IN-PERSON

Washington, DC CISO Executive Summit

June 17, 2025 | Convene at 1201 Wilson Blvd

June 17, 2025
Convene at 1201 Wilson Blvd

APPLY TO PARTICIPATE

Collaborate with your peers

Get together with Washington, DC's top CISOs 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 CISOs today:

Building a Foundation for Cyber Resilience

Aligning Technology and Business Goals to Drive Results

Maximizing AI for Strategic Advantage

Washington, DC CISO Governing Body


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

What to Expect

Interactive Sessions

Hear from CISO 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 Washington, DC CISO 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


Breakout Session

Building a Strategy for an AI-First Business

The future of business is rapidly evolving — a future where AI agents are part of the workforce, almost any process or workflow can be automated, and customers expect better, more intelligent experiences across their unstructured data. Whether that means automating loans or onboarding employees faster, applying intelligence to your unstructured data can be a pathway to stay ahead of the competition.

Join this interactive session to explore:

  • Practical approaches to building an unstructured data strategy
  • Robust content workflows and use cases for AI-first businesses
  • Tips for optimizing while balancing your AI and security strategies


Keynote Sessions

Harnessing Human Energy — Thriving Amidst Rapid Change

In the face of unrelenting transformation, staying innovative and productive can feel daunting, especially with emerging generations' evolving work expectations, the permanence of hybrid teams and the pervasive influence of AI. The key to thriving in this chaotic environment lies in leveraging and organizing work around intrinsic motivators, such as yourself and the people within your organization.

Join this session to learn:

  • The keys for navigating constant change with more energy and resilience
  • How to create astonishing psychological safety within your team
  • A practical framework to access more productivity across your entire organization

Weaponize Risk Appetite to Drive Risk Decisions

Risk appetite fails when it is expressed in fuzzy, imprecise terms. Repositioning risk appetite in the context of investment and value delivery creates a measurable scale of risk that powers a new type of governance.

Join this session to learn:

  • How concrete assertions of risk appetite can make executive decisions binding
  • How can risk appetite drive risk decisions
  • What scale can be used to measure risk appetite


Executive Boardroom Sessions

Application Modernization — Unlocking Organizational Agility

Enterprise application architectures are increasingly complex, leading to technical debt and maintenance challenges, often stifling innovation. CIOs must strategically align business and IT to effectively manage and modernize applications.

Join this session to discuss:

  • Balancing innovation with cost of modernization
  • Overcoming common application modernization challenges including security considerations
  • Setting measurable goals for modernization success

A Business-First Approach to IT

As IT and cybersecurity become increasingly central to driving business outcomes, leaders within these spaces will need to shift from transactional interactions to ongoing partnerships to solidify their influence.

Join this session to discuss:

  • Linking every tech and cybersecurity initiative to overall business objectives
  • Navigating transformation with an outcome-driven leadership approach    
  • Translating data and technical information into insights that resonate with business leaders

Protecting Innovation — Rethinking Data Security Strategies

AI makes creating and consuming data easier than ever, with shadow AI and dark data presenting new challenges to security teams. As the tactics for protecting data evolve, IT and security leaders must adopt a risk-based strategy to protect mission-critical data and safeguard innovation.

Join this session to discover:

  • Effective practices for ongoing monitoring to identify risks
  • Rapid investigation and response techniques for insider threats
  • CIO and CISO partnership strategies for evolving your data protection approach

Cyber Resilience in Action

Cyber resiliency remains a top concern in 2025, yet Gartner finds many organizations focus on defining and quantifying resilience rather than improving it. Leaders must develop proactive strategies that speak to a “when, not if” mentality, ensuring business continuity when incidents occur.

Join this session to discuss:

  • Developing resilient people and processes in a complex threat ecosystem
  • Minimizing the impact of cyber incidents and quickly restoring operations
  • Maintaining compliance amid increasing regulatory requirements


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


Gartner cares about the health and safety of our community. Please review the following recommendations prior to attending the gathering.

Location


Venue & Accommodation

Convene at 1201 Wilson Blvd
MORE INFORMATION

Your Community Sponsors


CISO Thought Leaders
Key Sponsors
Program Sponsors

Community Program Manager


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

Melissa Tarpley

Community Program Manager

619-300-6401

melissa.tarpley@gartner.com