Top Highlights from CIO Communities in 2023

In 2023, Evanta, a Gartner Company, held 147 CIO community gatherings across North America, 41 CIO programs across Europe, and nine gatherings in Australia. CIO communities around the world continue to flourish and gain value from peer-led sessions, thought leadership from strategic partners, and Gartner experts.

This year, the CIO Executive Summit agendas were guided by three recurring themes - Amplifying Value Through Digital Ecosystems, Accelerating Growth with Agility and Innovation, and Authoring the Future through Culture, Influence & Technology. 

Take a look at our top-rated content of the year for Evanta CIOs.
 

Highly-Rated Presentations

Keynote: Leading Locally, Influencing Globally
With their deep understanding of business and technology, CIOs have the opportunity to wield influence across their organizations and industries. In this keynote presentation, Jennifer Hohman, Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Integrated Solar Technologies, shared how CIOs can influence change by applying IT best practices to global challenges, leveraging their knowledge to create new solutions, and shaping the way leaders approach problems using traditional IT methodologies.

Keynote: Realizing Business Value with Zero Trust Security
The tech industry is going through a challenging time full of economic uncertainty – and even cybersecurity is not immune from budget cuts. CTO-in-Residence Sanjit Ganguli of Zscaler led this keynote presentation on how cloud technology helps businesses maximize their investments. Sanjit shared how the cloud can reduce risks while increasing productivity, transform business into a connectivity engine, and decrease network complexity without increasing risk exposure.  

Breakout: 10-Minute Wins
In this unique, peer-led session, 3 technology and security leaders shared a 10-minute version of their recent successes, struggles and stalemates. Community members heard insights from Raj Sampoornam, SVP and CIO at Byline Bank; Mandy Huth, VP, Cybersecurity at Kohler Co.; and Paul Niser, CTO at Walton Street Capital.

Breakout: Striving for Human Excellence Regardless of Work Location
Global CIO Gary Sorrentino of Zoom led this breakout session on how to continue to create a culture of collaboration and innovation – regardless of where people are working. His discussion covered how to upskill employees to be the best that they can be, how to utilize UCaaS and CCaaS to support the enterprise, and what CIOs’ thoughts and predictions are on the future of work.

Boardroom: The CIO’s Pathway to AI Adoption
In this boardroom discussion, Kevin Chung, COO at Writer; Ahsish Sarkar, CIO at Owens & Minor; and Kishore Kondragunta, VP, Head of IT at Toyota Motor North America talked about how to leverage the current momentum and hype around AI. They shared how to balance the benefits and risks of AI implementation, how to evaluate organizational readiness for AI, and how to manage internal expectations on delivering results with AI.  

Town Hall: Value vs. Risk – A Thoughtful Approach to Generative AI 
While generative AI was a hot topic in 2023, for technology leaders, there’s nothing new about managing expectations on hyped technologies. The urgent demand to adopt generative AI models generated a discussion on how CIOs can communicate and quantify the benefits and risks of generative AI adoption, identify business needs and use cases and stay ahead of the continuous advancements in AI. 

Town Hall: Achieving Business Outcomes in the Cloud
As cloud capabilities continue to evolve, this town hall discussion focused on how CIOs and their organizations are responding and changing their approach to business operations. CIOs shared how they are shaping business strategy in today’s digital era, how cloud consumption and financial operations are evolving, and how to identify potential disruptors throughout the industry.
 

Most Popular Content

• Blog: 9 CIO Trends in 2023 
  Looking at our annual Leadership Perspective Survey data, we reported on trends in CIOs’ mission critical priorities, business objectives, and planned spending.
• Blog: 3 Key Themes for CIOs in 2023 
  At the start of each year, we explore 3 themes we think CIOs will be focused on in the year ahead – these were the top themes for 2023.
• Infographic: 2023 CIO Leadership Perspectives 
  Thousands of CIOs from the world’s leading organizations shared their mission critical priorities for 2023 in our annual survey – this infographic sums up the findings.
• Infographic: CIO Community Pulse on AI & Your Business 
  We asked CIOs about their current approach to generative AI and how they view the opportunities and risks – this summarizes what 350 IT leaders told us in our community survey.
• Podcast: How to Integrate Technology Teams with Bernard Mikael of EY 
  In the first episode of our 2023 podcast series, Chief Information & Transformation Officer Bernard Mikael of EY talked about integrating technology across the enterprise and the lessons learned from his experience in digital transformation and organizational change.
• Leadership Profile: How Culture Contributes to High Performance at Northern Trust 
  In this profile of community member Tom South, Executive Vice President and CIO of Northern Trust, he shares insights on company values and culture and how that culture contributes to high performance.

In 2024, the Evanta CIO Community will continue to provide insights and drive content based on the CIO’s mission critical priorities. Looking into the new year, CIOs will be focusing on the following three themes:

• Shaping the Efficient Enterprise with AI & Automation
• Strengthening Partnerships for Wider Business Impact
• Illustrating IT’s Value through Business-first Initiatives

Stay up-to-date with your Evanta CIO community by applying to join your local community or finding an opportunity to connect with CIO peers on our calendar.