Search didn’t break. It fragmented – and in doing so, it rewrote how decisions are made. What used to be a linear path is now a distributed system. Users move across all of it without friction and without loyalty to a single channel. And most marketing strategies aren’t built for this new reality. Your brand is now being discovered — and decided on — across systems you do not control. Which means you’re no longer just competing for attention. You’re competing to be surfaced, summarized, and trusted. This session breaks down the new rules of discoverability — and what brands must do now to stay visible where decisions are actually being made.
The Future of Data AI and CMO
Data AI and CMO Think Tank
June 25, 2026 - Chicago, IL
Visionaries
Jason Clark
Solutions Engineer
LaunchDarkly
About Me
Jason Clark is a creative solutions engineer and former architect specializing in driving business value through innovative, out-of-the-box thinking. With a strong focus on AI, agentic engineering, and automation, he stays at the forefront of technological advancement. At LaunchDarkly, Jason has carved out a niche as a thought leader, strategist, and collaborative visionary. He has partnered with numerous large enterprises to define best practices for feature releases, code enhancements, and modern software delivery. Prior to his time at LaunchDarkly, Jason worked in the cloud and Kubernetes security space, further deepening his expertise in scalable, secure systems.
Mike Mygal
Senior Enterprise Account Executive
LaunchDarkly
George Wang
CMO
Peterson Technology Partners
About Me
George Wang is a multi-faceted Chief Marketing Officer at Peterson Technology Partners, recognized as a "Super Connector" in the Chicago tech ecosystem. A 2020 Chicago CIO of the Year nominee, George brings over 30 years of rare, balanced experience across CIO, COO, and CMO roles. From launching Motorola’s first digital cellular handset to architecting the State of Illinois’ 45-year technical modernization, his career is defined by "industry firsts." George has successfully led teams of up to 175, fostering a culture of trust and accountability across seven different verticals, including Healthcare, Finance, and Government. An expert in Agile DevOps, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity risk quantification, he leverages his deep technical roots and Lean Six Sigma expertise to help leaders execute with elite talent. A dedicated mentor and "pay-it-forward" advocate, George excels at bridging the gap between business innovation and technical excellence.
Lisa Greer
Founder
Plumleaf VPA
Dom Scandinaro
CTO
Cameo
Grant Ecker
VP Chief Enterprise Architecture
ECOLAB
About Me
Grant Ecker is a senior technology executive leading Enterprise Architecture and Integration at Ecolab, managing a global team of architects and integration leaders. With 20+ years of experience, he drives transformation and innovation across billion-dollar IT portfolios, building proactive architecture communities and aligning technology strategy with business value. Grant is also the Founder and Chairman of the Chief Architect Network, the largest vendor-neutral community for Chief Architect executives, connecting 600+ members across 400+ Fortune 500 companies. Through this network, he leads global virtual and in-person events, sponsors specialized topic groups, promotes diversity in architecture, and shares thought leadership via publications and conferences, further advancing the profession and enabling architects worldwide to drive impactful business outcomes.
Gautam Bhatia
Head of Data Strategy and Governance
Kirkland & Ellis
Brian Greenberg
CIO
RHR International
Rod Warren
Managing Deputy CIO
City of Chicago
Kurt Schuepfer
Sr. Manager, Data Science
McDonald's
Prashant Trivedi
Data Scientist
CoinFlip
Ramu Polam
Big Data Architect
Texas Department of Transportation
Shantanu Kumar
Data Product Manager
Capital One
Sandeep Pulavarty
CIO
Crystal Clean
About Me
With more than 20 years of technology corporate-side leadership and consulting service experience across highly-regulated industries and verticals, including distribution and transportation, retail, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and energy services, Sandeep has managed multimillion-dollar budgets and aligned globally dispersed teams to accelerate business transformation, creating higher customer satisfaction and competitive advantage for major corporations. Recognized for balancing futuristic vision, down-to-earth execution, and a sense of business urgency, Sandeep leverages business acumen and technical expertise to transform IT into a strategic company partner. As a trusted advisor to executive leadership teams, he provides expert advice on developing and integrating the best enterprise solutions and applications to enable organic growth, integrate M&A’s, and build profitability in the marketplace. Motivated by a “people-first” mindset, Sandeep propels business performance to the next level by developing world-class staff, transforming IT teams to deliver strong business value, and instilling a culture that rewards “bold moves”, process simplification, and customer focus. He proudly built an award-winning CIO 100 IT team, recognized for creating industry-pioneering applications.
Sandesh Gawali
Director of Strategic IT / Salesforce CTO
Salesforce
About Me
As a Senior Strategic Advisor at Salesforce, Sandesh Gawali provides expert advisory services to CxOs, guiding the decision-making process for high-stakes, transformational projects designed to elevate organizational performance. With over 20 years of experience in innovation and technology consulting, Sandesh has a proven track record of leading and delivering complex digital solutions for Fortune 500 clients across diverse industries. By leveraging a deep technical arsenal that includes data, AI, ML, cloud computing, and information security, he bridges the gap between technical possibility and strategic business value to drive sustainable growth and innovation.
Chris McGuire
President
AMA Chicago
About Me
For more than twenty-five years, Chris has been helping financial powerhouses like Visa, Northwestern Mutual, U.S. Bank, Capital One and TD Bank discover ways to motivate consumers to act. His experience has involved working for industry leaders like McGuffin Creative Group, Leo Burnett, and DraftFCB. Before joining McGuffin, he launched a digital agency Slant Marketing and grew it to over 25 people. An expert in marketing, Chris has often been quoted in trade publications and has been a featured guest on podcasts offering insights into how technologies impact consumer interactions with brands. He is currently serving his second term as the President of the AMA Chicago chapter and has also been on the ANA Promotion Committee. He was elected and served as Chair and Secretary for more than ten years on the local school council at Newberry Math and Science Academy. During his free time, you’ll find Chris on the tennis courts, attending events around the city and hanging with his lovely wife and two adorable daughters.
Jenny Lopez Riley
Chief Growth Officer
RTM Engineering Consultants
About Me
Jenny Lopez Riley is a visionary and results-oriented Chief Growth Officer at RTM Engineering Consultants, bringing over 20 years of experience in accelerating revenue through digital transformation and integrated growth strategies. Throughout her career, she has led brand transformations and marketing initiatives for complex global organizations across the AEC, infrastructure, healthcare, and technology sectors. In her current role at RTM, Jenny orchestrates enterprise growth, innovation, and strategic expansion - overseeing everything from M&A and data analytics to client experience - by aligning technology and talent to unlock new market opportunities and deliver measurable business outcomes.
June 25, 2026
Attend this event
Agenda
All times Central Time
8:30 AM - 9:00 AM
Registration
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Morning Networking
9:30 AM - 9:40 AM
Opening Remarks
9:40 AM - 10:05 AM
Keynote
Built to be Found: The New Rules of Discoverability
Together With:
10:10 AM - 10:55 AM
Keynote Panel
AI Evolution: How Enterprise Architecture Must Adapt for the Age of Agentic AI
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve from predictive analytics and copilots to autonomous, decision-making agents, enterprise leaders are facing a new architectural reality. Agentic AI has the potential to transform how organizations operate accelerating decision-making, automating complex workflows, and unlocking entirely new business models. But realizing that opportunity requires more than deploying new models; it demands an enterprise architecture built for intelligence, interoperability, security, and scale.
In this session CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, and architecture leaders will jointly explore both the opportunities and challenges shaping the next era of AI. From modernizing data foundations and enabling secure agent-to-system interactions, to avoiding vendor lock-in, managing governance, and ensuring operational resilience, this discussion will focus on how enterprise architecture must evolve to support AI that not only informs the business but increasingly acts on its behalf.
10:55 AM - 11:15 AM
Networking Break
11:15 AM - 11:30 AM
Fireside Chat
Human + Machine Intelligence: Redefining Decision-Making in the Age of AI
As AI becomes embedded across every layer of the enterprise, organizations are rethinking how critical decisions are made, who makes them, and how quickly they can act on insight. The future of competitive advantage will not come from human expertise or machine intelligence alone, but from the ability to combine both at scale. Join senior executives for an exclusive discussion on how leading organizations are integrating AI-driven insights with human judgment to improve decision-making across operations, customer engagement, risk management, and innovation. Together, we’ll explore how to build trust in AI, establish the right governance and accountability frameworks, and create a culture where humans and intelligent systems work together to drive faster, smarter, and more strategic business outcomes.
11:35 AM - 11:50 AM
Disruptor
Concerned about AI in Production? You need Control at Runtime
The pressure to balance speed and safety in production software is an ever growing issue that developers must constantly manage. Come learn how LaunchDarkly's release platform can help you move faster and safer with control at runtime.
Together With:
11:55 AM - 12:30 PM
Panel
Brand Is a Story Companies Tell Themselves. Customers Have Already Moved On.
Every brand has a story it tells about itself. The question is whether anyone outside the building believes it. In an era of radical transparency, peer reviews, and AI-generated alternatives, customers are forming opinions faster than brands can shape them — and often without ever engaging with official messaging at all. This session challenges the assumption that brand is something you build and control, and asks what actually drives preference, loyalty, and choice when the traditional levers no longer reach. If brand as we know it is becoming an internal fiction, what replaces it — and who owns it?
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
1:30 PM - 1:45 PM
Disruptor
Building a Resilient Digital Infrastructure
In the digital age, building a resilient infrastructure for business continuity is paramount. This involves redundancy and backup systems, robust cybersecurity measures, cloud solutions, and the ability to facilitate remote work. Scalability, real-time monitoring, and ongoing training are essential, as are compliance with regulatory requirements and strong vendor relationships. Effective communication strategies, continuous improvement, and the establishment of a crisis response team round out the key components. By embracing these insights, organizations can better withstand disruptions and ensure the uninterrupted operation of critical systems, all while maintaining the trust of employees, customers, and stakeholders in an increasingly dynamic business environment.
Together With:
1:50 PM - 2:35 PM
Panel
Brand Without Revenue Is a Hobby. Revenue Without Brand Is a Race to the Bottom
The tension between brand and performance has defined marketing debates for a decade. But the CMOs winning today have stopped choosing sides — they own the full loop. This session explores how the best marketing leaders are connecting brand investment to demand generation to revenue outcomes, without sacrificing long-term positioning for short-term numbers. The conversation focuses on what it actually takes to make brand and revenue speak the same language inside an organisation — and how to get the CFO to believe it.
2:40 PM - 3:15 PM
Disruptor
The Junior Bench Is Gone. The Senior Roles Are Changing. So Who Survives?
The marketing org is being dismantled and rebuilt in real time. Entry-level roles are disappearing as AI absorbs execution work. Senior roles are being rewritten around judgment, strategy, and AI fluency. And the titles that didn't exist two years ago — Creativity Leads, AI Architects, Prompt Strategists, Brand Risk Officers — are now showing up in job descriptions. Leaders name what they have cut, what they have transformed, and what they are building from scratch. And they face the question nobody wants to answer out loud: if the junior bench disappears, where do tomorrow's CMOs come from?
3:15 PM - 3:35 PM
Afternoon Networking
3:35 PM - 4:10 PM
Panel
Analytics to Autonomous Intelligence: The Strategic Imperative for Data and AI Leaders in 2026
As AI rapidly evolves from dashboards and predictive analytics to generative and agentic intelligence, data and AI leaders are being challenged to rethink how their organizations create value, manage risk, and compete in real time. The role of the modern data leader is no longer centered on reporting and insights alone, it now requires building trusted data ecosystems, enabling AI at scale, ensuring responsible governance, and turning intelligence into measurable business action. Join senior data, analytics, and AI executives for an exclusive discussion on how leading organizations are modernizing their data strategies, operationalizing AI across the enterprise, and balancing innovation with security, cost, and accountability in an increasingly autonomous digital economy.
4:15 PM - 4:25 PM
Closing Remarks & Raffle Giveaway
Together With
