In-Person

DACH CIO Community

Executive Summit

2 December 2026 | The Westin Grand Frankfurt

2 December 2026
The Westin Grand Frankfurt

Collaborate with your peers

Get together with DACH'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:

Build Digital Sovereignty to Strengthen Control, Trust and Resilience

Mobilise People to Make Technology Transformation Last

Elevate Cybersecurity as a Core Driver of Business Value, Resilience and Growth

DACH 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

Harvey Ford

PartnerRe
CIO & CTO, L&H

Jochen Göttelmann

Lufthansa Group
VP & CIO, IT Operations, Lufthansa Airlines

Thomas Kleine-Möllhoff

Husqvarna
CIO & VP, Gardena GmbH, H

Ralf Werner

OGE
CIO & CDO

Gülnaz Önes

RWE
Group CIO

Pieter Jordaan

TUI
Group CIO

Lale Kof

Clariant
Head of Information Technology, Digital

What to Expect

Interactive Sessions

Hear from CIO 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 DACH CIO 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

Keynote Sessions

Shaping Human/AI Collaboration — Rediscovering Humanity

As technology evolves from tools we operate to partners we interact with, technology leaders face new challenges in shaping human-machine relationships. The rise of AI and robotics is transforming how we connect, collaborate and coexist—demanding fresh thinking across organisations and society.

Join Frank Buytendijk, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner Fellow, Gartner to explore:

  • What new relationships between people and technology will drive business and society forward?
  • What new design principles do we need for AI to move forward?
  • What practical examples of this future can we witness already, and what can we practically do to prepare?

The CIO Blueprint for AI Security

As attackers leverage AI to move faster than ever, traditional security strategies are falling behind. CIOs are now tasked with defending their organizations at machine speed, requiring a shift from reactive patching to proactive, autonomous protection. Leading enterprises are adopting continuous risk governance and measurable guardrails to ensure accountable AI adoption. CIOs are tasked with aligning business strategy with security outcomes and deliver board-level visibility into risk and remediation, all while enabling innovation.

Join this session to learn:

  • Aligning business strategy with real-time risk governance
  • Implementing measurable guardrails for accountable AI adoption
  • Delivering board-ready visibility into AI risk and remediation progress


Executive Boardroom Sessions

Human Speed Is Not Enough Anymore — The Case for Autonomous IT

Enterprises are now moving faster than their operating models can support, with legacy processes, brittle architectures, and human‑centred resilience measures unable to keep pace with AI‑driven development cycles and the new agility expectations placed on IT Leaders. There will be a shift towards autonomous, self‑managing IT estates, but how to get there with the persistent challenges of operational drag and reactivity based models can seem an overwhelming question.
Join this session to learn:

  • A practical roadmap for evolving from manual operations to autonomous, self‑healing systems without losing governance or oversight
  • Organisational strategies to realign people, processes, and investment models around machine‑speed defence and recovery
  • A board‑ready framework for defining what autonomy is allowed to do, how actions are explained, and how to rapidly reverse errors at scale

Sovereignty as the New Foundation for Digital Trust

In today’s digital landscape, IT strategy is no longer just about cost or scalability — it’s about sovereignty, trust, and operational control, making it a top priority for CIOs across all industries. As organisations accelerate digital transformation and AI adoption, ensuring secure, compliant cloud environments is essential to protect sensitive data and drive innovation.

Join this session to explore:

  • How sovereign cloud addresses evolving regulatory and operational challenges
  • Strategies for embedding sovereignty into digital and AI initiatives
  • Best practices for balancing innovation, control, and compliance


Breakout Sessions

Resilience Under Pressure — Lessons from the Front Line

When disruption isn't a question of if  but when, resilience becomes an organisational capability, not just a technology challenge. With technology resilience underpinning operations, the ability to act under pressure is critical. This session with Daniel Steinlandt, CIO, Polizei Hamburg, explores how CIOs can build organisations that stay effective when assumptions fail and dependencies are unavailable.

Join Daniel to discuss:

  • Identifying critical dependencies across technology, suppliers, and people and where sovereignty becomes essential
  • Building resilience through practice and testing, not just paperwork
  • Leading effectively under pressure using culture, simplicity, and clear decision rights

Governing Frontier AI — Closing the Gaps Before They Become Incidents

Frontier AI and emerging agentic systems are reshaping enterprise risk faster than traditional governance can respond. CIOs now face an attack surface defined not only by external threats but by internal, autonomous AI workflows deployed at speed—often without visibility, guardrails, or accountability. Frontier‑class models can be used not just defensively but diagnostically, continuously probing an organisation’s AI landscape to expose governance gaps, shadow systems, and unsafe autonomy. Leaders can blend data‑driven oversight with culture‑driven responsibility to build governance that keeps pace with AI’s velocity.

Join this session to learn:

  • How advanced models uncover hidden agentic workflows and governance gaps before attackers do
  • How to replace slow, periodic reviews with real‑time, AI‑driven validation of controls and identity boundaries
  • Building a culture where every employee strengthens your AI‑driven security posture



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 Grand Frankfurt

Your Community Sponsors

Global Thought Leaders

CIO Thought Leaders

Key Sponsor

Program Sponsors

Community Programme Manager

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

Alice Donovan

Community Program Manager

alice.donovan@gartner.com