from isolated use cases to enterprise-wide deployment with measurable financial and operational returns. Expect pragmatic approaches to rapidly deploying models, unifying data foundations and translating AI-driven insights into business-ready outcomes – without creating fragmentation or slowing the organisation.
- Why do most AI pilots fail to scale – and how can we fix that?
What prioritisation frameworks help identify low-value experiments early and redirect investment to what actually works? - What are 3-4 high-value AI use case patterns that consistently deliver ROI in large enterprises
What repeatable patterns are emerging across organisations that are successfully scaling AI? - What does it take to embed AI into core business processes
Which organisational, operational, and governance changes are required to move from pilot to production at scale? - Measuring and communicating ROI: quantify AI impact in financial terms
What financial and operational metrics resonate most with boards and ensure continued funding and support? How do you demonstrate clear financial returns from these technologies, moving beyond “time saved” to measurable cost reductions or revenue gains?
Digital transformation remains a strategic imperative – but how do CIOs deliver meaningful ROI when cost pressure, inflation and uncertain growth are reshaping investment decisions? This presentation showcases how one CIO is prioritising transformation initiatives that deliver measurable value – balancing innovation with financial discipline. Expect pragmatic approaches to proving impact, focusing investment where it matters most and sustaining momentum through economic uncertainty- without compromising long-term strategic ambition.
- How to maintain leadership resilience in high-pressure, high-expectation environments
What mindsets and practices enable CIOs to lead effectively through sustained uncertainty? - How to deliver large-scale transformation without losing momentum
What approaches ensure progress continues while balancing cost control and operational demands? - How to foster a culture of adaptability and innovation during economic uncertainty
What leadership actions create alignment, engagement and forward momentum across the organisation? - What should a CIO’s personal leadership playbook look like for the next 3–5 years?
How can leaders define their priorities, capabilities and impact in an increasingly complex landscape?
*By invitation only
Building on this morning’s keynote on Meta’s agentic vision, this boardroom session moves from “why WhatsApp” to “how far can WhatsApp go.” CM.com works with CIOs who no longer treat WhatsApp as a support add-on, but as the single conversational surface for marketing, sales, and service, backed by a customer context that keeps compounding with every interaction across every channel a business runs. Stijn Roovers, Head of Product at CM.com, joins this session to discuss what it actually takes to run WhatsApp as an agentic, revenue-bearing channel at enterprise scale: the architecture, the AI agent design, and the board-level case for treating WhatsApp as core infrastructure rather than a service layer.
Infrastructure strategy has moved beyond transformation narratives to operational reality. For CIOs, the focus is now on balancing cost, control, resilience and regulatory demands across increasingly distributed environments. This session addresses the practical decisions leaders must make to optimise multicloud, integrate edge and future-proof infrastructure in a complex, decentralised world.
- How to achieve cost predictability and real value from multicloud
What does mature FinOps look like in practice and how do we link infrastructure spend to measurable business outcomes? Where are the biggest sources of cloud waste and how can we eliminate them quickly? - Design for resilience in a decentralised world – what should our infrastructure look like if we were designing it today?
How do we balance cloud, edge and on-premise decisions to meet performance, resilience and regulatory needs? How can we build architectures that withstand disruption without sacrificing performance? - Make smarter cloud, edge and sovereignty decisions – how we manage risk across vendors, jurisdictions and architectures
What approaches reduce vendor lock-in, address data sovereignty and ensure portability across environments? - Simplify complexity without limiting innovation – how we secure and govern decentralised infrastructure at scale
How can we manage ‘shadow IT’ while enabling innovation across the business? What changes when data and compute move to the edge and how do we maintain control without slowing innovation?
Cybersecurity is no longer just about defence – it’s about continuity and trust, as security becomes inseparable from operational stability, regulatory confidence and brand value. This panel examines how CIOs are embedding security into resilience strategies, addressing AI-driven threats, identity-centric attacks and supply chain vulnerabilities. Leaders will share approaches to layered, adaptive security models and secure-by-design principles, while tackling the reality of skills shortages, cost trade-offs and enabling confident innovation in an increasingly complex threat landscape.
- How to reframe cybersecurity as an enterprise resilience capability to minimise disruption, maintain service availability and protect revenue under evolving threats
What does it take to embed security into business continuity, operational design and board-level risk management? - How to prepare for the next wave of AI-driven and systemic cyber threats
What are the top 5 emerging enterprise attack vectors? How do organisations defend against adversarial AI, identity-based attacks, emerging quantum risks and increasingly complex supply chain vulnerabilities? - Where should accountability for cyber risk sit in the modern organisation?
How should responsibility be shared between CIOs, security leaders, the executive team and the board? How to reframe cyber risk as a strategic business issue – enhancing trust, protecting brand equity and aligning with UK regulatory expectations - How to sustain resilience without overwhelming cost, complexity or security teams
What practical models help balance investment, automation, skills shortages and rising operational pressure?
Regulatory complexity is rising but governance doesn’t have to slow innovation. This discussion will explore how CIOs navigate UK, EU and global frameworks while using governance as a strategic enabler. Case studies will highlight how strong compliance foundations can accelerate innovation, build trust and strengthen board-level credibility.
- How to move from governance as a constraint to governance as an enabler of speed and innovation
What practical models allow compliance frameworks to actively accelerate, rather than slow, delivery? - Turn regulatory complexity into strategic advantage – how can CIOs navigate fragmented UK, EU and global regulatory landscapes without creating operational drag?
What does effective alignment look like across AI governance, data regulation, cyber and operational resilience requirements? - How to turn governance into a source of competitive advantage and trust
How can strong compliance foundations strengthen customer confidence, market position and board-level credibility? - What does “trusted-by-design” actually look like, in modern enterprise architecture?
How should organisations embed auditability, transparency and accountability without adding unnecessary complexity?
Technology leaders are under increasing pressure to keep the business running while simultaneously driving transformation,innovationand growth. Drawing on doctoral research and interviews with some of the UK’s most accomplished technology executives across multiple industries, this session uncovers the leadership capabilities, behaviours, and strategies that consistently drive success. Discover the practical lessons, real-world experiences, and evidence-based insights on what separates the most effective technology leaders from the rest – and what the future of the CIO role may look like.
Automation is reshaping work at every level- but how do CIOs ensure trust and accountability in an AI-driven environment? This session explores the evolution from task-based automation to intelligent systems that collaborate with human talent. It cuts through the hype to home in on how CIOs are building environments where AI and human talent collaborate effectively at scale. Expect practical insights on redesigning workflows, maintaining accountability and enabling the workforce to trust and thrive alongside intelligent systems- without losing control or clarity.
- How do we redesign work for effective human-AI collaboration at scale?
What does “intelligent work” look like in practice across workflows, functions and decision-making? How can you combine automation with human judgement to accelerate outcomes while improving quality and consistency? - How do we maintain accountability and trust as AI takes on more decisions?
Where does ownership sit, and how do we ensure transparency and oversight in AI-assisted environments? - Future-proof workforce capabilities at scale – how should CIOs and HR partner to future-proof the workforce?
What reskilling, role redesign and change strategies are required to support AI-enabled ways of working? How are you closing the digital and AI skills gap at scale? How are you increasing the adoption of AI tools across non-technical teams? - How can you drive employee adoption without eroding trust or engagement?
What approaches ensure employees see AI as an enabler of their work, not a threat to it? How are you creating incentives and culture shifts that accelerate change?
*By invitation only
As enterprises transition toward AI-native operating models, customer interactions are shifting from static digital channels to conversational, agentic experiences with WhatsApp serving as the primary global touchpoint.
For CIOs, the strategic imperative has evolved from deploying reactive customer support bots to orchestrating autonomous, data-driven enterprise workflows. Co-hosted by Twilio and Meta, this boardroom session addresses how technology leaders can deeply integrate WhatsApp with customer data platforms (CDPs), CRMs, and core enterprise systems to deliver real-time personalisation and operational scale.
The discussion will focus on practical priorities for 2030 technology leadership: cutting through AI hype, establishing robust governance guardrails, preventing architectural fragmentation, and delivering clear, board-level financial ROI.
Opening & Context: The Shift to Agentic Engagement
Theme 1: Moving Beyond Chatbots to Autonomous Enterprise Workflows
Theme 2: Enterprise Architecture, Data Integration & Guardrails
Theme 3: Quantifying Hard ROI for the Board
Architecture decisions have long-term consequences. Platform consolidation promises simplicity – but at what cost to flexibility? Composable architectures offer agility – but how do you avoid fragmentation? This session examines how CIOs are navigating the trade-offs between platform and best-of-breed strategies and what they are prioritising in practice. Expect pragmatic frameworks for making architecture decisions that balance control, speed and scalability – without locking the organisation into choices that limit future change.
- When does a platform strategy deliver more value than best-of-breed – and vice versa?
What are the real-world pros and cons and how do they play out across different enterprise contexts? - Enabling agility through architecture – what decision frameworks should CIOs use to guide architecture choices?
How can leaders consistently evaluate trade-offs between integration, flexibility, cost and speed - How to avoid vendor lock-in while maintaining integration efficiency
What strategies reduce dependency risk without creating fragmentation or operational complexity? - How can architecture enable agility, scalability and long-term strategy
What design principles ensure technology choices align with business goals and support future change?
Vendor ecosystems are expanding rapidly – but how do CIOs balance innovation, cost and dependency across hyperscalers, SaaS providers and outsourcing partners? How do they do this effectively when risk management is becoming more complex, with a need to shift from global to regionally-aligned sourcing strategies due to concerns about data sovereignty and tariffs? This session distills how leaders are rationalising portfolios, strengthening strategic partnerships and reducing risk in an increasingly fragmented landscape. Expect practical strategies to managing vendor sprawl, improving commercial outcomes and maintaining control- without limiting flexibility or slowing innovation.
- How can CIOs optimise hyperscaler relationships to improve commercial outcomes
What approaches strengthen negotiating leverage while improving flexibility, value and performance from strategic cloud providers? - How do we rationalise increasingly complex SaaS portfolios
What frameworks help reduce cost, duplication and fragmentation while improving visibility and operational control? - How do we manage risk and regulation through geostrategic souring?
How to carefully balance global versus local vendor choices in a rapidly changing regulatory and geopolitical landscape - How to shift vendor relationships from transactional to strategic
What does effective partnership design look like when aiming to accelerate innovation and long-term business value? - How do we reduce vendor concentration risk while maintaining ecosystem agility?
What practical steps improve resilience, optionality and negotiating power across an increasingly interconnected vendor landscape?
Most organisations are still experimenting with AI. The Access Group is already scaling it across the business. Having launched more than 50 AI-powered products in a year and achieved ISO 42001 certification for responsible AI, they are proving that innovation and governance can move at the same speed. Join this fireside chat to discover how they built the platforms, skills, and guardrails needed to turn AI ambition into enterprise-wide impact.
- How to move beyond AI pilots and create a repeatable model for scaling AI across products, teams, and business functions
- The blueprint for building an AI-ready workforce and embedding AI capabilities throughout the organisation
- How to establish governance and compliance frameworks that accelerate innovation rather than restrict it
- The leadership lessons behind delivering AI at speed while maintaining customer trust, security, and responsible AI standards
Data investment is at an all-time high – but why does value remain elusive? This session brings clarity to complex choices with candid insight from CIOs who are transforming fragmented, low-trust data environments into scalable foundations for insight and action. Expect actionable frameworks for improving data quality, breaking down silos and prioritising initiatives that deliver measurable business impact – without over-engineering or slowing access.
- Unlock measurable value from existing data investments
Why is poor data quality still eroding business value – and how do we fix it at scale? Where are the biggest sources of data friction and what practical steps improve trust and usability quickly? - Build a scalable, trusted data foundation – what does this look like?
How do we overcome silos and implement governance without restricting access or slowing the organisation? How do we overcome data privacy and cross-border challenges? How do we embed compliance into system design rather than retrofitting? - Drive faster, better business decisions – how to enable truly data-driven decision-making across the enterprise
What does it take to embed analytics into everyday workflows and move from insight to action? - How to focus data efforts where they deliver commercial impact
Which use cases matter most, and how do we focus investment on outcomes rather than technical ambition – to directly support revenue growth cost optimisation and operational efficiency?
The modern CIO role extends far beyond systems and infrastructure – technology leadership now demands enterprise-level strategy, commercial fluency and the ability to adapt for strategic agility. This panel explores how CIOs are shaping business direction, building trust with boards and communicating technology’s value in terms of growth, resilience and competitiveness – all whilst embracing agility and continually reprioritizing initiatives. Leaders will share approaches to purpose-driven leadership, team culture and positioning technology as a driver of long-term value.
- Strengthen influence and credibility at board level – how does a CIO become a true board-level strategist, not just a technology decision-maker?
What shifts in mindset, language and operating model are required to earn sustained influence that resonates at the top table? How can you reframe IT strategy into 3–5 board-level value narratives that resonate with CEOs and CFOs? - How can you lead with agility, embed change-readiness and stay ahead of whatever comes next?
How can CIOs embrace agility, continually reprioritize initiatives and make bold decisions in response to geopolitical shifts, new digital laws and continued widespread disruption? - How can you translate technology and AI investments into clear commercial value?
How can CIOs communicate impact in terms of growth, resilience, efficiency and competitiveness that resonates with boards? How to build a repeatable model for linking tech investment to revenue, margin and risk reduction - What does human-centred leadership look like in a high-change, AI-driven environment?
How do CIOs build purpose, trust and psychological safety while driving continuous transformation? - Leading with purpose in a high-change environment – how to build teams that are resilient, diverse and high-performing at scale
What leadership and organisational approaches enable sustained delivery in increasingly complex and fast-moving environments?
*By invitation only
AI has revived the build-vs-buy debate. Replacing overpriced, underused SaaS tooling has long beenevery CEO’s dream, but that dream is now turning into reality. Klarna’s CEO made headlines this year for indicating a move off Salesforce and other core SaaS tools in favour of an in-house, AI-driven stack, and he isn’t alone in asking the question. Join fellow CIOs for a closed-door discussion on whether enterprise can finally break the cycle of SaaS lock-in, and where that logic holds up, and where it doesn’t.
Which parts of your SaaS stack go in-house first, and which never do? Even where AI
makes near-perfect in-house software achievable, some layers of the stack will always be
replaced before others. Where’s that line for you?
Does a low-touchpoint welcome journey justify its cost? How complex are these customer
journeys really, and do they justify six- or seven-figure budgets?
What is an RFP actually worth, once every provider benchmarks against every other?
Should an RFP include a build option at minimum, purely to establish what the work is really
worth, given price typically only moves by single-digit percentages between vendors?
Is agility the real casualty of legacy SaaS? Take channel diversity: every platform has its own
legacy specialty, whether that’s email or SMS. When a new channel emerges that genuinely
moves the needle on customer experience (such as WhatsApp) traditional SaaS lags behind and
companies are forced to bolt on yet another vendor. Is this the natural starting point for a build
option layered on top of the existing stack?
When it breaks at 2am, who is truly accountable? Channel delivery is, in most cases,
outsourced to third-party providers underneath your SaaS layer. Who can actually resolve the
Sev 1 incident? And is your SLA premium worth paying if your vendor just passes control down
the chain
Emerging technologies promise transformation, but which ones truly warrant CIO attention? This session cuts through the noise to identify what leaders are actively prioritising and preparing for – such as quantum computing, autonomous systems and next-gen connectivity – and what can safely be deprioritised. Expect pragmatic frameworks for evaluating innovation and build readiness for the next wave of technological change – without distracting the organisation.
- Make clearer, faster decisions on emerging technology investment – how to distinguish real, strategic signals from short-lived technology hype
What practical frameworks help CIOs evaluate emerging technologies without being driven by vendor or market noise? - How to build targeted readiness for genuinely transformative technologies
What technologies genuinely require CIO attention today – and what can safely be ignored? Assessing quantum computing, autonomous systems, digital twins and next-generation connectivity - Avoid organisational distraction while staying future-fit
What does disciplined innovation look like when balancing exploration, investment with core enterprise, delivery priorities? - How should CIOs build future readiness in a way that creates optionality, not complexity?
What capabilities, skills and architectural decisions meaningfully position the enterprise for what comes next?
Candid reflections from award-winning CIOs on the decisions they’d change, the bets that didn’t pay off and what they’d do differently next time. Most conference sessions focus on what worked. This one focuses on what didn’t – and why that matters more. In a rare candid discussion, leading CIOs reflect on the strategic decisions, transformation bets and leadership choices they would approach differently with hindsight. From over-investing in the wrong technologies to underestimating organisational resistance, this session offers hard-earned lessons that can help others avoid costly missteps in complex, high-stakes environments.
- What did you believe at the time that turned out to be wrong?
Avoid from repeatable, high-cost mistakes: learn the common failure patterns in large-scale transformation – before you encounter them yourself - What were the early warning signs – and why were they missed?
Improve decision-making under uncertainty: understand how experienced CIOs evaluate risk, timing and trade-offs in hindsight - What would you do differently in the first90 days?
Spot early warning signs of failing initiatives: identify the signals that a programme is going off track – and when to intervene or stop - What advice would you give a CIO about to make the same decision?
Gain practical “do differently” frameworks: walk away with specific approaches you can apply to current programmes – immediately
