In-Person

Ohio CISO Community

Executive Summit

May 20, 2026 | The Westin Cincinnati

May 20, 2026
The Westin Cincinnati

Collaborate with your peers

Get together with Ohio'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:

Leveraging AI to Drive Innovation While Ensuring Security and Compliance

Cultivating Resilient Leadership to Navigate Disruption and Drive Growth

Aligning Technology and Cybersecurity Investments With Strategic Business Outcomes

Ohio 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

Michael Erickson

Baptist Health
CISO

Lisa Heckler

CareSource
CISO

Nick Ritter

Worldpay
CISO

What to Expect

Interactive Sessions

Hear from CISO 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 Ohio CISO 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

Gartner Keynote Session

Leveraging Outcome-Driven Metrics for Strategic Impact

Technology and security leaders are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the business value of IT investments and align technology priorities with organizational outcomes. Traditional IT metrics—focused on uptime, budget, and project delivery—often fail to resonate with business leaders or drive informed investment decisions. Outcome-Driven Metrics (ODMs) offer a transformative approach, directly linking technology performance to business value.

Join this session to hear about:

  • Moving beyond operational reporting by identifying and building metrics hierarchies that connect technology to business outcomes
  • Utilizing ODMs to guide executive conversations and clarify risk, value, and cost trade-off
  • Connecting investments in technology readiness to business performance, customer satisfaction, and financial results—enabling proactive risk management and business enablement


Breakout Sessions

Marzetti’s Journey — Turning Data Projects Into AI Wins

What happens when you finish cleaning up your corporate data just as the AI boom hits? For Marzetti CIO Liam Durbin, it meant turning a massive ERP overhaul into a launchpad for innovation. Discover how a unified data environment became the foundation for AI adoption, and what it takes to empower an entire organization for the next wave of technology. Learn firsthand how patience, buy-in, and a “no excuses” mindset can turn daunting projects into bold opportunities.

In this session, you’ll hear:

  • Steps to build a master data foundation for AI
  • Strategies to drive organization-wide AI literacy
  • Lessons learned from ERP transformation and change management

Breakout Session hosted by Saviynt

 

Trust-Driven Leadership

What happens when two leaders turn a 15-year partnership into a powerful force for board-level success? At Great Lakes Cheese, the CIO and CISO have built trust and alignment that goes beyond IT and security, earning the board’s confidence and driving meaningful change. Their approach shows how collaboration and transparency can break down barriers and empower teams.

In this session, you’ll discuss:

  • Building trust to strengthen board relationships
  • Embedding security into everyday IT decisions
  • Presenting a unified vision that inspires confidence


Executive Boardroom Sessions

Executive Boardroom hosted by Cloudflare

 

Executive Boardroom hosted by Google Cloud

 

Cross-Functional Digital Innovation — Breaking Down Silos

Digital innovation thrives when IT and business teams collaborate. How are your peers building bridges and co-creating value across functions? Bring your questions and examples for a candid exchange.

In this boardroom, we’ll discuss:

  • Building effective business-IT partnerships
  • Scaling innovation across departments and business units
  • Overcoming barriers to cross-functional collaboration

Reshaping Roles — Navigating AI-Driven Change

As AI transforms the workplace, leaders face tough questions: How do we prepare our people for new roles, not just automate away old ones? What does social responsibility look like when job profiles shift? Let’s talk about what it really takes to empower talent in the age of AI.

In this boardroom, we’ll explore:

  • Approaches for upskilling and reskilling teams
  • Strategies to address employee resistance and fear
  • Ways to embrace social responsibility as technology leaders


Keynote Sessions

Rethinking Security for Agentic AI — From Control to Orchestration

As AI shifts from assistive systems to autonomous agents 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. CIOs and CISOs must modernize how data is governed, authorized, and protected so organizations can adopt agentic AI confidently without losing 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

Leading Through Uncertainty — Strategies That Work

 


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

The Westin Cincinnati
More Information

A block of rooms has been reserved at the The Westin Cincinnati at a reduced conference rate. Reservations should be made online or by calling (800) WESTIN-1.

Deadline to book using the discounted room rate of $209 USD (plus tax) is April 27, 2026.

Your Community Sponsors

Global Thought Leaders

CISO Thought Leaders

Key Sponsors

Community Program Manager

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

Spencer Bisgaard

Senior Community Program Manager

541-912-0183

spencer.bisgaard@gartner.com