
From CIO to CEO: ETCIO Annual Conclave 2025 Empowers Tech Leaders to Shape What's Next, ET Education
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25+ future-forward sessions blending keynotes, panels, workshops, and live demos.
An exclusive masterclass by globally acclaimed business strategist Dr. Ram Charan on 'How Tech Leaders Can Become a CEO'.
1,000+ minutes of curated networking with India's top minds in enterprise tech.
80+ innovation booths from leading tech solution providers.
Powerful storytelling formats like CIO Spotlight: My Big Win in 8 Minutes and Cracking the Boardroom Code.
The agenda will spark deep discussions around the most urgent shifts facing today's CIOs:
The Three Arcs of the Modern CIO
AI is the New OS: Are You Ready to Trust Your Enterprise to Think?
The CIO Paradox: Leading When the Future Won't Sit Still
Data Democracy: Why IT Must Lose Control for Businesses to Win
Every Customer, One Journey: Radical Personalization at Scale
Cloud 3.0: Is Your Infrastructure Agile or Fragile?
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The Economic Times CIO (ETCIO) proudly announces the 7th edition of its flagship gathering—the ETCIO Annual Conclave 2025 , returning to the iconic Grand Hyatt, Goa, for a four-day, invite-only experience fromIn a world defined by disruption, where AI, automation, and data reshape industries overnight, the role of the CIO is undergoing its most significant transformation yet. Today's CIO isn't just a technologist—they're a strategist, an innovator, and often, a CEO-in-waiting.With this powerful shift in focus, this edition presents: CIO 3.0: Where Innovation Becomes Business RealityThis year's theme, 'CIO 3.0: Transforming Innovation into Business Reality ,' captures the essence of what's next. The CIO of today—and tomorrow—must go beyond delivering digital transformation to architecting growth, driving customer-centricity, and building future-proof enterprises.The conclave will convene tech leaders , and digital strategists to explore how this evolution plays out in real-world leadership.As enterprises embrace intelligent automation hyper-personalized customer experiences , and data-driven decision-making, the CIO has evolved into a strategic business partner. The CIO 3.0 is expected to build agile, scalable, and secure tech ecosystems that deliver real business outcomes.The 2025 edition raises the bar with a highly curated agenda that blends strategic insight, peer-to-peer learning, and immersive experiences, including:What sets ETCIO Annual Conclave apart is its ability to blend intellect with experience. Beyond the sessions, attendees will enjoy unforgettable evenings featuring insightful conversations with icons from Bollywood, business, and sports, and musical performances by India's most celebrated artists—adding moments of joy, culture, and connection to an already extraordinary experience.From banks to unicorns, auto giants to digital-first startups, tech leaders from India's most admired companies—ICICI Bank, Ola, Akasa Air, Zepto, Hero MotoCorp, NSE, Adani Group, VodafoneIdea, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail, RBL Bank, and more—will take the stage not just to speak, but to spark something bigger.Whether you're leading a digital revolution or preparing for one, the ETCIO Annual Conclave 2025 is where India's tech trailblazers come to learn, lead, and launch what's next.🔗 To explore this conclave or request an invitation, visit: https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/annual-conclave
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Reimagining the factory: From industry 4.0 to industry 5.0 Debashish Roy, CDTO at CEAT, painted a vivid picture of the transition from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0, spotlighting a future driven not just by automation but by human-centric design, sustainability, and the rise of collaborative robots ( cobots ). 'Cobots are not traditional robots. These are designed to work alongside humans, enhancing both productivity and safety,' Roy said. Roy also introduced emerging concepts like foresight factories, which go beyond predictive maintenance to adapt in real-time to shifting demand signals, as well as experience hubs powered by AR/VR and the industrial metaverse—a space where training, inspection, and visualization converge for operational excellence. Smart factories must deliver across three dimensions Gaurav Kataria, VP – Digital & CDIO at ITC, broadened the definition of success. 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Cloud 3.0: Reinventing infrastructure for the AI-first enterprise
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He highlighted two pillars: Explainability – 'People don't trust what they don't understand—this applies to both customers and internal users.'Contextual relevance – 'Every AI output must feel timely, precise, and intuitive to the user.' His focus? Making AI meaningful by mapping the customer journey from awareness to loyalty, and ensuring touchpoints convert into trust, not fatigue. The quiet revolution: Rethinking AI readiness from the ground up Mukundha Madhavan from Datastax broke down what enterprises often get wrong about AI transformation: 'Most organizations focus on tools. But the real question is—can AI access and understand your data?' He listed two pillars of AI-ready data: Access: via operational data layers that span structured, unstructured, and multimodal dataUnderstanding: through advanced representation formats like vectors, graphs, hybrid search, and LLMs 'Privacy and relevance will be the biggest challenges. 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