Management

What to Expect at the CDW Executive SummIT

At the April SummIT, CDW experts and IT leaders will offer guidance on how to create secure and agile digital experiences.

Lily Lopate

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Lily is a Senior Editor at BizTech Magazine. She follows tech trends and the IT leaders who shape them — reporting on entrepreneurial business, security and thought leadership.

From April 2-4 at the Marriott Marquis in Chicago, IT leaders, experts and industry partners will gather for the biannual CDW Executive SummIT. The spring conference will focus on “Creating a More Agile and Secure Digital Experience,” and it promises to offer best practices on how to minimize risk as organizations embrace new technical innovations.

Whether it’s an internal user navigating a data center, a customer accessing an app or an employee traveling between offices, the expectation is the same: Technology should just work smoothly. But that careful orchestration of ease and efficiency is challenging, especially as organizations are still working to transition their legacy tech to the cloud and gradually introduce new tools into their existing infrastructure. The conference will tackle those dilemmas and give IT leaders guidance as they future proof their systems.

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Standout Sessions and SummIT Highlights

The SummIT will also raise important questions such as: How can leaders mitigate security risks while introducing new tools? What steps should teams take to protect and manage their data to get the most out of AI, ML and IoT applications? How can IT leaders determine which tech investments are most worthwhile? And how can organizations optimize employee and customer experiences while staying within budget?

Panels and sessions will be organized around four tracks: enabling innovation, optimizing costs, increasing agility and optimizing the user experience.

The conference will also include keynote addresses, breakout sessions and networking chats, offering participants a chance to refine their IT strategy and collaborate on business goals. CDW leaders, experts and peers will also share IT trends, solutions and services.

WATCH: A behind-the-scenes look at the CDW Executive SummIT.

How to Update Existing Tech to Meet Future Needs

The challenge of updating current tech for the future is a matrix of prioritization, budget analysis and ROI. It requires organizations to make sure that every tech investment aligns with the overall business strategy. Users will hear from CDW experts including Jill Klein, head of IoT and emerging technologies; Debbie Dove, vice president of sales acceleration; and Bill Polisson, vice president of enterprise data services. Attendees will also hear from partners such as Angie McCourt, general manager of U.S. field device partner sales at Microsoft; Niraj Gupta, director of infrastructure at Michaels Stores; Ziad Azzi, head of partner cloud engineering, NorthAM GenAI CoE at Google Cloud and others.

In another session, “The Art of Prioritizing Tech Investments,” CDW’s Sanjay Sood, senior vice president and CTO, and Al Miralles, senior vice president and CFO, will share how organizations should think strategically about IT investments, not just in terms of managing the organization’s financial resources but also as an investment in their team’s energy and creativity.

Related sessions on cost optimization will feature experts such as E.G. Nadhan, global chief architect at Red Hat; Mayank Gupta, director of product marketing at Nutanix; and Kris Wayman, senior manager for sales engineering, managed detection and response at Sophos.

DIG DEEPER: How one business is using data to create an exceptional digital experience.

The SummIT will also cover optimizing the user experience. From reducing latency to providing secure, seamless access to applications — no matter the user's location — IT leaders will learn how global network optimization capabilities and zero-trust network security ensures seamless connectivity in our “work from anywhere” world. Speakers include Mike Kraus, senior systems engineering director for networking experiences, Americas, at Cisco; Matt Marsh, principal solution architect for customer care at CDW; and Scott Rendell, partner solution architect at Microsoft.

Finally, sessions on risk management will give IT leaders security tips for how to fold new cloud, networking, IoT and AI innovations into a company’s infrastructure without destabilizing operations. Speakers on this topic include John Fanelli, vice president. of enterprise software at NVIDIA; Todd Felker, executive healthcare strategist at CrowdStrike; Marcos Christodonte II, vice president and global CISO at CDW; and Christopher Fielder, field CTO at Arctic Wolf.

UP NEXT: CDW’s Jill Klein shares her 5 tips for how to prepare your data ahead of AI.

Overall, IT leaders can expect to leave the CDW Executive SummIT with key insights for innovating and planning for the future.

Find BizTech’s full coverage of the event here, follow our live news coverage of the CDW Executive SummIT on X (formerly Twitter) at @BizTechMagazine and join the conversation using hashtag #CDWExecutiveSummIT.