Sydney CIO Community
Executive Summit
18 November 2026 | Hilton Sydney
18 November 2026
Hilton Sydney
Collaborate with your peers
Get together with Sydney'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:
Lead Strategic Technology Alignment to Establish an AI Operating Model
Manage Costs Strategically to Maximize Business Value
Elevate Cybersecurity as a Core Driver of Business Value, Resilience and Growth
Sydney 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
What to Expect
Agenda
08:30 - 09:00 Registration & Breakfast
09:00 - 09:45 Keynote
Beyond IT — Reinventing the Technology Operating Model for Continuous Change
Neil Osmond
Vice President, Distinguished Analyst
Gartner
Continuous change is now the operating environment. AI is democratising technology delivery, moving more innovation and execution closer to the business. At the same time, CEOs and boards are demanding greater agility in response to economic and geopolitical disruption. How can technology leaders redesign operating models to balance decentralised innovation with the coordination, governance, and resilience needed to deliver enterprise outcomes?
Join this session to explore:
- Building adaptability into the operating model to respond to evolving business, technology, and risk priorities
- Evolving governance, funding, and decision-making to balance speed, innovation, and enterprise-wide coordination
- Demonstrating technology's value through resilience, business outcomes, and board-level communication
09:45 - 10:15 Break
10:15 - 11:00 Breakout Session
AI Can Read Your Data — That Doesn’t Make It Trustworthy or Cost-Effective
Hosted by Nuix
Alexis Rouch
CTO
Nuix
Access is no longer the problem. Every AI tool can open a document or summarise an email. The problem is that access without governance produces outputs that are unreliable, indefensible, and dangerous in regulated environments. With 80 to 90% of enterprise data unstructured and only 26% of data leaders able to use it confidently, the gap is not retrieval, it is governance. With regulators and boards demanding greater AI accountability, governance and chain of custody are becoming non-negotiable.
Join this session to explore:
- Closing the gap between AI accessing your data and producing defensible outcomes
- Why governance and chain of custody matter more than access
- What Australian courts and boards now require, and how this is expanding globally
10:15 - 11:00 Executive Boardroom
Building Secure and Resilient Foundations for Distributed AI
Hosted by Verizon Business (Aust)
Toni Horne
CTO
Verizon Business (Aust)
Derek Chen
Head of IT Governance & Information Security
Team Global Express
As organisations accelerate AI adoption, CIOs and CISOs are facing new challenges around security, resilience, data sovereignty and operational complexity. The rise of distributed AI is making visibility and control more critical than ever. How can leaders build the trusted digital foundations needed to scale AI securely while maintaining resilience and governance across increasingly distributed environments?
Join this interactive session to explore
- Building the infrastructure, network and security capabilities required to support AI
- Strengthening cyber resilience as AI expands the enterprise attack surface
- Balancing AI innovation, security and data sovereignty requirements
11:00 - 11:30 Networking Break
11:05 - 11:25 Peer-to-Peer Meetings
Peer-to-Peer Meetings
Connect with like-minded peers in a 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.
11:30 - 12:15 Executive Boardroom
The Exposure Challenge — Managing Risk When Change Outpaces Control
Hosted by Orro Group
Stuart Long
CTO
Orro Group
As organisations accelerate digital transformation, the pace of technology change is creating new sources of cyber exposure across increasingly connected IT and OT environments. Yet many CIOs and CISOs continue to face fragmented visibility, making it difficult to understand where exposure is accumulating and take timely actions before risks become business-impacting incidents. How can executives improve visibility, focus resources on the exposures that matter most, and build greater resilience in an environment where change continues to outpace control?
Join this interactive session to explore:
- Identifying where cyber exposure accumulates as IT and OT environments become increasingly connected
- Improving visibility and governance to identify and prioritise critical risks before they become incidents
- Prioritising risk remediation efforts as technology change, AI adoption, infrastructure complexity and threat velocity continue to outpace organisational capacity
Apply to Participate
Each application is carefully vetted to ensure members meet established criteria, preserving the quality of the network and enabling meaningful, peer‑level discussions among leaders from the world’s leading organizations.
Once you submit your application, a Community Program Manager will schedule a conversation to understand your priorities and interests and complete onboarding, including access to year‑round community events.
Location
Venue & Accommodation
Hilton SydneyCommunity Program Manager
For inquiries related to this community, please reach out to your dedicated contact.

