IN-PERSON

San Francisco CIO Executive Summit

June 24, 2025 | Grand Hyatt at SFO

June 24, 2025
Grand Hyatt at SFO

APPLY TO PARTICIPATE

Collaborate with your peers

Get together with San Francisco'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:

Leveraging Emerging Technology for Competitive Advantage and Growth

Navigating Transformation, Culture, and Organizational Change

Harnessing Data and Analytics to Drive Strategic Business Outcomes

San Francisco 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

Anantha Ganga

Coherent
CIO

Pallavi Gupta

IMPOSSIBLE
Global Head of Information and Technology/ CIO

Monica Khurana

Dodge & Cox
CTO, CIO

Geeta Pyne

TIAA
Sr. Managing Director and Chief Architect

Avi Sokol

KLA
SVP & CIO

Evan Wayne

World Market
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 San Francisco 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


June 24, 2025

8:00am - 8:30am  Registration & Breakfast

8:30am - 9:15am  Keynote

Disruption Proof — High-Performing Teams that Conquer Change

Dr. Vijay Pendakur headshot

Dr. Vijay Pendakur

Leadership & Team Culture Strategy Advisor

Guest Speaker

In today’s fast-moving tech and security landscapes, disruption is inevitable—but it doesn’t have to derail your team’s performance. In this high-energy, 30-minute keynote, Dr. Vijay Pendakur will explore why disruption often leads teams to get stuck and how this stagnation threatens business success. Vijay will share his Alchemy of Talent model and explain how leaders can increase productivity and efficiency on their teams, even when it feels like we’re working in an endless earthquake!

Attendees will learn:

  • Why disruption can lead to stuck teams and how to avoid it
  • The critical impact of stuck teams on business performance and results
  • How to make your teams more resilient, adaptable, and willing to learn from failure

9:15am - 9:40am  Networking Break

9:40am - 10:25am  Breakout Session

Unlocking Revenue and Controlling Costs with Observability

Akshay Bhargava headshot

Akshay Bhargava

GVP Product Management

New Relic

The need for observability is increasingly important to protect and drive business revenue. However, IT leaders often face challenges in enabling total stack visibility: uncontrolled cloud expenses, complex software architectures, rapid innovation, emerging security threats, ever-increasing customer experience expectations, and more.

Join this session to discuss:

  • The top trends driving the need for observability
  • How to overcome challenges and deliver increased business value
  • How generative AI is driving the next generation of intelligent observability

9:40am - 10:25am  Executive Boardroom

Accelerating ROI with AI

Linda Yao headshot

Linda Yao

SSG VP, COO and Strategy

Lenovo

No business leader invests in technology for its own sake—they seek measurable improvements in productivity, agility, and business outcomes. AI is no different, but its rapid evolution can make it difficult to determine where to start and how to scale. The key to unlocking ROI lies in identifying high-impact use cases, optimizing AI adoption, and ensuring teams have the right tools and skills to drive sustainable value.

Join this boardroom to explore:

  • How to choose AI use cases that generate revenue, enhance productivity, and establish clear KPIs for ROI tracking
  • Navigating the evolving AI ecosystem to align technology investments with business priorities
  • Building and educating teams to support AI adoption, streamline implementation, and drive long-term impact

9:40am - 10:25am  Executive Boardroom

Chaos of Connectivity ― Strategies for Agility, Productivity, and Compliance

Frank Whyte headshot

Frank Whyte

Integration SME, Americas

IBM

Kumar Mishra headshot

Kumar Mishra

CIO

Grocery Outlet

In today's digital landscape, enterprises manage an ever-growing array of technologies across multiple clouds, with the average organization using 1,000 applications and thousands of physical assets. Generative AI is set to boost developer productivity by nearly 40%, leading to a surge in AI-embedded applications. This complexity can cause inefficiencies and vulnerabilities.

Join this session to learn how to:

  • Create visibility across disparate systems for informed decision-making
  • Streamlining integrations to increase productivity and accelerate delivery
  • Maintain compliance by managing integrations centrally to prevent shadow IT

10:25am - 11:10am  Networking Break

10:35am - 11:00am  Peer-to-Peer Meetings

Peer-to-Peer Meetings

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

11:10am - 11:55am  Breakout Session

Building a Strategy for an AI-First Business

Jon Herstein headshot

Jon Herstein

Chief Customer Officer

Box

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

11:10am - 11:55am  Executive Boardroom

Executive Boardroom Hosted by Twilio

Jeff Burlin headshot

Jeff Burlin

Senior Director, Executive Engagement Programs

Twilio

 More details coming soon. 

11:10am - 11:55am  Executive Boardroom

The CFO-CIO Alliance for Advancing IT Impact

Michael Perica headshot

Michael Perica

CFO

Rimini Street

Praveen Madhavankutty headshot

Praveen Madhavankutty

CIO

The Save Mart Companies

As digital business priorities touch every part of the enterprise, the collaboration between CFOs and CIOs is indispensable for optimizing technology investments and spurring innovation. Effective partnership is key to synchronizing financial strategies with technological progress and maximum business impact.

Join this session to discuss:

  • Fortifying the CFO-CIO alliance to facilitate data-driven IT ROI decisions
  • Align IT investments with financial strategies and implementing projects with measurable business outcomes
  • Bridging business and technology priorities to support, optimize, and transform for enterprise-wide success

11:55am - 12:30pm  Lunch Service

12:30pm - 1:05pm  Keynote

Reducing Application Delivery Tech Debt from the Inside Out

Steve Tchejeyan headshot

Steve Tchejeyan

President

Island

As high volumes of sensitive data flow through web browsers, three in five organizations believe their current IT and security infrastructure makes the risk of data leakage likely or highly likely. This reflects the growing complexities of keeping data secure while dealing with legacy systems, inefficient application delivery methods, and outdated security controls. What is a modern approach to enterprise operations that simplifies IT while strengthening security?

Attendees will discover:

  • Why disparate IT and security solutions accumulate technical debt and bog down operations
  • How to articulate the business impacts of technology operations and security challenges beyond IT
  • New approaches to enterprise application delivery that enhance end-user productivity

1:05pm - 1:30pm  Break

1:30pm - 2:15pm  Breakout Session

VC Vision — What's Next in Tech

Hira Dangol headshot

Hira Dangol

VP, AI/ML

Bank of America

Venture Capitalists have a front-row seat to the future of technology, tracking the innovations and startups that will shape tomorrow. CIOs that understand where VCs are placing their bets can stay ahead of disruption and are well-positioned to drive business innovation.
 
Join this session to hear from VC thought leaders on:

  • Innovative, disruptive technologies VCs are betting on
  • Emerging technologies poised to transform the business landscape
  • Insight to discern noise and hype from real, value-driven innovation

1:30pm - 2:15pm  Executive Boardroom

Cyber Risk as Business Risk

The accelerated pace of innovation in technology has emphasized cyber risk as a critical business risk across industries. CIOs must enable growth through technology, while ensuring a strong security posture.

Join this session to discuss:

  • Measuring and defining the organization's cyber-risk appetite
  • Ensuring business resilience through strategic IT infrastructure planning
  • Communicating risk posture in common terms to key stakeholders

1:30pm - 2:15pm  Executive Boardroom

Data First, AI Second

Gartner research predicts that 30% of generative AI projects through 2026 will be abandoned after proof of concept, due in part, to poor data quality. CIOs play a critical role in ensuring data is AI-ready and the business is poised for innovation.

Join this session to discuss:

  • Emphasizing data quality and maturity as a keystone of AI innovation
  • Aligning data strategy with business objectives to maximize AI impact
  • Collaborating with data management leaders and cross-functional stakeholders

2:15pm - 3:00pm  Networking Break

2:25pm - 2:50pm  Peer-to-Peer Meetings

Peer-to-Peer Meetings

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

3:00pm - 3:45pm  Executive Boardroom

The CIO as a Steward of the Business

Brian Alikhani headshot

Brian Alikhani

CIO

International Union Of Operating Engineers

Shamyo Chatterjee headshot

Shamyo Chatterjee

CIO

Corsair

Technology is increasingly intertwined with organizational performance, making it more important than ever for CIOs to define and demonstrate IT’s activities in terms of business outcomes.
 
Join this boardroom session to discuss:

  • Aligning IT strategy with business goals and objectives
  • Positioning technology as a business value driver, not a cost center
  • Measuring and communicating value to stakeholders

3:00pm - 3:45pm  Executive Boardroom

The CIO Impact on Talent

CIOs are navigating a dramatic shift in workplace dynamics, driven by factors such as the emergence of a multigenerational workforce and an increased demand for upskilling and reskilling. What role does the CIO play to ensure a motivated, well-resourced technology workforce?

 Join this peer-led session to discuss:

  • Shifting workforce dynamics impacting peers across industries
  • Proven best practices for hiring, upskilling, and retaining top talent
  • Shaping a resilient, adaptable workforce that enables business objectives

3:45pm - 4:00pm  Networking Break

4:00pm - 4:35pm  Keynote

Getting Out in Front of Change — Leading the C-Suite

Shawn Murphy headshot

Shawn Murphy

Senior Director Analyst

Gartner

In today's rapidly changing technology and business landscape, transformative CIOs are agents for change. By engaging stakeholders across the organization early, CIOs can scale and lead change to realize the full value of technology investments.

Join this session to learn how to:

  • Align and engage your C-Suite peers in sponsoring change
  • Prioritize formal change management earlier in the strategy execution life cycle
  • Increase adoption, utilization, innovation, and speed-to-value of transformative efforts

4:35pm - 4:45pm  Closing Comments and Prize Drawing

June 24, 2025

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

Grand Hyatt at SFO
MORE INFORMATION

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Grand Hyatt at SFO at a reduced conference rate. Reservations should be made online or by calling 1-650-502-6117 . Please mention G-VANT to ensure the appropriate room rate.

Deadline to book using the discounted room rate of $299 USD (plus tax) is June 2, 2025.

Your Community Sponsors


CIO Thought Leaders
Key Sponsors
Program Sponsors

Community Program Manager


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

Samantha White

Community Program Manager

623-221-4103

samantha.white@gartner.com