In-Person

DACH CIO Community

Executive Summit

25 November 2025 | The Westin Grand Frankfurt

25 November 2025
The Westin Grand Frankfurt

Collaborate with your peers

Get together with DACH's top CIOs to tackle shared business challenges and critical priorities facing your role today. Participate in this one-day, local program with peer-driven topics and interactive discussions with your true C-level peers.

Join your peers to discuss the most critical issues impacting CIOs today:

Driving Transformation and Efficiency to Accelerate Business Outcomes

Maximising Business Value from IT Investments Through Strategic Alignment and Cost Optimisation

Enhancing Leadership Capabilities to Build a Culture Rooted in Trust and Accountability

DACH CIO Governing Body

The Governing Body Co-Chairs shape the summit agenda, ensuring that all content is driven By CIOs, For CIOs®.

Governing Body Co-Chairs

Harvey Ford

PartnerRe
CTO and L&H CIO

Jochen Göttelmann

Lufthansa
VP & CIO, IT Operations, Lufthansa Airlines

Ralf Werner

OGE
CIO & CDO

Gülnaz Önes

RWE
Group CIO

What to Expect

Interactive Sessions

Hear from CIO practitioners and thought leaders on how they're solving critical challenges impacting your role today in Keynote sessions, and join smaller, interactive discussions with your peers in Breakout and Boardroom sessions.

Community Networking

Make new connections and catch up with old friends in casual conversations during dedicated time for networking designed to better acquaint you with your DACH CIO community.

Peer-to-Peer Meetings

Connect with like-minded peers in a private, one-on-one setting through Peer-to-Peer Meetings. You will be matched with peers in your community based on your shared interests and priorities.

Agenda

Keynote Sessions

Leading the Energy Transition Through People and Technology — Learnings from E.ON

E.ON’s journey illustrates how IT can evolve from a traditional support role into a core enabler of business value and the energy transition. Anchored in four “Main Principles” — employee satisfaction, system stability, user experience, and budget conformity — the transformation was driven by clear leadership, strong business alignment, and a strategic right-sourcing approach of in-house capabilities.

Join this session to explore how E.ON:

  • Redefined IT's role from support function to strategic partner, enabling innovation and measurable business value
  • Built high-performing, product-centric teams to drive ownership, agility and customer-focused delivery at scale
  • Embedded digital strategy into business priorities to ensure long-term, sustainable transformation


Innovating the Travel Experience – How TUI are Transforming to New Heights Through Data and AI

Today’s IT leaders must prioritise digital initiatives with market-facing, growth impact. For some CIOs, this means stepping out of their comfort zone and driving a focus on customer-facing initiatives. Leading CIOs are more likely to leverage data, analytics, and AI to detect emerging consumer behaviour or sentiment that might represent a growth opportunity. Join Pieter Jordaan, Group CIO, TUI, as he shares his thoughts on how utilising innovative tools and technologies has enabled transformation and an enhanced offering across the enterprise and customer journey. 

Specifically, Pieter will share:

  • How TUI is using AI to optimise flight times, improve customer experiences, and digitise future security controls
  • Strategies for educating the board on upcoming technologies and generating excitement for digital transformation
  • Insights on scaling AI in the enterprise and envisioning the future company through the power of technology



Breakout Sessions

Driving Digital Innovation and Enterprise Productivity Through Digital Employee Experience (DEX)

Enterprise productivity is top of mind for business leaders everywhere and CIOs play a crucial role in showcasing progress and true value to the business in this mission. A well-crafted digital employee experience (DEX) strategy that addresses changes in the way employees work and interact with digital tools will ensure that your processes and technologies advance the mission of a high performing workforce and improved enterprise productivity.

Join this session on a journey with DEX, including:

  • Improving operational efficiency and business outcomes
  • Measuring IT impact to strategic business growth
  • Leveraging DEX to improve optimization and visibility of IT assets

 

Behind the Swipe — How Security Awareness Impacts us all

Cecilie Fjellhøy never thought she would be a victim of fraud, until it happened to her. Humans innately trust but with more of us building a digital identity online, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern the friction between security and identity when it matters most. Join Cecilie as she shares her story and highlights the importance of bringing the personal into the security awareness conversation.

In this session, you will hear:

  • Lessons learned on the ease with which security breaches can happen
  • Techniques to elevate the personal element of security awareness
  • Insights into breaking down stigma around fraud

From Chaos to Clarity — Leveraging AI to Block 2M+ Attacks Across 150+ Web Apps

As threats become more sophisticated and relentless, C-level executives face the challenge of safeguarding their digital environments without compromising performance or exceeding budgets. Hyundai AutoEver Europe’s Security Team has launched an AI-driven initiative to strengthen and harden web security, reshaping the landscape by stopping over 2 million attacks, uncovering 20 critical web attack vectors, and identifying 2,000 malware-serving IPs—all while ensuring seamless user experiences across 150+ web applications. Join Dr.-Ing. Ashar Javed as he shares how AI is revolutionising security today and laying the foundation for even stronger protection tomorrow.

Specifically, this session will explore: 

  • How AI enhances detection of sophisticated web attacks by using tools like ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, and Claude to create effective regex patterns
  • Practical strategies to lower false positives from 0.9% to 0.1% and improve operational efficiency via continuous tuning
  • Real-world results in threat mitigation, actionable insights, and scalable protection for over 300 million requests that's affordable and non-disruptive to business



Executive Boardroom Sessions

The Security Imperative — Managing AI Risks While Driving Innovatioon

As AI Adoption Accelerates, it is critical for organizations to prioritize security, compliance and governance in order to mitigate risk. From protecting sensitive data, to ensuring AI models operate ethically and transparently, developing a security-focused AI strategy is essentialto long term success.

Join this session to explore:

  • Security, privacy and regulatory risks in AI deployments
  • Best practices for managing AI data lifecycles and compliance
  • Building a resilient AI infrastructure that balances innovation with risk management

 

Next Generation Programme - Becoming a CIO — Where Should you Go From Here?

In 2025, the success of the modern enterprise increasingly hinges upon all things digital. This heralds the continued evolution of the CIO role, whose scope has needed to develop to be a representative that can successfully spearhead the digital enterprise. As such, the skills and traits of the prospective CIO have also shifted dramatically – and continue to do so.

The question for any aspiring CIO, then, should be which attributes are currently sought after? – and who better to ask than CIOs themselves.

Join this session to gain insight on:

  • Which qualities are currently in demand from organisations recruiting CIOs?
  • What are the key traits organisations look out for while assessing candidates?
  • How should you adapt your approach to meet the ever-shifting requirements of a CIO?

Operational Excellence — Unifying Data Ecosystems to Power the Enterprise

Unifying data ecosystems is not just a technical challenge, it’s a strategic imperative. As organizations seek to unlock the full potential of AI and advanced analytics, CIOs play a critical role in establishing a robust data foundation and ensuring operational alignment across the enterprise. Without this leadership, the value of data assets and AI initiatives can be diminished or missed entirely.Join this session to explore:

  • Driving operational excellence and business transformation through unified data strategies
  • The strategic importance of appointing effective data stewards to maximize data value across business units
  • Key drivers for standardizing data pipelines, reducing operational costs, and accelerating data-driven decision-making at scale

 

The Leadership Skills and Belief Structures Needed for the Next Generation CIO

As digital capabilities become more integral to an organization’s mission/bottom line, the relationship between IT and other functional/business areas is shifting. Increasingly, nearly all CxOs are “owning” aspects of digital. To be successful, the next generation of CIOs must possess not only the technical know-how for the IT role, but also understand the new division of digital leadership responsibilities. It doesn’t mean the CIO has to be an expert in everything, but it does require strengthening CxO-CIO technology partnerships. The next generation of CIOs must start adopting new belief structures associated with leadership, influence and relationship building to prepare for the shift from leadership to ‘CIO Leadership?’

Join this discussion to hear key takeaways on:

  • How are digital leadership responsibilities being redistributed between CIOs, P&L leaders and heads of corporate functions
  • The key leadership skills needed to shepherd the next wave of digital change in their organisation
  • How must Next Generation CIOs shift their identity to succeed in the CIO role

Next Generation CIO Programme — Laying the Groundwork for Becoming a CIO

The success of the modern enterprise increasingly hinges upon all things digital. This heralds the continued evolution of the CIO role, whose scope has needed to develop to be a representative that can successfully spearhead the digital enterprise. As such, the skills and traits of the prospective CIO have also shifted dramatically – and continue to do so.The question for any aspiring CIO, then, should be which attributes are currently sought after, and what are the realities of the role?

Join this session to gain insights on:

  • The level of commitment expected of a CIO and how this might differ across organisations of varying sizes and sectors
  • How to understand and overcome hurdles and blockers while transitioning into the CIO role
  • How to sustain a healthy work-life balance


We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming in-person gathering

Gartner cares about the health and safety of our community. If you are feeling unwell, please refrain from attending the conference. At this time, Gartner does not have any health-related requirements in place for attendance. Should this change, we will follow up with updated guidance.

Location

Venue & Accommodation

The Westin Grand Frankfurt

A block of rooms has been reserved at the The Westin Grand Frankfurt at a reduced conference rate. Reservations should be made online or by calling +49 69 29810.

Deadline to book using the discounted room rate of €251 EUR (plus tax) is 27 October 2025.

Your Community Sponsors

Global Thought Leader

Key Sponsors

Program Sponsors

Community Programme Manager

For inquiries related to this community, please reach out to your dedicated contact.

Regina Csano

Community Programme Manager

regina.csano@gartner.com