Monthly · 90 min · 8 sitting CIOs
Founders’ Table
The core format. One framed decision, a ten-minute pre-read and a host who keeps the table honest. A Field Brief follows within a week.
Virtual or in personChatham HouseField Brief
Tables
Four formats. One rule: the decision is the agenda.
Every CIO Cafe table starts from a real decision a member is facing. The format changes with who needs to be in the room.
01Formats
Pick the room that fits the decision.
Four formats, one rule. Nobody in the room is selling anything.
Quarterly · 2 hrs · CIO, CISO, CDO, CFO guest
Cross-functional Table
Some decisions need more than one chair: AI risk, resilience, data strategy. This table mixes roles on purpose.
In personInvite-only guestsField Brief
Monthly · 60 min · CIO-track leaders + sitting CIO host
Rising Table
For VPs and directors preparing for the seat. Each table has a sitting CIO host who has made the call being discussed.
VirtualMentoredReading list
Async · any time · your cohort
Ask the Table
Post a question to your cohort between tables. Answers come from people who have lived it, under the same confidentiality.
Members onlyNo vendorsSearchable archive
02Anatomy of a table
What happens in 90 minutes, drawn to scale.
The same shape every time, so no minute is spent on logistics.
- Frame10 min
The member who brought the decision states it in one sentence, with the constraint that makes it hard.
- Peer cases45 min
Two or three members who faced it describe what they did, what it cost and what they would change.
- Pressure-test25 min
The table challenges assumptions. The host keeps it on the decision, not on war stories.
- Commit10 min
A stated next step. The host drafts the anonymized Field Brief.
Who sits where
Eight seats, matched by role, scale and problem.
Every table has a host, a current or former technology executive. Members are screened so you never sit with a direct competitor unless you choose to.
On the table
Re-platform, clean core or keep patching?
90 minutes · Chatham House- CIO
- CISO
- CIO
- CTO
- CDO
- CIO
- CIO
- Host
03Standing topics
Where the tables keep coming back.
New tables form when enough members bring the same decision.
AI governance & value
Funding, gating and measuring AI use cases; model risk; the board conversation.
Read the primer →Core modernization
ERP and core-system renewal, clean core, technical debt and business cases CFOs accept.
Read the primer →Cyber resilience
Recovery you can prove, incident roles, third-party concentration and board reporting.
Read the primer →Operating model & talent
Product and platform teams, funding models, skills and leadership bench.
Read the primer →Cloud economics
FinOps, commit negotiations, repatriation decisions and unit economics.
Read the primer →First 100 days
What to learn, what to fix and what to signal when you are new in the seat.
Read the primer →Schedule
Dates are shared with members.
Founding tables are forming now. Request a seat and we’ll tell you when and where your first table meets.
Owner: add confirmed dates and cities here (and Event schema) once scheduled