Methodology
The bar is the product.
You are not buying a mailing list. You are buying confidence that the other seven people in the room were screened as hard as you were. So here is the screen, in full.
01Criteria
What we check
Three tests, applied to every request, in this order.
Practitioner
You hold the role today, or you are the named successor to it. Former CIOs are welcome as hosts, not as members.
Conflict-free
You do not sell to this room, and you are not seated with a direct competitor.
Live decision
You bring a real decision you have not made yet. A table with nothing on it is a networking event.
02Questions
The questions people actually ask
Who is eligible for a seat?
Sitting CIOs, CTOs, CDOs and CISOs, plus VPs on the CIO track who own major technology decisions. The test is whether you carry the decision, not the size of your title.
Who is excluded, always?
Anyone who sells technology, services or advisory to CIOs, including consultants, analysts, recruiters and investors. This holds even if you were a CIO last year. It is the single rule with no exceptions, because one exception ends the room.
Who reviews my request?
A person on the CIO Cafe team, not an algorithm. There is no automated scoring and no automated rejection. Owner: name the reviewer here, with their credentials
What happens if you say no?
You get a real reason by email, and the reason is usually timing or fit rather than seniority. You can ask us to reconsider once your situation changes.
Will I be seated with a competitor?
No. Direct competitors are not seated at the same table, and no table has two people from the same company. If a conflict appears after seating, we move one of you and tell you both why.
Can I see who else is at my table first?
You see roles, sectors and organisation-size bands before the table. You do not see names until you are in the room. That is deliberate: it protects everyone equally, including you.
What we do not publish yet
An acceptance rate is the number that would tell you most about the bar, and we will not quote one until enough tables have run for the figure to mean something. Owner: publish the real acceptance rate once the denominator is large enough to be honest
Tell us the decision you are carrying.
That paragraph is the whole application. A person reads it within two business days.