- Rupesh Sreedharan

At Big5 CIO Priorities 2026, technology and leadership converged to shape India’s digital decade. Now in its fourth edition, this two-day residential retreat brought together 200+ business and technology leaders in the nation’s capital.

- Amit Gupta, Founder & CEO | Ecosystm Group

Technology leadership today involves more than tracking emerging tools. Leaders must make strategic choices that balance innovation, resilience, and risk. This session examines the forces shaping technology strategy in India from sovereign AI and infrastructure control to global innovation flows and the rise of agentic systems in enterprise decision-making.

- Shekhar Kapur, Globally Acclaimed Filmmaker & AI Pioneer
- Amit Gupta, Founder & CEO | Ecosystm Group (Anchor)

In this wide-ranging conversation, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur reflects on how AI is reshaping creativity and the idea of intelligence itself. From storytelling to ethics and governance, he explores what it means for humanity as machines increasingly participate in how ideas, culture, and knowledge are created.

- Anil Nama, CIO | CtrlS Datacenters
- Sash Mukherjee, Vice President, Industry Insights | Ecosystm (Anchor)

As AI initiatives move from experimentation to production, technology leaders are reassessing the infrastructure strategies that support them. This conversation explores how enterprise cloud approaches are evolving as organisations scale critical workloads and rethink long-term platform and infrastructure choices.

- Navtez Bal, Vice President & General Manager, Red Hat India & South Asia
- Satishchandra Doreswamy, Vice President & Global Head TCS SovereignSecure Cloud
- Manish Prakash, Principal Advisor | Ecosystm
- Louise Francis, Principal, Industry Verticals | Ecosystm (Moderator)

As AI adoption grows, organisations are rethinking the infrastructure required to run it responsibly and at scale. Sovereign AI is becoming increasingly relevant in markets like India, where data governance, regulation, and digital public infrastructure shape deployment models. This session examines how hybrid cloud foundations help enterprises balance innovation with operational control.

- Anupama Bhat, Co-Founder & CTO | ImmersiveData.AI

Many organisations struggle to move AI initiatives beyond pilots into real business impact. This session explores how advanced data engineering, AI integration, and scalable platforms can help enterprises operationalise AI, turning experimentation into measurable outcomes and long-term business value.

- Sukhvinder Ahuja, Head, Corporate Sales (India) | Google Cloud
- Vishal Jindal, Founder & Co-CEO | Biryani By Kilo
- Sash Mukherjee, Vice President, Industry Insights | Ecosystm (Moderator)

What does it take to build and scale a modern business in a digital-first economy? As organisations grow, technology becomes central to everything from demand forecasting and operations to customer engagement. This conversation explores how cloud platforms, data, and emerging capabilities like Agentic AI are helping organisations automate decisions, experiment faster, and scale without losing operational control.

- Manoj Sahay, Country Head | Logitech

As hybrid work becomes embedded in how organisations operate, AI is beginning to shape how teams meet, collaborate, and share information. This session explores how intelligent workplace technologies and devices can make collaboration more seamless across distributed teams.

- Atul Satija, Founder & CEO | The/Nudge Institute
- Parminder (Parry) Singh, Chief AI Advisor | Ecosystm (Anchor)

India’s digital economy continues to expand beyond major metros, reaching new communities, industries, and talent pools. This session explores how AI and digital infrastructure can widen access, strengthen institutions, and support more inclusive economic growth.

- Atul Dhawan, President, TiE Delhi, & Former Chairman | Deloitte South Asia
- Juhi Bhatnagar, Key Advisor, IAIRO & Founder, Forj Capital
- Amit Gupta, Founder & CEO | Ecosystm Group (Moderator)

Technology adoption does not occur in isolation. National policy, regulatory frameworks, and enterprise strategy increasingly shape one another. This session explores how leaders interpret policy signals, plan technology investments under uncertainty, and navigate India’s evolving digital environment.

- Nalin Agrawal, Director Solutions Engineering India & SAARC | Dynatrace
- Sash Mukherjee, Vice President, Industry Insights | Ecosystm (Anchor)

As AI systems scale, organisations must translate experimentation into operational impact while managing complexity and risk. This session explores how observability enables more autonomous operations, the role of human oversight, and the guardrails needed for closed-loop, AI-driven decision-making.

- Neelam Dhawan, Member - Board of Directors, Tech Mahindra, HUL, Fractal
- Deepak Sharma, Strategic Advisor, Ecosystm & Former President and CDO, Kotak Bank (Anchor)

Technology decisions increasingly intersect with business strategy, risk management, and organisational change. This conversation explores how leaders navigate complexity, align teams around long-term priorities, and guide organisations through continuous transformation.

- Vish Mehta, Staff Product Manager | Freshworks
- Louise Francis, Principal, Industry Verticals | Ecosystm (Anchor)

As organisations prioritise customer experience, expectations around internal services are rising. This session explores how enterprises are extending service management beyond IT to create more consistent employee experiences while using automation and AI to simplify operations.

- Louise Francis, Principal, Industry Verticals | Ecosystm
- Deepak Sharma, Strategic Advisor, Ecosystm & Former President and CDO, Kotak Bank
- Sash Mukherjee, Vice President, Industry Insights | Ecosystm
- Amit Gupta, Founder & CEO | Ecosystm Group
- Manish Prakash, Principal Advisor | Ecosystm

As the event concludes, Ecosystm analysts reflect on the key themes discussed across the Big5 CIO Priorities agenda. The session will address questions from participants and outline the strategic trends likely to shape technology decisions for Indian organisations over the coming years.