About

Every enterprise has spent the last decade becoming more flexible: cloud, APIs, platforms, microservices, and now AI on top of all of it.

But in the search of performance and adaptability, have CIOs made their enterprises more complicated, unmanageable and not ready for the next phase of innovation?

However, we’ve learned from previous sessions that not every part of the business needs to be AI-ready, but what does a CIO do when the board and investors want to hear that AI is rolling, when the outcomes could be achieved by other means?

This event is about the technology choices that decide which enterprise you get and how a CIO can implement them: what to share across the business, what to leave alone, how much freedom to give, and where CIOs should invest in 2027 to deliver against business objectives.

We’ll be bringing CIOs together to ask these questions:

Have CIOs made the enterprise too complicated?
What should be shared across an enterprise, and how much freedom should business units and individuals have?
What changes when AI enters the picture?
Who is driving the AI agenda? Is rolling out AI always in the best interests of performance and customer value, or something else?
What should CIOs modernise, and what should they leave alone?
Where should CIOs place their bets for 2027?
What does a genuinely adaptable and high performance enterprise actually look like?

You will leave with a clearer read on your own estate: where standardising would actually pay off, where local freedom is doing more good than the governance function admits, and how to prioritise your legacy upgrades and investment roadmap.

Speakers and Panellists

Find out more about the speakers and our panellists

Craig Walker

Chairman | Moderator

CIONET UK

Craig graduated in the summer of 1981 from the University of Surrey with a BSc.

Hons in Chemical Engineering. He joined Shell as an IT programmer in London.

Over the next 17 years, his career in IT management progressed and saw him spend

10 years as an expatriate in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Colombia.

In 1998, he moved to KPMG as an Associates Partner to learn about other

industries, cultures, and ways of working. In 2005, after what he describes as the

best 6-year training course Shell let him go on, he returned in 2005 to Shell as CIO

for the African Downstream businesses based in Cape Town. After 3 years he

became Global CIO of Shell Trading and Shipping based in Houston, Texas and

then, in 2014, became Global CIO of Shell Downstream based in London.

He is a high energy leader who has spent most of his career leading large-scale

digital transformations. As Global CIO of Shell Downstream business, his team

delivered billions of dollars of savings and value, created new ways of working,

enabled faster business strategy realisation and ultimately reduced the IT budget by

45%, creating more reliable and secure solutions, and delivering the next generation

of transformative technology. While these global transformations were technology

driven, they were highly business focused. His success can be attributed to

recognising the complexities of large-scale change and including all the key

stakeholders in business and IT to ensure a level of buy-in and energy such that they

were able to fundamentally transform the businesses.

He retired from Shell in 2020, and joined Salesforce as an SVP, Strategic Advisor to

the office of the CEO, where he worked with c-suite to help them refine and deliver

their business strategy. He advised hundreds of customers, building strong

relationships and helping drive transformational change through bringing technology and people together.

He has now retired for a second time and is now busier than ever having teamed up

with five ex-KPMG colleagues, who have a lifetime of experience, knowledge and a

track record of success, to create Veles Consulting which has the tag line “Our

Experience, Your Success”. There are delivering a range of services including

Strategic Business Advice, NED/Virtual Board Services, Company Review,

Leadership Development and Transformational programmes. He is enjoying working again with old friends and colleagues.

He also chairs the Institute of Coding, which is dedicated to delivering free technical

skills learning to disadvantaged people in the UK, as well as participating on several

advisory and executive boards.

He has a passion for business, developing people, enjoying his family, travelling,

good food and wine, and life.

Explore the program

Program

London

           
          18:00 
        
                Welcome Networking Reception 
        
          19:00 
        
                Warm Welcome
        
          19:45 
        
                Panel discussion with distinguished leaders and Q&A
        
          20:45 
        
                Drinks reception, desert & cheese
        
          21:30 
        
                Carriages