Atlanta CISO Community
Executive Summit
June 10, 2026 | Atlanta Marriott Northwest at Galleria
June 10, 2026
Atlanta Marriott Northwest at Galleria
Collaborate with your peers
Get together with Atlanta'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:
Enabling GenAI innovation while reducing human-element risk
Reframing risk reduction as minimizing business impact and strengthening resilience
Positioning cybersecurity as a creator and driver of business value
Atlanta CISO Governing Body
The Governing Body Co-Chairs shape the summit agenda, ensuring that all content is driven By CISOs, For CISOs®.
Governing Body Co-Chairs

Derek Benz
The Coca-Cola Company
SVP & CISO

Tim Callahan
Aflac
SVP & Global CISO

John Dickson
Insight Global
CISO

John Gift
PepsiCo
SVP & Global CISO

Stacy Hughes
ABM
SVP & CISO

Kemper Seay
Carter's
VP Infrastructure & Chief Information Security Officer
What to Expect
Agenda
Breakout Sessions
Winning the Room — Board Communication That Lands
Communicating with the board isn’t just a skill — it’s a differentiator for today’s security leaders. In this interactive session, executives share real stories of communication wins, how they secured board buy‑in, and the metrics that made their messages resonate.
Join this session to explore:
- Elevating board engagement through clear, compelling narratives
- Securing leadership alignment on high‑impact initiatives
- Defining the right metrics to influence decision‑makers
Rethinking Security for Agentic AI — From Control to Orchestration
As AI agents start acting across business environments, data becomes the true control surface. These agents require broad access to data, identities, and business processes, creating new risk patterns as sensitive data and outbound actions converge at machine speed. This is a control shift. CISOs must modernize their data approach to adopt agentic AI confidently while maintaining oversight.
Join this session to explore how to:
- Detect emerging risk behaviors in autonomous AI
- Build a data-centric and intent-aware security model
- Establish the CISO as the orchestrator of scalable AI and business growth enabler
Future‑Proofing Trust — AI Risk and Crypto Agility
Enterprises are facing simultaneous disruptions driven by AI, shrinking certificate lifecycles, and the coming transition to post-quantum cryptography. These converging forces are accelerating the erosion of digital trust, presenting new challenges for CISOs as they work to safeguard organizational resilience. Ensuring AI governance, automating certificate operations and building agility now will help CISOs stay adaptable through immediate and long-term cryptographic changes.
Join this session to hear about:
- Operationalizing AI governance
- Automating certificate lifecycle management
- Building crypto agility to prepare for post‑quantum threats
Executive Boardroom Sessions
Targeted at the Top — Physical and Digital Protection for Leaders
Executives and their families are now prime targets for converging physical and cyber threats, expanding risk far beyond the corporate perimeter. CISOs must address overlapping vulnerabilities and bridge security silos to protect both personal and professional spheres.
Join this boardroom to discuss:
- Conducting holistic threat assessments for executive risk
- Bridging IT and physical security teams for unified protection
- Implementing comprehensive strategies for safeguarding leaders
Agentic SOC — Amplifying Human Potential with AI
Security Operations Centers face mounting pressure from talent shortages and escalating threats, but agentic AI offers a transformative solution by amplifying human capabilities and automating critical tasks. By embedding intelligent agents into SOC workflows, organizations can rapidly upskill teams, accelerate response, and bridge the talent gap. Join this session to explore actionable strategies for leveraging AI-driven agents to future-proof your SOC.
Join this boardroom to explore:
- How agentic AI fills the talent gap in SOCs
- Strategies for upskilling teams alongside agent-driven automation
- Preparing your SOC for the coming AI transformation
Securing Tomorrow — Rethinking Data Recovery Strategies
CISOs are challenged by the growing sophistication of cyberattacks and the increasing complexity of IT environments, making traditional recovery approaches insufficient. Ensuring rapid, reliable recovery is now central to organizational resilience and trust, yet many security leaders struggle to integrate recovery into overall security strategy. Exploring new paradigms in cyber recovery can empower CISOs to proactively safeguard business continuity.
Join this session to explore:
- Integrating recovery into incident response plans
- Assessing cyber resilience beyond prevention
- Bridging gaps between security and IT operations
Transforming Third-Party Assurance for Strategic Leadership Success
Despite greater investment in third-party risk management, executives still lack confidence in vendor decisions. Fragmented and inconsistent risk signals hinder clear, defensible choices. Moving from compliance-driven models to decision-focused insights is critical for building trust and resilience in the third-party ecosystem.
Join this session to discuss:
- Standardize risk signals to give CISOs clear, comparable inputs
- Prioritize decision‑focused insights over checklist compliance
- Provide concise, decision‑grade reporting to strengthen confidence and resilience
When Identity Meets the Human-Machine Hybrid Workforce
AI agents and automated workflows are reshaping the identity landscape faster than traditional governance can adapt. As non-human identities begin to outnumber humans in the enterprise, established approaches to visibility, access control, and accountability are starting to break down, raising the stakes for getting it wrong. Organizations must rethink how they govern and secure all identities.
Join this boardroom to discuss:
- Where governance breaks down at scale
- How to enforce least privilege and accountability
- How to enable agentic AI without expanding identity risk
M&A — Security Leadership Strategies for Thriving Through Change
As mergers and acquisitions accelerate, CISOs play a critical role in safeguarding business resilience and ensuring secure transformation. With cyber risk, data, and technology shaping organizational value, security leaders are uniquely positioned to guide strategic decisions and enable sustainable growth.
Join this session to discuss:
- Modernizing M&A security playbooks and integration roadmaps
- Managing cyber risk through organizational pivots and technology consolidation
- Leading resilient change and strengthening a security‑driven culture
Keynote Sessions
AI Authority Drift — Closing the Governance Gap
Artificial intelligence is entering a new phase. No longer limited to generating insights, modern AI systems are beginning to act — initiating workflows, interacting with applications, and making decisions at machine speed. As agentic AI systems become operational participants inside enterprise environments, this session explores how enterprises can safely scale AI by establishing governance across identity, authority, behavior, and data, while enabling innovation without introducing unmanaged risk.
Attendees will learn:
- How to control the authority, behavior, and data access of autonomous systems operating across complex digital ecosystems
- The emerging governance model, enacted through a real-time control plane, to address authority drift, misconfigured permissions, and unintended AI behavior
- A practical framework and architecture for governing AI at enterprise scale
AI at Full Speed, Security at Full Strength
As organizations accelerate their adoption of AI, CISOs are becoming pivotal business enablers—driving innovation while ensuring security remains uncompromised. Discover how security leaders are fostering an innovative, AI‑forward culture while safeguarding the enterprise against emerging risks in this session.
Leave this session with insights on how to:
- Build a culture of innovation through intentional, cross‑functional collaboration
- Implement governance models that mitigate shadow AI risks while preserving employee trust and autonomy
- Leverage both AI successes and failures to strengthen continuous learning and experimentation across the organization
Apply to Participate
Apply to participate in the Atlanta CISO 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
Atlanta Marriott Northwest at GalleriaA block of rooms has been reserved at the Atlanta Marriott Northwest at Galleria at a reduced conference rate. Reservations should be made online or by calling 1(888) 236-2427. Please mention GAAGAAB to ensure the appropriate room rate.
Deadline to book using the discounted room rate of $189 USD (plus tax) is May 18, 2026.
Community Program Manager
For inquiries related to this community, please reach out to your dedicated contact.
