AECOM is an $8.3-billion, global provider of professional technical and management support services to a broad range of markets, including transportation, facilities, environmental, energy and water. Among its project highlights are designing master plans for the Olympic games in London and Rio de Janeiro and providing construction management and other services for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center in New York. In September, Tom Peck joined AECOM as CIO and, in his new role, is tasked with managing rapid growth, balancing tactical IT with strategic business plans, and, ultimately, turning IT into a competitive advantage for the company. In his opening keynote, the former CIO of Levi Strauss and MGM Mirage will discuss the leadership lessons he's learned in switching industries and applying Six Sigma business principles to IT.

When it comes to business analytics and widespread use of the tools that produce them, Mazda North American Operations is in great shape. CIO Jim DiMarzio set the stage three years ago by setting an IT strategy to train power users across business units, set up central data warehouses and guide the organization in the smart use of detailed analysis and trend reporting. But now what? "We're realizing that we have no enterprise-level view. Each department is very good at showing historical analysis within their operations, but we want to move into enterprise decision making and predictive modeling," DiMarzio says. "It's actually our CFO, Jim Lievois, who is leading the push for this next step." In this fascinating look inside a project-in-motion, this CIO and CFO team will talk about how Mazda is approaching this opportunity to organize the company to use analytics for corporate decisions, up a level from where it is used today. At the same time they will discuss how they are searching for tools to move Mazda forward.

Is your IT senior leadership team ready for tomorrow’s challenges? Have they got the right mix of executive skills, business know-how, customer-centric thinking and whatever X-factors your business needs in its future IT workforce? In this unique hybrid of panel discussion and hands-on workshop, you’ll rate your own team using a new CIO Executive Council assessment tool. Then, after hearing some quick insights from our panel of CIOs on how they built game-changing teams, you’ll discuss your own ideas and strategies with your colleagues as you build a plan for action.

When IT marketing expert Frank Cutitta talks about using "Weapons of Mass Discussion" for competitive advantage, he means everything from enterprise social media and monitoring tools to conversational media listening technologies and analytics. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of senior level IT executives engage in social media, largely limiting themselves to LinkedIn as a professional network. That has to change, Frank contends, in order for IT and marketing to strike up a true partnership on behalf of the business. Drawing on exclusive research from CSC 's Leading Edge Forum program, this thought-provoking session will explore the challenges and identify some practical strategies CIOs can use to build stronger IT/marketing partnerships that maximize the value of social media deployments.

Against a backdrop of dramatic workplace changes fueled by mobility, cloud and the influx of consumer devices, the relationship between CIOs and their strategic suppliers is also evolving. The goal is ultimately to turn a sales transaction-based relationship into a collaborative partnership that creates business value on both sides. But how does such an ideal situation develop? How can IT organizations encourage greater vendor participation in deploying new and emerging technologies while managing less established industry providers? How do both sides establish the kind of trust necessary between real partners? Our panel of IT leaders and industry experts will share their insights on this challenging subject, along with some practical suggestions and actionable ideas.