A look back at the 2025 CIO 100 Agenda
CIO 100 Symposium is produced by the award winning media brand, CIO.com, this conference is your gateway to three days of transformative insights, unparalleled networking, and recognition of groundbreaking achievements.
All times listed on the agenda are in local Arizona time.
Monday, August 11
Join a discussion topic that best meets your needs. Facilitated by our partner subject matter experts, take a deep-dive into ideas, common questions, and proven solutions in an interactive, peer-sharing environment.
Driving better business outcomes with data-driven technology investment decisions, hosted by Apptio
How to blow your budget on AI: Using an outcome and strategy-focused approach with emerging technologies to explode business value and not the budget, hosted by Tricon Infotech and Michael Smith, former CIO and Tech Executive of the Estee Lauder Companies, Nike and Myland
The Agentic Workforce: A New Frontier in Security, Compliance, and Governance,hosted by HGS
Harnessing Agentic AI for Service Delivery: A Real-World 4-Month Payback Story, hosted by Elastic
In a fast-moving AI landscape, agentic AI is the latest and could be the most transformative innovation for customer experience. But do you need to buy an agentic AI-enabled customer service system? In this roundtable, we’ll see how agentic AI agents use numerous tools that must access data from multiple systems – and depend upon real-time observability. The discussion will focus on three areas: 1) defining agentic AI for CX project needs; 2) key factors to consider when deciding whether to build vs. buy; and 3) preparing for challenges along the path from pilot to production to scaling.
Hosted by Quiq
Pre-registration required
Enhance your playbook for matching the business’s appetite for AI with IT’s mandate for value, risk control, and lasting impact. This discussion will surface actionable strategies for CIOs to reassert their influence: governing decentralized AI activity, bridging the gap between POC and production, and enabling enterprise-scale deployment without sacrificing agility. Attendees will also engage PwC professionals on how to realign the CIO role around consultative leadership, infrastructure readiness, and long-term value creation in an increasingly AI-driven enterprise landscape.
We’ll focus on:
- How CIOs can reposition themselves to lead when innovation happens outside IT
- Governance and architecture models that preserve agility while implementing enterprise standards
- Infrastructure and funding strategies that turn scattered experimentation into long-term enterprise value
- The role of managed services in maintaining control, speed, and cost predictability at scale
Walk away with an enhanced playbook for matching the business’s appetite for AI with IT’s mandate for value, risk control, and lasting impact
Hosted by PwC
Pre-registration required
AI is reshaping enterprise operations — but not always in the ways leaders expect. As organizations accelerate automation and AI initiatives, CIOs must examine how these technologies are redefining the economics of digital labor, reshaping productivity dynamics, and influencing how people, processes, and systems are deployed.
Join this highly interactive discussion on how AI-driven automation is changing cost structures, operational priorities, and workforce design. We will explore how organizations can realize sustainable value from AI while avoiding hidden costs, fragmented processes, and unintended productivity drains.
Hosted by Unisys
Pre-registration required
In today’s data-driven world, artificial intelligence is rapidly transporting – and transforming – organizations, but its potential can only be fully realized when built upon a foundation of clean, secure, and trustworthy information. CIOs are faced with challenges to both provide an effective platform that solves compliance and structural issues, while meeting the needs of business partners who want to extract value from data in different formats, locations, structured and unstructured. During this session we will discuss what it means to be AI-ready, who is responsible, and what needs to happen and when.
Hosted by Iron Mountain
Pre-registration required
AI is transforming service delivery organizations, but with a rapidly-shifting landscape including RAG architectures and agentic AI, teams are struggling to determine the best path to production and return on their investment. Hear how Elastic was able to harness its own agentic AI technology in a multi-phase project automating internal and external service delivery, ultimately paying for itself in four months.
Hosted by Elastic
Pre-registration required
Welcome to the CIO 100! Meet colleagues, old and new, and enjoy the flavors of the southwest with fun cocktails and small bites.
Tuesday, August 12
Join us for a networking breakfast at the CIO 100 Symposium. Connect with industry leaders, share insights, and fuel up for a day of innovation and success. Start your morning right with great food and even greater connections.
Championship teams win for a reason. They have a winning system that brings out a winning attitude and releases the Ultimate Winning Edge! Certain culture codes & systems must be in place to maintain this over the long term. As a 3rd generation professional athlete, David’s been surrounded by world championship teams and dynasties his entire life. In the NFL he was nicknamed “Superman” by his team two weeks into his pro career. While in Arizona, he helped turn around a losing culture to build a winning culture that took the Arizona Cardinals to Super Bowl XLIII. In this riveting presentation, David will take you inside this world and reveal how to create a culture that will win and grow in the face of massive challenge and change; how to build a culture that shares best practices – eliminating the silos; what a dynasty looks like, sounds like, feels like, and moves like. Following the presentation David will be available for questions, photos, and football signing.
Select which award-winning projects interest you and visit those digital posters to hear information about the project details. Attendees have an opportunity to ask questions of the award winners and will be able to easily network with small groups of peers who have common interests. This self-directed experience means you can focus your time on projects that are most relevant for you.
View City of Scottsdale’s project
Following this inspirational presentation David will be available for questions & photos.
Grab a coffee or iced beverage, enjoy the fresh air, and connect with award-winning CIOs and sponsoring partners.
In today’s digital economy, data is more than just information—it’s a critical business asset that can drive innovation, improve decision-making, and unlock new revenue streams. This session will highlight award-winning projects that have transformed raw data into actionable insights, implemented effective data governance frameworks, and aligned data strategies with organizational goals. Hear about best practices for maximizing the value of your data through advanced analytics, AI, and data-driven culture, while navigating challenges such as security, compliance, and scalability.
As agentic AI moves from pilot to production, CIOs are being called to do more than upgrade systems—they’re rethinking how people, processes, and autonomous agents work together. This session explores how AI is reshaping IT workflows, team structures, and decision-making, and how leaders are designing operating models where human ingenuity and AI agents complement each other.
We’ll explore:
- How agentic AI is transforming day-to-day IT operations and product development
- Where to draw the line between human-led and agent-led responsibilities
- How team structures and skills are evolving—fast
- Strategic resourcing: what to build, buy, or delegate—and where managed services fit in
- What early adopters are learning about governance, accountability, and moving at speed
You’ll walk away with a clear, forward-looking view of how to evolve your IT operating model, so you can build high-performing teams, deliver faster with confidence, and lead your organization through the next wave of transformation.
Join us for a delicious lunch where you can connect with newfound contacts! Take a seat and savor your meal while networking with peers. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet our sponsors and discover how their innovative solutions can benefit you.
Enterprises are increasingly adopting AI applications and utilizing various types of data (structured, unstructured, and semi-structured) to enhance their business processes across different industries. However, despite recognizing the significance and potential of AI, organizations often face challenges in formulating a strategy and implementing it effectively. To fully capitalize on the benefits of AI, enterprises need to integrate AI at the data level, ensuring that it supports the entire data management lifecycle, from data ingestion to curation and discovery. This integration will enable the development of applications that are built on top of the data, maximizing the potential of AI. Learn how integrating AI with reliable data can enhance your decision-making, drive efficiency, and foster innovation within your enterprise management. Discover strategies to create adaptive systems that continuously optimize processes, ensuring your business achieves sustainable growth and resilience. Explore the latest tools and solutions designed to address industry challenges and lead your digital enterprise transformation journey.
Enterprises worldwide have invested in private clouds based on legacy virtualization platforms, which now burden them with complex integrated tooling and fractured architectures that inhibit innovation. Today, the demand for AI necessitates modern, cloud-native capabilities, a strategic shift from the legacy approach. We’ll explore how to transform your existing infrastructure investments into a strategic asset. In this session, you’ll gain insights into a proven migration strategy, understand what developers truly need, and learn how you, as the CIO, can empower your teams to build the next generation of AI-powered applications.
Decades of digital transformation have made it difficult to fully realize the value of data. The sheer volume of it is becoming overwhelming. To give you some perspective, enterprises generate 1,300 exabytes of dark data every day. And 90% of the world’s data was created in just the last two years. It’s a massive amount of value waiting to be unlocked to give you the competitive edge you need in a highly competitive environment. In this session learn how data is your advantage, but more remains dark, untapped, or unused and the importance of discoverability and connectivity in the AI era. Let’s get started and unlock what’s possible for your organization.
After more than two years of rapid experimentation, enterprises are now deploying AI at an accelerating pace. Join Meredith Whalen, IDC’s Chief Research and Data Officer, as she unveils key findings from IDC’s AI Maturity Model Benchmark study. In this session, you’ll gain a clear view of where your organization stands compared to industry peers, discover the priorities of AI-mature enterprises, and learn how to ready your technology stack for the rise of agentic workflows. Meredith will also share timely insights into how IT leaders are adjusting their spending strategies amid ongoing economic uncertainty.
As the enterprise landscape becomes increasingly agent-driven, the competition for employee attention has never been more intense. This session will illuminate how leading organizations are leveraging agents to redefine core business processes without disrupting existing systems. Attendees will gain invaluable insights into current global deployments and a strategic outlook on the evolution of AI within the enterprise over the next two years.
Email Bhavin for the Slide Deck
Grab a coffee or iced beverage, enjoy the fresh air, and connect with award-winning CIOs and sponsoring partners.
Select which award-winning projects interest you and visit those digital posters to hear information about the project details. Attendees have an opportunity to ask questions of the award winners and will be able to easily network with small groups of peers who have common interests. This self-directed experience means you can focus your time on projects that are most relevant for you.
View Automation Anywhere’s Project
Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain, and advanced automation are reshaping the business landscape. The challenge lies in identifying the right technologies to invest in and ensuring those investments align with long-term organizational goals. This session will explore the evolving tech ecosystem, offering insights into assessing the maturity, business value, and risk of emerging innovations. Discover strategies for balancing AI advancements with other transformative technologies, fostering innovation, and future-proofing your organization in an era of rapid change.
Unwind with food and drink from local purveyors. Take part in the fun art of leather stamping with your own take home token.
Wednesday, August 13
Join us for a networking breakfast at the CIO 100 Symposium. Connect with industry leaders, share insights, and fuel up for a day of innovation and success. Start your morning right with great food and even greater connections.
The mysterious and dangerous world of jazz is a cauldron of spontaneous creativity. And in times of radical change and uncertainty, it serves as the perfect model for modern leadership. Professional jazz guitarist and prolific entrepreneur Josh Linkner connects the dots between jazz and business, helping to unlock the secrets of some of the world’s most creative geniuses. Using live jazz as a metaphor for collaborative innovation, this session is entertaining, inspiring, and directly applicable to the daily challenges we face in business. A fusion of live musical performance and keynote presentation, the session’s finale includes audience members “joining the band” to compose and perform a song in real-time to the delight of the audience. Cameras will flash as the entire group is dazzled by their colleagues’ improvisation and spontaneous invention.
In a time of relentless change and digital disruption, modernization and AI adoption are no longer just a strategic advantage but a business imperative. In this session, learn how enterprises are modernizing core systems, embracing hybrid cloud architectures, and strengthening security to drive transformation without compromising business outcomes. We’ll also share findings from recent studies which highlight that IT decision makers see modernization as essential not only for ensuring reliability and resiliency, but also for enhancing stakeholder experiences and unlocking deeper insights from enterprise data. Learn how organizations can modernize their technology stack without disrupting business operations, unlock new growth, and future-proof their business.
Grab a coffee or iced beverage, enjoy the fresh air, and connect with award-winning CIOs and sponsoring partners.
How organizations execute around AI will depend on their end game. Are you looking to become an AI-first company transforming your business models, products and services via new AI-enabled offerings, or simply leverage AI to improve existing business models, products and services? Will AI become a core competency and differentiator for the organization requiring you to build internal teams of specialists, or something you develop by working with partners? Join us to learn how successful CIOs approach the integration of AI into their tech stacks for maximum business value.
As digital transformation accelerates, CIOs are uniquely positioned to guide their organizations through the next frontier: the blockchain revolution. This session offers a strategic lens on how distributed ledger technologies are reshaping core enterprise functions—not just in financial services, but across sectors. We’ll explore high-impact use cases for blockchain, including real-time payments, asset tokenization, smart contracts, and frictionless B2B contracting and settlement. These innovations hold the promise of operational efficiency, enhanced trust, and new revenue models—important levers for any CIO navigating a rapidly evolving technology landscape.
The second half of the session will spotlight stablecoins, now on the cusp of mainstream adoption amid anticipated regulatory clarity. With the potential to redefine liquidity, settlements, and cross-border flows, stablecoins are emerging as a game-changer for digital infrastructure—requiring CIOs to plan ahead for integration, compliance, and innovation.
Join us for a forward-looking discussion on how CIOs can leverage blockchain to help drive enterprise agility, scalability, and resilience in a decentralized future.
Join us for a delicious lunch where you can connect with newfound contacts! Take a seat and savor your meal while networking with peers. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet our sponsors and discover how their innovative solutions can benefit you.
Join us for a candid, peer-led conversation over lunch with senior women in technology as we explore the leadership journeys, challenges, and opportunities that AI has introduced into your organization—and how they’re reshaping our role in the enterprise. We’ll focus on your evolving role in the C-suite today: the pace of change, the added visibility—and scrutiny—AI brings, and the female leadership traits that can help you grow in an era where IT strategy and business outcomes are increasingly inseparable.
This session is designed to spark authentic, forward-looking dialogue among CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, and senior women navigating this AI-led transformation. Participants will leave with fresh insights, peer perspectives, and renewed energy to lead.
Hosted by PwC
Pre-registration required
1:30 – 2:45pm
Integrating Human and AI Teams to Optimize Customer and Employee Experience
This session explores strategies for integrating AI tools with human expertise to create personalized, efficient, and impactful customer interactions. Learn best practices for aligning technology with organizational goals, addressing workforce concerns, and maintaining a balance between automation and human empathy. Gain actionable insights to drive innovation, improve operational efficiency, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
Sponsored by Freshworks
View the Freshworks Slide Deck
1:30 – 1:40pm
Welcome and Opening Remarks
1:40 – 2:20pm
Two Journeys to Leadership Excellence
Join us for an inspiring session where we explore two unique pathways that have led visionary CIOs into the prestigious CIO Hall of Fame. Hear firsthand accounts from industry leaders who have navigated different career trajectories—whether through groundbreaking innovation, transformative digital leadership, or strategic business alignment. Learn how each journey shaped their approach to technology, leadership, and organizational impact, and gain insights on how you can chart your own course to influence the future of IT and business. This session offers valuable lessons and practical takeaways for aspiring and current CIOs looking to leave a lasting legacy.
2:20 – 2:50pm
Skepticism, Fear, and Backlash: Overcoming Resistance in the Age of AI
The single greatest challenge CIOs face in AI adoption is not the technology itself, but the people and cultural dynamics around it. Because many organizations rushed in, eager to claim early wins and bragging rights, there are bound to be failures. To navigate through this shifting landscape, CIOs must not just be technology leaders, but expert change managers. This session will focus on the three key pillars CIOs need to be equipped with to meet this challenge: awareness, a structured change management framework, and a toolkit focused on trust building.
3:15 – 4:30pm
Where Automation Meets Robotics: Shaping the Future of Intelligent Enterprises
Automation and robotics are converging at an unprecedented pace, powered by advancements in AI, machine learning, and intelligent automation. This session will delve into the transformative impact of this intersection, highlighting the evolution from task-specific tools to intelligent, adaptive systems capable of decision-making and collaboration.Gain insights into the role of autonomic systems in orchestrating workflows that combine digital labor and human efforts, driving efficiency, scalability, and innovation.
Sponsored by SoundHound
Email Shari for her Slide Deck
View the Soundhound AI Slide Deck
3:10 – 3:45pm
Leading the C-Suite into Digital Fluency
The CIO is the C-suite’s digital Sherpa, responsible for elevating digital fluency across executive leadership and ensuring that AI, automation, and data-driven decision-making are embedded into the fabric of business strategy. In this session, award-winning CIOs will discuss key responsibilities and opportunities for new C-level collaborations. These include partnering with the CFO to develop AI-driven financial models, collaborating with CHROs to reskill the workforce, and guiding CMOs and CDOs on how AI is reshaping customer engagement.
3:45 – 4:25pm
Driving Simultaneous Modernization and Innovation
CIOs must balance the urgent need for modernization with the pursuit of innovation. This session will explore practical strategies for ensuring both initiatives happen simultaneously, including aligning legacy systems with emerging technologies, fostering a culture of innovation, and optimizing resources. Attendees will learn how to create a forward-thinking IT ecosystem that supports agility, scalability, and continuous improvement without sacrificing stability or security.
4:25 – 4:30pm
Closing Remarks
Sponsored by EXL
Raise a glass to toast the 2025 honorees.
Come celebrate IT excellence at this elegant dinner and awards ceremony. The 2025 CIO 100 Awards presentation will honor the winning organizations for their use of innovative IT to deliver business value, followed by the induction of our newest members into the CIO Hall of Fame.
Cake, champagne and plenty of photo ops are the sweetest way to celebrate the finale of the CIO 100.
Sponsored by Rocket Software
