Last week, HMG Strategy kicked off its 2024 events season with a series of high-energy and well-attended events in Silicon Valley.

HMG Strategy is planning more than 1,000 distinct events for business technology leaders this year, including 30+ C-level Technology Leadership Summits across North America, pre-summit VIP dinners, regional receptions, hosted events, digital roundtables and advisory services sessions. The events are aimed at strengthening connections between executives in the technology community, delivering applicable, real-world insights on leadership, technology, career ascent and culture and to help business tech leaders grow into future roles in the C-suite, at the board level, in private equity, etc.

The Silicon Valley agenda kicked off with a star-studded hybrid Global CIO & CISO Executive Leadership Alliance (CELA) meeting on March 6 that world-class CIOs, CISOs and business tech leaders attended both in-person in Menlo Park and via Zoom. Our CELA group is an invitation-only advisory service that brings together top-tier CIOs, CDOs, CISOs and CTOs to brainstorm on common opportunities and challenges facing business technology leaders. It’s also a platform that enables CELA members to broadcast their thought leadership and visibility across the HMG Digital Platform which generates 1 million impressions per week, helping CELA members to strengthen their professional branding, power their career ascent and to act as talent magnets.

The CELA meeting began with a stirring presentation by Patty Hatter, former CIO and CXO for several Fortune 500 and current President and COO of Opsera, who shared valuable lessons learned in her post-CIO career including her CXO and board experiences.

Naresh Shanker, former CIO, CTO, CEO and now Founder and Managing Director of Menlo Park Advisors, shared insights from his extensive experiences across a wide range of C-level roles in Silicon Valley. This was followed by Stuart Evans, Distinguished Service Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a fixture in the global business technology executive community, who shared his perspectives on what the future of the CIO will look like and the factors that are shaping it.

The CELA meeting was followed by a VIP dinner for our 16^th Annual Silicon Valley Global Innovation Summit. This was a lively reception which generated a stunning display of networking between long-time friends, business associates and new acquaintances.

The 16^th Annual Silicon Valley Global Innovation Summit on March 7 drew scores of CIOs, CISOs and business technology leaders to connect on the top leadership, technology, cybersecurity, cultural and career-related issues they’re facing in their roles along with fellow members of the C-suite. Meanwhile, our unique CRM model provided personalized introductions between premier business technology executives with our sponsors.

We had an incredible roster of world-class speakers at the Silicon Valley summit, including Sharon Mandell, CIO at Juniper Networks, Prakash Kota, SVP & CIO at Autodesk and Emily Heath, General Partner at Cyberstarts. For a complete list of speakers and topics that were explored, click here.

One of our featured speakers was Aaron Levie, CEO, Co-Founder of Box. In a Fireside Chat with HMG Strategy Founder and CEO Hunter Muller, Aaron shared the genesis behind Box, how Box AI is  delivering instant insights on enterprise content along with the impact that AI will have on the future of work.

Hear what Aaron had to say about partnering with HMG on its C-Level Technology Leadership Summits: “We love the HMG events – (it’s an) incredible networking opportunity between CIOs and tech industry professionals. The conversations around the future of AI and the future of work is always one of our highlights.”

We also recognized 10 premier business technology executives and industry executives for their exemplary leadership through our 2024-2025 Global Leadership Institute Awards program. The list of honorees included:

• Noni Azhar, SVP IT, Podium
• Ahsan Baig, CIO, AC Transit
• Herman Brown, CIO, SF District Attorney’s Office
• Bruce Burroughs, EVP & CTO, AAA Northern California
• Christopher Desautel, SVP & Chief Digital Officer, Berkshire Hathaway Homestate Companies
• Rohit Jain, CIO, Harvard Business School Alumni
• Aaron Levie, CEO, Co-Founder, Box
• Pranav Shahi, VP, Head of Business Technology, ServiceTitan
• Hanan Szwarcbord, VP, Chief Security Officer, Micron Technology
• Srini Tanikella, VP IT, SMART Global Holdings

We’re excited about our next set of upcoming events, including our 15^th Annual C-Level Phoenix Technology Leadership Summit on March 21, our 15^th Annual Dallas C-Level Technology Leadership Summit on April 2, our Hybrid CELA Roundtable Discussion at the Harvard Club of New York on April 10 and our signature 17^th Annual New York CIO Summit of America at the Harvard Club of New York on April 11.

To learn more about CELA and our Global Advisory Services, click here.

To learn more about our upcoming C-Level Executive Leadership Summits and to register for an event in your region, click here.

To learn about our 2024-2025 Global Leadership Institute Awards program and to nominate a deserving business technology leader, click here.

To learn more about becoming a partner and sponsoring an upcoming HMG event, click here.

We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming HMG event.

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