Join our live discussion – CIO Essential Insights: IT Leadership in the Age of AI

On 20 August 2025 at 1pm ET John Gallant, Enterprise Consulting Director for CIO.com, will chair a live discussion sharing unique insights on this important topic. In this live webcast we will share CIO’s latest research, showcasing the unique challenges of being an IT leader when AI is changing everything.

Sign up here to be part of this discussion.

In this live CIO Essential Insights conversation, we will cover:

How AI is changing the CIO role

How the advent of AI is changing the CIO role, and the conversations CIOs are having with line of business, the CEO, and the board, The big challenges CIOs are facing right now. How do CIOs need to change their leadership styles to meet those challenges. (See also: Rethinking and realigning IT for the AI era.)

The CIO as a business leader

We will share research which shows how LOB leaders view their CIO colleagues. Which persona best describes their own CIO? Options included: risk assessor, primarily focused on issues of risk; consultant, who provides advice and guidance to the business when asked; the voice of reason, who highlights issues and challenges when considering new technology and initiatives; and a business leader, who is proactively bringing ideas and solutions to move the business forward. More than half of the LOB execs surveyed said their CIOs are in the business leader category. Is that good news or bad news? With the CIO role being decades old at this point, should all LOB execs see the CIO as a business leader?

We will discuss what makes a CIO a leader of the business.

CIOs as AI leaders

We will explore how AI is changing all of this. We will look at how should CIOs be taking advantage of the awareness and interest in AI right now. We will discuss the opportunities for growth and visibility that AI creates.

We will consider how should CIOs best manage overly heightened expectations around AI and how should they manage the rush of demands and inquiries about putting AI to use. (See also: CIOs: Are you being the champions of change for modern business?)

Building the AI-ready organization

We talk a lot about modernization, but primarily in the sense of infrastructure and applications. In this discussion we will look at this from the perspective of modernizing the IT team itself. With every major trend – AI/machine learning, cloud, automation, security, customer experience – our research shows a shortage of the key skills to move forward. How should CIOs be reinventing their own organizations?

Also, while most companies are eager to put AI in the hands of everyone in the organization, we discuss how should CIOs play a leadership role in oversight, security, and smart use of the technology. (See also: How to build an AI-ready organization: the Enterprise Intelligence Architecture.)

Advice for CIOs in the age of AI

Each of our expert panel will provide one great bit of advice for CIOs. What’s the most important thing you think CIOs should be doing right now? (See also: How to win at AI: think like a systems designer, not a tech shopper and How AI is transforming the data center: 7 talking points.)

Our expert panel

Here from the following panel of CIO experts:

Raj Polanki – Head of IT & Digital / US CIO, Wacker Chemical Corporation

Raj Polanki has worked in IT for over 25 years and is the US CIO of Wacker Chemical Corporation. His expertise spans a wide range of areas, from strategic planning and enterprise architecture to project and portfolio management. Raj has a proven track record of implementing cutting-edge technologies that deliver operational efficiency and innovation. He holds an MBA from the prestigious Ross Business School and an Advanced Executive Certificate from MIT Sloan, showcasing his commitment to continuous learning.

Vipin Gupta – President, CTO and Chief Product Officer, FliptRx

Vipin Gupta has driven multi-billion-dollar growth for many financial services companies over the last three decades, as the Chief Innovation and Digital Officer at Toyota Financial Services, the CIO at KeyBank, and a Partner at E&Y/Capgemini. He is currently the President, CTO, and Chief Product Officer at FliptRx, a software as a services ERP company reimagining pharmacy benefits management’s future. He advises Fortune 500 companies and tech startups while also coaching corporate executives. He serves on multiple corporate and nonprofit boards, concentrating on future-back transformations, fostering digital engineering culture, operational governance, and growing business without growing expenses.

Take part in CIO Essential Insights

If you would like to be part of a future episode, please sign up for the Foundry Contributor Network, or contact ellen_fanning@foundryco.com.

Future episodes will feature:

IT Careers (September 2025).

Cyber Security (October 2025).

AI (November 2025).

Cloud Computing (December 2025).