In-Person

Dallas CIO Community

Inner Circle

September 1, 2026 | The Constellation club

September 1, 2026
The Constellation club

Collaborate with your peers

Join Dallas's top CIOs for an intimate networking dinner and facilitated discussion on key business challenges. Enjoy a relaxed evening of dinner and drinks with your peers to share best practices, make new connections and build professional relationships.

Join your peers to discuss the most critical issues impacting CIOs today:

Establish Clear Protection Levels for Critical Systems

Maintain the Ability to Restore Operations to a Clean and Trusted State

Demonstrate Recovery Performance as a Board-Level Business Metric

Dallas CIO Governing Body

The Governing Body Co-Chairs shape the discussion topics and agenda, ensuring that all content is driven By CIOs, For CIOs®.

Governing Body Co-Chairs

Sumit Anand

Academy Sports + Outdoors
CIO

Mike Anderson

Netskope
Chief Digital & Information Officer

Sandeep Dave

CBRE
Chief Digital & Technology Officer

Maria Lensing

Sorenson Communications
Global CIO & CTO

Neelu Sethi

Brinks
SVP & Global CIO

Agenda

September 1, 2026

4:30pm - 5:15pm  Executive Networking Reception

5:15pm - 5:35pm  Keynote

5:35pm - 6:30pm  Discussion Topics

Recovery Confidence Has Fallen and Why It's a CIO Problem

Gopal Kesavan headshot

Gopal Kesavan

Head of Bill Pay, Payments Technology

USAA

Jason Cook headshot

Jason Cook

Field CTO Americas

Rubrik

Attackers aren't waiting for organizations to retire legacy systems. AI is accelerating the speed and scale of attacks, turning unresolved technical debt into an actively exploitable liability. Prevention alone won't hold. Rubrik Zero Labs research shows recovery confidence has declined three consecutive years 38% of IT and security leaders now estimate recovery from a cyber incident would take more than a day, up from 18% in 2024. CIOs can no longer treat resilience as a security team's problem. The organizations that contain incidents and keep the business running built recovery capability before they needed it, establishing clear protection levels for critical systems, actively managing technical debt and maintaining the ability to restore operations to a clean and trusted state. This session examines how CIOs are taking ownership of resilience and demonstrating recovery performance as a board-level business metric.

Discussion Questions:

  • How are you actively identifying and mitigating the risks of compounding technical debt before it becomes an exploitable liability?
  • What practical steps are you taking to establish and enforce targeted protection levels for your most critical business systems?
  • How are you breaking down IT and security silos to make cyber resilience an enterprise-wide mandate rather than just a security issue?
  • In an assume-breach scenario, how do you ensure your teams can quickly restore operations to a clean and trusted state?
  • What outcome-driven metrics are you using to translate your recovery capabilities into a board-level business conversation?

6:30pm - 7:00pm  Networking Break

7:00pm - 8:00pm  Summary Discussion & Dinner

8:00pm - 9:00pm  Social Hour

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

More Information

Parking Information
Parking will be validated. Please present your ticket to the venue.

Your Community Sponsors

Global Thought Leader

Community Program Manager

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

Stacie Cagney

Community Program Manager

(214)326-9110

stacie.cagney@gartner.com