Global CIO Community
Executive Summit
Sep 30 - Oct 2, 2026 | Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Resort & Club
Sep 30 - Oct 2, 2026
Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Resort & Club
Collaborate with your global peers
Get together with other CIOs who lead global operations at this exclusive, three-day summit to exchange ideas and validate strategies unique to large, complex organizations. Engage in candid discussions, dive deep into critical issues and validate strategies with other enterprise heads of IT on the challenges unique to large, complex organizations. Executives are assured a level of information exchange and interaction with true, global peers beyond a regional community on discussion topics driven by Global CIOs, for Global CIOs.
Connect with true peers who lead their function globally and have similar opportunities and challenges, gain new perspectives and share experiences unique to the global nature of your role, and participate in discussions and sessions geared specifically toward global IT leaders.
Transforming disruption into strategic advantage to deliver sustainable business value
Defining and delivering technology strategies anchored in measurable business outcomes
Cultivating a global organization of technology champions to accelerate innovation
Global 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

John Gigerich
Keurig Dr Pepper
SVP & CIO

Ryan Talbott
Amway
Chief Technology Officer
What to Expect
Agenda
Executive Boardroom Sessions
Enabling an AI-Fluent Global Workforce
Capturing scalable ROI from AI requires shifting from basic AI literacy to true organizational AI fluency. Global CIOs must orchestrate a holistic workforce transformation, empowering employees to confidently partner with AI agents.
- Redesign roles and workflows for a hybrid "Human + Agent" workforce
- Provide vetted, safe tools directly where daily work gets done
- Nurture psychological safety and continuous experimentation modeled by leadership
Unlocking Enterprise Value with AI Governance
Effective AI governance today is about enabling confident innovation, not just control. Global CIOs must navigate the growing complexity of scaling AI while protecting data, managing risk and achieving business goals across diverse regions.
In this session, you’ll explore:
- Designing AI governance that balances innovation and risk
- Scaling AI beyond IT for cross-functional results
- Strengthening data, governance and operating models for AI
Autonomous Defense for Global Cyber Threats
When AI can exploit vulnerabilities within minutes, traditional patching cycles are obsolete. Gartner reports 93% of boards see cybersecurity as a threat to shareholder value. Global CIOs must elevate autonomous protection from an IT function to a global business strategy.
Join this session to explore:
- Unified intelligence for next-gen cyber threats
- Autonomous patch management for autonomous threats
- Impacts of changing threat dynamics on enterprise value
Global Agentic AI — Unlocking Context Intelligence
Agentic AI is reshaping organizations worldwide, fueling efficiency, breakthrough innovation and sustainable growth. However, the true global impact of these advancements depends on a CIO’s ability to deliver trusted, real-time context at scale. By uniting high-quality data, relationships, and business meaning, context intelligence enables enterprises to accelerate digital transformation, reduce risk, and drive measurable outcomes across diverse markets.
Join this roundtable to explore:
- Building globally scalable data platforms
- Balancing AI innovation with governance
- Setting global metrics for AI-ready data
Leading Global Trust in Automation
Restoring trust and transparency at global scale is vital as autonomous systems reshape enterprise decision-making. CIOs must harness technology to deliver clear oversight, ensuring consistent, trusted business outcomes and proactive risk management across complex, distributed environments.
Join this session to discuss:
- Navigating the CIO’s evolving role in driving transparency and trust at scale
- Defining what trusted autonomy looks like in large-scale, global enterprise environments
- Aligning investments, metrics and outcomes to ensure top-down confidence in automation
Breakout Sessions
The Resilience Gap — Why CIOs Now Own Brand Continuity
Downtime is no longer just an IT problem — it's a brand event. When disruption hits, your response time, your recovery architecture and your communication strategy are all under scrutiny from customers, regulators and the board simultaneously. The focus must now shift to what actually matters — how to restore a minimum viable business fast, stay compliant across conflicting global regulations and demonstrate readiness before you're forced to prove it under pressure.
Join this session to walk away with:
- A measurable framework for minimum viable business recovery that speaks the board's language
- Tactics for maintaining continuity across jurisdictions with divergent sovereignty and compliance demands
- An executive communication playbook for before, during and after an incident
Transformation Without Disruption — Rethinking ERP For Tomorrow
Traditional ERP is a stable system of record, but not a driver of speed, intelligence or innovation. As agentic AI transforms the technology landscape, global CIOs are facing pressure to innovate in complex and fragmented environments with constrained budgets.
Join this session to learn about:
- Orchestrating innovation across fragmented environments
- Delivering outcomes without disruption
- Leveraging existing ERP investment as a data foundation for Agentic AI innovation
A New Class of Insider Risk
Agentic AI is approaching an inflection point for Global CIOs as organizations move swiftly from experimentation to operationalization. As agents shift quietly from “assist” to “execute,” often outside formal governance and executive review, a new, inherently scalable category of insider risk emerges.
Join this session to explore:
- Institutionalizing governance at the pace of experimentation
- Addressing agentic supply chain risk and unintended enterprise exposure
- Enabling a global organization to innovate and move quickly with confidence
Fueling Modern IT Investment Strategy
Gartner predicts that by 2027, 75% of all IT investments will fail to drive meaningful business value without a clear, actionable investment model. Adopting a Silicon Valley VC–inspired approach to IT project investment can power strategic business outcomes and a culture of shared ownership.
Join this session to explore:
- Building a modern, adaptable IT investment model
- Transforming culture through shared ownership
- Driving ongoing cost–value optimization
Keynote Sessions
Unlocking Elite Leadership — An Evening with Venus Williams
Experience an exclusive fireside chat with legendary athlete, entrepreneur and advocate Venus Williams at the Global CIO & CISO Gala. A Grand Slam champion, four-time Olympic gold medalist and visionary business leader, Venus will focus on:
- Driving innovation and unlocking proven strategies to fuel business growth
- Building resilience, mental toughness and a winning mindset
- Leading with purpose, authenticity and individuality to shape your leadership legacy
Covering Technology Workforce Strategy at UnitedHealthcare
When it comes to realizing business value from AI, the real constraint for many global CIOs is not ambition or investment, but modernizing the technology workforce. At UnitedHealthcare, Jenn Zmuda, Chief Information Officer, is reimagining talent strategy to overcome cognitive entrenchment around transformation.
Join this keynote session to explore:
- Modernizing workforce strategy to address legacy processes and talent capabilities
- Developing and executing on a talent strategy that delivers faster, scalable outcomes
- Overcoming the inherent constraints of a global organization to enable AI ambitions
Scale Secure AI — Global Approaches Anchored in Zero Trust
As AI is embedded in core workflows, CIOs are accountable for performance, reliability and user experience — not just access. High latency and poor visibility into the end-to-end AI experience can overwhelm help desks, slow incident resolution and reduce confidence when making infrastructure or policy changes. CIOs need proactive telemetry and a consistent access model that keeps AI fast, measurable and supportable at scale. A Zero Trust approach across internet access, AI applications, SaaS and private applications can improve the AI user experience while enabling secure adoption through continuous validation and production guardrails.
Join this session to learn how to:
- Reduce latency and performance degradation by modernizing access paths and eliminating unnecessary network complexity
- Establish proactive experience monitoring and telemetry to detect degradation early and mitigate help-desk impact
- Accelerate troubleshooting with end-to-end visibility, improving confidence and speed when implementing infrastructure and policy changes
Advancing Global AI Innovation and Governance
CIOs face pressure to realize generative AI’s benefits while maintaining governance, compliance, and visibility across the enterprise. As employees globally use browser-based AI tools to boost productivity, organizations encounter challenges from unapproved applications that may cause data leakage, security threats and regulatory risks. Responsible AI adoption requires balancing innovation and control. Operational, security and compliance implications of shadow AI demand strategies for implementing policies that safely unlock AI’s potential in a global context. By proactively strengthening governance and security measures, organizations can drive effective AI adoption and maximize business value.
Join this session to discover:
- Identifying risks from unauthorized AI tools
- Establishing internationally compliant governance policies
- Empowering productivity with secure AI adoption
Keep Agents On-Task — Control Their Authority Drift
Governance, control and trust take center-stage as agentic AI reshapes risk and introduces new challenges for global organizations including authority drift, misconfiguration and behavioral deviation. How can CIOs optimize global frameworks to manage and govern a new class of autonomous digital actors?
Join this keynote to uncover:
- How agentic AI changes enterprise risk and governance models
- The core pillars for governing users, AI systems and data
- Key architectural components to enforce real-time AI control and accountability
Apply to Participate
Apply to participate in the Global CIO Community Executive Summit.
Gartner facilitates exclusive, C-level communities by personally qualifying and understanding the priorities, challenges and interests of each member.
Our selective approach maintains the high quality of the network and ensures top-level discussions with peers from the world’s leading organizations.
Each application will be reviewed, and once your participation is confirmed, you will have access to year-round community programs.
Location
Venue & Accommodation
Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Resort & ClubDiscounted nightly rate of $495 + taxes and fees.
Regardless of the venue policy, any cancellations made after September 4th (cutoff date) are subject to a cancellation fee of one (1) night room charge plus tax
A block of rooms has been reserved at the Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Resort & Club at a reduced conference rate. Reservations should be made online or by calling +1 (949)-234-3200. Please mention Gartner C-level Communities Global CISO & CIO Executive Summit to ensure the appropriate room rate.
Deadline to book using the discounted room rate of $495 USD (plus tax) is September 4, 2026.
Community Program Manager
For inquiries related to this community, please reach out to your dedicated contact.
