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Session

Driving What Matters: How CIOs Are Scaling Innovation, Modernization, and Measurable Business Impact

Tech Theater 1

Starts: October 22, 2026 11:00 am
Ends: 12:00 pm
Sponsored by
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Abstract:
As digital transformation accelerates, the role of the CIO has evolved from technology operator to strategic business leader. Today’s CIOs are expected to simultaneously modernize legacy environments, enable innovation at scale, and deliver measurable outcomes that directly impact growth, efficiency, and resilience.

This panel brings together enterprise CIOs to share how they are executing against this mandate—modernizing core infrastructure, optimizing cloud and data strategies, and operationalizing AI to unlock new value while maintaining performance and stability.

Tailored for senior IT and cybersecurity leaders, the discussion will explore how CIOs are making high-stakes prioritization decisions amid budget constraints, increasing complexity, and rising security expectations. Panelists will offer practical insights on aligning technology initiatives with business objectives, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and building agile, future-ready organizations positioned to deliver sustained impact in 2026 and beyond.

Key Takeaways

  • How CIOs are tightly aligning technology strategy with business priorities and growth initiatives
  • Proven approaches to modernizing legacy systems while minimizing operational disruption
  • Strategies for scaling cloud, data, and AI to drive enterprise-wide value
  • Strengthening alignment across IT, security, and business stakeholders
  • Frameworks and metrics for demonstrating ROI, accountability, and executive alignment
Speakers

Chris Williams

Chief Information Officer, Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State

I currently serve as CIO for the Minnesota Secretary of State, leading a team of 34 across 5 functional areas — including a CISO and two Systems Architects — driving strategic technology modernization supporting elections, business services, and public safety, including enterprise AI governance, cloud transformation, and cybersecurity for mission-critical government systems. My specialty is scale. Prior to my current role, I owned the full enterprise SaaS and identity portfolio for the State of Minnesota — including identity management across 90+ Active Directory forests, the entire M365 collaboration suite, Power Platform, Dynamics 365, our Enterprise Data Warehouse, and our website development team, supporting 40,000+ users across 37 state agencies. I've spent my career guiding organizations through "big and unwieldy" shifts — from on-premises legacy environments to Azure and M365 cloud — and now into the AI-first era, where I operate on a simple principle: responsible AI adoption should accelerate outcomes, not become a brake on innovation.

Rudi Mohamed

Chief Information Officer, Minnesota Housing

Most enterprise technology programs, including AI initiatives, don't fail on technology. They fail on value — no one can say what the investment bought. I’ve led large-scale technology investment efforts—including re-architecting and migrating more than 2,400 applications and systems to the cloud and helping govern a $400 million-plus technology portfolio and more than 2,100 technology professionals. I evaluated enterprise vendors, navigated procurement complexity, balanced risk, and drove responsible AI deployment inside public-sector institutions. Today, as a CIO, I am leading the transformation of the technology supporting more than $7 billion in public-sector investments into institutional capabilities that deliver community outcomes. I’m a technologist who became a leader. My career began as an Aerospace Software Engineering Intern at Northrop Grumman, where I programmed in Ada 95 on the RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 10 program. I later joined Microsoft as an Integration Engineer, helping integrate Microsoft Dynamics GP with Microsoft Office and ship the Dynamics Client for Office in 2007. That engineering foundation continues to shape how I lead today—with technical depth, operational discipline, and a relentless focus on outcomes. In 2025, I was honored as the ORBIE CIO of the Year for leading some of Minnesota’s most consequential digital transformations, including: