In-Person

Minneapolis CISO Community

Executive Summit

December 9, 2026 | Hyatt Regency Minneapolis

December 9, 2026
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis

Join fellow CISOs for a day of peer connections, peer perspectives and Gartner insights

The Gartner Minneapolis CISO Community Executive Summit is the community’s signature event, bringing together CISOs for a full day of immersive, peer-driven discussions and curated networking. Connect with peers who share similar priorities, exchange real-world experiences and gain data-driven insights from Gartner analysts. Walk away with practical solutions, validated strategies and valuable connections, giving you greater confidence to lead through change.

Participate in discussions on the most critical issues impacting CISOs today:

Securing AI-Powered Transformation at Scale

Elevating Cybersecurity as a Strategic Driver of Business Growth‌

Building a Resilient Organization Amid Evolving Threats and Uncertainty

Minneapolis 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

Vince Aimutis

Federated Insurance
VP – Director of Information Services & CISO

Michael Brewer

Securian Financial
CISO

Peter Christy

Patterson Companies
VP, CISO

Mary Faulkner

Thrivent
VP, CISO & IT Operations

Jeff Johnson

DigiKey
CISO, Director, IT Security and Privacy

Aimee Martin

Data Recognition Corporation
CISO

Mike Rogers

Hormel Foods
CISO & Director Information Security & Compliance

Param Vig

Solventum
SVP, CISO

What to Expect at an Executive Summit

Gain New Perspectives from Peers

Hear from CISO practitioners and thought leaders on how they're solving critical challenges impacting your role in Keynote sessions, and participate in smaller, interactive discussions with your peers in Breakout and Boardroom sessions.

Strengthen Your Peer Network

Catch up with familiar faces and build new relationships in your Minneapolis CISO Community through dedicated networking time in an intimate environment and curated, one-on-one conversations with peers matched based on shared priorities and interests.

Leverage Gartner Insights

Gain data-driven insights and field-tested best practices from a Gartner analyst in the opening Keynote, setting the context for peer conversations throughout the day on the most critical topics affecting your role.

Agenda

December 9, 2026

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

8:30am - 9:15am  Gartner Keynote

The End of Centralized IT — Building an Adaptive Technology Model

Jaime Capellá headshot

Jaime Capellá

Distinguished VP Analyst

Gartner

Leaders are under intense pressure to modernize technology operating models as CEOs drive faster strategic pivots in response to geopolitical volatility, economic uncertainty and rapid AI disruption. Boards are increasing investment in technology and innovation, while AI lowers the barrier to building and deploying solutions and pushes more decisions into the business. As technology work becomes more distributed, coordination and integration become harder — and more critical — yet many operating models remain optimized for centralized control and cost efficiency rather than speed and adaptability.

In this keynote, attendees will learn how to:

  • Align operating models to strategy and external business demands
  • Scale AI and digital platforms with built-in standards and guardrails
  • Integrate multidisciplinary teams and AI agents to accelerate outcomes


9:15am - 9:40am  Networking Break

9:40am - 10:25am  Breakout Session

Staying Ahead of AI Data Risks

Karthik Krishnan headshot

Karthik Krishnan

CEO

Concentric AI

 AI is quickly becoming one of the biggest drivers of enterprise productivity—and one of the fastest-growing sources of data security risk. As copilots, assistants, and public AI tools become embedded in daily workflows, sensitive data flows into systems that most security teams can't fully see, understand, or control. To stay ahead, organizations must rethink their security strategies and harness AI’s potential to protect what matters most. 

Join this session to discover: 

  • Why AI is a rapidly growing, unseen enterprise risk  

  • Where legacy data security falls short with AI  

  • How to enable AI innovation without added data exposure 

9:40am - 10:25am  Executive Boardroom

Human-Centric Strategies for AI Security

Chris Porter headshot

Chris Porter

Head of International Security

Google Cloud Security

AI is transforming security workflows, but people remain the key to lasting success. Discover how to lead, manage, and empower your teams in an AI-centric environment. Learn what tasks are best suited for humans versus chatbots, how to future-proof your workforce, and who you should hire and retain as AI reshapes security.

Join this session to explore:

  • Identify roles where human skills outshine automation
  • Develop strategies to upskill and retain top talent
  • Align hiring with the evolving demands of AI-driven security

9:40am - 10:25am  Executive Boardroom

Executive Strategies to Control and Secure Agentic AI

 As AI agents gain access to critical systems, executives must define how identity, trust, and access controls apply to these new autonomous, non-human actors. This boardroom will focus on strategic frameworks for managing AI agents as a distinct identity type, enabling AI innovation without scaling risk, and ensuring accountability across the enterprise.

Join your peers to discuss:

  • Defining executive roles in sale AI adoption

  • Aligning security, compliance, and business goals

  • Establishing oversight and accountability for AI agents 

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 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

Securing the Agentic Workforce

As AI agents move from passive tools to active workforce members, CISOs face new governance and security challenges. The risks of rapid, autonomous action are real—but so are the opportunities for transformation. This session offers a practical, forward-looking approach to securely unlocking the value of agents.

Join this session to explore:

  • Reining in shadow agents
  • Protecting agents from malicious context
  • Protecting your business from rogue agents

11:10am - 11:55am  Executive Boardroom

Security Fundamentals in an Age of Distraction

Jeff Rotenberger headshot

Jeff Rotenberger

CISO

Eversana

Tim Dokken headshot

Tim Dokken

VP, Infrastructure & Information Security

Johnson Brothers


As AI dominates budgets and board agendas, security leaders still face mounting pressure around resilience, identity, vulnerability prioritization, compliance, and technical debt. The organizations making the most progress aren't chasing every new trend. They're strengthening the foundations that determine whether innovation succeeds or fails.


Join this boardroom to discuss:

  • Prioritizing security investments amid competing business demands
  • Constructing approaches to vulnerability and exposure management
  • Building resilience, recovery, and operational readiness



11:10am - 11:55am  Executive Boardroom

The Next Era of Risk Management

Patrick Michalski headshot

Patrick Michalski

Director, Information Security

Daikin Applied


Rising compliance expectations, expanding attack surfaces, and increasing business demands are forcing CISOs to rethink how risk is measured, communicated, and prioritized. Security leaders are balancing foundational controls with emerging threats while proving business value and maximizing limited resources.


Join this session to explore:

  • Aligning cyber risk decisions with business objectives
  • Navigating higher regulatory and audit expectations
  • Identifying where security teams should focus limited time and budget

11:55am - 12:30pm  Lunch Service

12:30pm - 1:05pm  Keynote

Rethinking Security for the Age of Agents

Agents are becoming the biggest opportunity in the enterprise, and the biggest adversary. They read your data and act under borrowed identities, at a speed no human review process was built to match. The old question in security was how to keep bad actors out. The new one is more complex: how do you create and manage the biggest risk in your own enterprise, the agents you deployed on purpose?
Join this keynote to hear about:

  • Establishing a framework where data, identity, and agent security operate as one system
  • Shifting from asking whether you can trust your agents to determining what access they can be trusted with
  • Balancing innovation and risk by creating visibility needed to understand agent activity

1:05pm - 1:30pm  Break

1:30pm - 2:15pm  Breakout Session

Breakout Session

Details coming soon. 

1:30pm - 2:15pm  Executive Boardroom

Making Cyber Risks Digestible — Strategies for Efficient Board and Executive Education

Jeff Holschuh headshot

Jeff Holschuh

CISO

Sun Country Airlines

While cyber threats may not dominate headline news like they used to, executive leadership teams and boards are increasingly eager to stay informed about the latest incidents and risks. But, CISOs simply don't have time to prepare briefs on EVERY incident that may come across their leadership's feeds. How do security leaders strike the right balance between delivering the "just-right" level of information that won't overwhelm leadership or consume excessive time and resources?

Join this roundtable session for an engaging peer conversation around:

  • Strategies for filtering and prioritizing alerts and news to keep leadership and the board engaged
  • Communicating complex risks in a digestible way and setting expectations for a manageable amount of ongoing education 
  • What CISOs should be including—or not including—to ensure incident briefings are meaningful for boards and executives

1:30pm - 2:15pm  Executive Boardroom

Keeping AI in Check — Practical Governance Moves for Today's Leaders

As AI agents become more embedded in operations, compliance expectations are rising and legal teams are taking on a larger oversight role. Organizations must demonstrate transparency to third‑party monitors while strengthening governance as AI begins to manage key compliance activities.

Join this session to discuss:

  • Setting AI review checkpoints to catch issues early
  • Training teams regularly on AI usage, risks, and oversight responsibilities
  • Limiting AI permissions to reduce compliance and operational risk



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 Peer-to-Peer Meetings. You will be matched with peers in your community based on your shared interests and priorities.

3:00pm - 3:45pm  Gartner Boardroom

The Rise of the Digital Coworker

Brad Newton headshot

Brad Newton

Executive Partner

Gartner

The future workforce will not be humans or AI. It will be humans working alongside AI agents that can reason, decide, and act. How can executive leaders can safely integrate AI agents into critical workflows while maintaining accountability, oversight, and trust? The organizations that realize the greatest value from AI will be those that establish the oversight, accountability, and resilience required to scale human and AI collaboration with confidence.

Join this session to discuss:

  • Defining clear roles between human workers and autonomous agents

  • Establishing governance for agent permissions and decision-making

  • Implementing controls that balance productivity, security, and accountability



3:00pm - 3:45pm  Executive Boardroom

The Human Side of AI Leadership

Ryan Spinti headshot

Ryan Spinti

Cyber Security Leader

APi Group

AI may be transforming how work gets done, but leadership remains fundamentally human. As CISOs navigate the intersection of human talent and AI-powered capabilities, the ability to value, empower and develop people becomes a strategic differentiator. As a security leader, are you building a culture of trust, accountability and innovation while preparing your organization to thrive in an increasingly AI-enabled future?

Join this roundtable discussion to:

  • Define what effective leadership looks like in a workforce augmented by AI
  • Share approaches for scaling AI responsibly while ensuring technology strengthens, rather than replaces, the human element of communication
  • Explore strategies for building high-trust cultures that attract, retain, and develop top security talent


3:45pm - 4:00pm  Networking Break

4:00pm - 4:35pm  Keynote

The Threats We Haven't Discovered Yet

Steven Jensen headshot

Steven Jensen

Global CISO

Aegon

The most challenging AI security risks may not be the ones organizations can see today. Frontier AI is redefining what machines can reason, create and accomplish, challenging assumptions that have shaped security strategies for decades. As capabilities accelerate beyond established guardrails, cybersecurity leaders must make critical decisions amid ambiguity and evolving risk. 


Join Steve Jensen, CISO, Transamerica, as he shares his approaches to: 

  • Identifying where frontier AI challenges traditional security models
  • Building resilience amid uncertain and evolving risks
  • Creating guardrails that enable innovation without sacrificing trust

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

4:45pm - 6:00pm  Governing Body Reception

Governing Body Reception

Finish the day sharing lessons learned with your peers over light fare and drinks at this closing reception hosted by your governing body members.

December 9, 2026

We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming in-person gathering

Gartner cares about the health and safety of our community. If you are feeling unwell, please refrain from attending the conference. At this time, Gartner does not have any health-related requirements in place for attendance. Should this change, we will follow up with updated guidance.

Location

Venue & Accommodation

Hyatt Regency Minneapolis

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis at a reduced conference rate. Reservations should be made online or by calling 1-888-591-1234​. Please mention Minneapolis Executive Summit to ensure the appropriate room rate.

Deadline to book using the discounted room rate of $181 USD (plus tax) is November 16, 2026.

Your Community Sponsors

Global Thought Leaders

CISO Thought Leaders

Key Sponsor

Program Sponsor

Community Program Manager

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

Taylor Jeske

Community Program Manager

taylor.jeske@gartner.com