CIO Summit Middle East

11–12 Feb 2026

Atlantis – The Palm, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

CIO Summit Middle East

The CIO Playbook

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The Rise of Agentic Systems

Celebrating 19 years of thought leadership, the IDC CIO Summit – Middle East returns on 11–12 February 2026 in Dubai as the region’s premier gathering of technology decision-makers.

 

This year’s edition explores the rise of AI-native enterprises and the Agentic Stack — intelligent systems that enable real-time decision-making, adaptability, and innovation. With regional AI spending forecast to reach $11.4B by 2027, CIOs must balance bold innovation with governance, trust, and integration.

 

Bringing together 500 CIOs, technology leaders, and global experts, the Summit offers strategic insights, real-world case studies, and practical guidance to help organizations architect the next generation of digital enterprises.

 

IDC Middle East Advisory Council 2026

H.E. Mohammad Hassan

H.E. Mohammad Hassan

Executive Director, Statistics & Data Science Sector

UAE Federal Competitiveness & Statistics Centre

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Yazeed Alotaibi

Yazeed Alotaibi

Deputy Minister for Planning & Digital Transformation

Ministry of Health (KSA)

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Ahmad M. Al Mulla

Ahmad M. Al Mulla

Chief Technology Officer

Emirates Water and Electricity Co. (UAE)

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Latifa Al Shehhi

Latifa Al Shehhi

Director of Investment Data Department & Chief AI Officer (CAIO)

Ministry of Investment (UAE)

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Eng. Huda Ahmed Mohsen

Eng. Huda Ahmed Mohsen

Chief of Information Technology

Ministry of Information (Bahrain)

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Mai B. AlOwaish

Mai B. AlOwaish

Chief Executive Officer

Kuwait Credit Information Network Company (CINET)

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Essa Haidar

Essa Haidar

Chief Technology Officer

Ooredoo (Kuwait)

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Mounir Abdelmoujoud

Mounir Abdelmoujoud

Executive Director, Group Technology

Aldar (UAE)

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Thuraya Al Harthi

Thuraya Al Harthi

Director, Government Unified eServices Portal

Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology (Oman)

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Jayesh Maganlal

Jayesh Maganlal

Group Chief Information & Digital Officer

ROSHN Real Estate (KSA)

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Manoj Bhojwani

Manoj Bhojwani

Chief Information Officer

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (UAE)

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Srinivasan Sampath

Srinivasan Sampath

Head of GTTO Business Intelligence & Planning

First Abu Dhabi Bank (UAE)

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Saud Al Dhawyani

Saud Al Dhawyani

Group Chief Platform Officer

Emirates NBD (UAE)

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Mamoun Al Homssey

Mamoun Al Homssey

Chief Information Officer

Doha Bank ( Qatar)

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Sultanah Aljaser

Sultanah Aljaser

Chief Information Officer

Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University (PNU) (KSA)

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Dr. Akram Nour

Dr. Akram Nour

Chief Digital Officer

Misk Foundation (KSA)

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Yousef Al Mazeedi

Yousef Al Mazeedi

ICT Director

Capital Markets Authority (Kuwait)

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Ramez AlFayez

Ramez AlFayez

Chief Information Technology Officer

King Abdullah Financial District (KSA)

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Dr. David Millan

Dr. David Millan

Chief Data & AI Officer

Department of Culture and Tourism (UAE)

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Eng. Mohannad AlSalmi

Eng. Mohannad AlSalmi

Chief Information Officer

Flyadeal (KSA)

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Fatma Al Sowaidi

Fatma Al Sowaidi

IT Director

Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority (QFCRA)

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Giovanni Everduin

Giovanni Everduin

Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer

Commercial Bank International (CBI) (UAE)

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Mohamed Abdel Razek

Mohamed Abdel Razek

Senior Executive Vice President, Group Head of Technology, Transformation & Information

Mashreq Bank (UAE)

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Paul Potgieter

Paul Potgieter

Chief Information Officer

NEOM (KSA)

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Andrew Murphy

Andrew Murphy

Chief Information Officer

Abu Dhabi Airports (UAE)

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Saket Saith

Saket Saith

Group Chief Technology & Data Officer

RAKBANK (UAE)

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Hans Peter Buse

Hans Peter Buse

Vice President Digital & IT

EDGE Group (UAE)

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Nayef Bardeesi

Nayef Bardeesi

Deputy Mayor of Holy Makkah for Digital Transformation

Holy Makkah Municipality (KSA)

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Eng. Meshal Bin Hussain

Eng. Meshal Bin Hussain

Director of Digital Transformation & Chief AI Officer

Ministry of Finance (UAE)

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Antonietta Mastroianni

Antonietta Mastroianni

Chief Information Officer

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Expert Perspectives

Hear from global thought leaders, visionary CIOs, and celebrity speakers redefining technology, leadership, and innovation across the region.

9:00 am

IDC Opening Keynote: The AI Moment: Strategies for CIOs in the Middle East

AI, predicted to have a $19.9 trillion impact on the global economy by 2030, is reshaping economic landscapes, creating new revenue streams, and redefining competitive advantages. This session will provide unique insights and analysis drawn from IDC’s extensive study of CIOs and key decision-makers across the Middle East. It will provide a deeper understanding of current and planned AI strategies and use case road maps, covering key topics such as AI-ready data, unified governance, fit-for-purpose and scalable infrastructure, and AI talent.

Meredith Whalen | IDC

Chief Research and Data Officer

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Meredith Whalen

Event Highlights 2025

Our Partners

Venue

Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai

Atlantis Ballroom
Crescent Rd – Nakhlat Jumeira – Dubai

Discover a setting unlike any other. From intimate gatherings to grand, awe-inspiring celebrations, this venue offers spaces designed to create unforgettable experiences. Guests can enjoy an elegant cocktail reception set against the mesmerizing backdrop of a 65,000-marine-animal aquarium or indulge in an exquisite dinner in Dubai’s most exclusive hotel suite. Every detail, from the world-class catering to the impeccable service, ensures each moment is elevated into something truly extraordinary.

Insights

Discover thought-provoking articles from IDC analysts, strategic partners, and end-user speakers. Explore expert viewpoints on the latest tech trends, real-world transformation stories, and forward-looking insights shaping the digital future.

AI Infrastructure: The Foundation of the Agentic Era

The world is entering a defining moment for digital infrastructure. Artificial intelligence has moved from experimentation to ubiquity, and with it, a new operational paradigm is taking shape — one where agents rather than applications become the primary engines of digital value creation. This is the dawn of the agentic AI era, and its success depends on one thing above all else: robust, intelligent, and scalable infrastructure.

Matt Eastwood
IDC
SVP, WW Research
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Getting Your Data AI Ready.

It has become a common refrain – getting data governance right is key to a successful AI strategy! This conventional wisdom is very true, but it is not a new problem. For as long as I have been involved in IT, both as an analyst and as a CIO, companies have struggled with wrangling the various data sets across the applications running at the organization.

Bob Parker
IDC
SVP, Software and Services Research
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Vision to Reality: How Governments are Empowering the Middle East’s AI Future

IDC predicts that AI will have a cumulative global economic impact of $19.9 trillion by 2030, driving 3.5% of global GDP growth. Governments will play a strategic dual role – both shaping policies for secure, impactful, and responsible adoption of AI across industries, and acting as major buyers of AI to transform public programs and services, enhancing operational efficiency and achieving mission outcomes.

Massimiliano Claps
IDC
Research Director
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Women in AI

At Princess Nourah University (PNU), one of the largest women’s universities in the world, the rise of women in technology and artificial intelligence has become a defining mark of progress. Among the most influential figures leading this transformation is the CIO, whose exceptional work has shaped the university’s digital future and strengthened the role of women in AI-driven innovation.

Eng. Sultanah Aljaser
Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University (PNU)
Chief Information Officer (CIO)
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Breaking Barriers and Building Resilience: Women’s Leadership in Cybersecurity

Introduction: A New Era of Cyber Leadership

Cyber threats are evolving faster than ever, pushing organizations to constantly adapt and innovate. Yet one of the strongest catalysts for innovation—diverse leadership—remains underutilized in cybersecurity. Women still make up a small fraction of the global cyber workforce and an even smaller percentage of leadership roles.

Despite these challenges, women have been pivotal in shaping modern cyber resilience, influencing policy, culture, and organizational strategy. Their leadership is redefining how the industry tackles risk and responds to threats.

Eng. Huda Ahmed Mohsen
Ministry of Information (Bahrain)
Chief of Information Technology
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Simplifying Complex Business Workflows the Smart Way

Today’s CIOs face a real challenge. Digital tools are everywhere across the enterprise. They promise speed, efficiency, and better performance. But in practice, many of these tools solve problems in isolation. Over time, this creates fragmented systems that are hard to integrate, govern, and scale.

As AI moves from hype to a core business capability, the pressure is rising. CIOs are expected to simplify these environments while still delivering real results. That means rethinking how work flows across systems — not adding yet another tool.

Haitham Elkhatib
UnifyApps
Co-Founder
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Parallels Perspective: Navigating the New Era of Application Delivery with Flexibility, Security, and Choice

The way organizations deliver applications has undergone a significant shift over the past few years. Pre-pandemic, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) was often seen as a niche solution for specific use cases. Post-pandemic, it has become a cornerstone of modern IT strategies, driven by the rise of remote work and the need for secure, scalable access to business-critical applications.

Steven Dewinter
Parallels
Senior Global Director, Sales Engineering
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From Oscillation to Orchestration: Why AI Needs a New Operating Model

History is full of false choices. Centralized or decentralized. Control or freedom. Order or chaos. We keep swinging between extremes, convinced the next swing will finally fix things. It rarely does.

The same pattern is now playing out with AI.

Dan Sommer
Qlik
Senior Director, Market Intelligence Lead
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Building the Next-Generation Enterprise: Adaptive Intelligence Architecture

Forward-thinking companies are rewriting the rules of business operations. Instead of patching new technology onto old systems, these organizations design intelligent decision-making capabilities directly into their core processes. The result? Operations that monitor market conditions 24 x 7, analyze complex situations on the fly, and take action across departments without waiting for human approval. Decisions that once took days now happen in seconds.

Sahil Dhawan
Tech Mahindra
President & Head (India, MEA)
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Intelligent Networks, Intelligent Enterprises: Leading in the Age of AI Native Infrastructure

The digital economy is entering a decisive new phase — one where competitiveness is no longer determined by connectivity alone, but by intelligence built directly into infrastructure. Around the world, executive leaders are shifting from traditional transformation programs to a more ambitious mandate: creating enterprises that can sense, decide, and act in real time. This next frontier is defined by two powerful forces converging at scale: next‑generation networks and applied AI woven throughout the enterprise fabric.

Essa Haidar
Ooredoo
Chief Technology Officer
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The Next Phase of Enterprise AI in 2026

As organizations across regulated and complex industries move into 2026, enterprise leaders are taking a more pragmatic view of AI adoption. While generative and agentic AI promise unprecedented speed and innovation, real-world implementation highlights a growing need for governance, orchestration, and architectural discipline. The next phase of enterprise AI will be defined less by experimentation and more by operational maturity.

Gonçalo Borrêga, VP Product, AI & AppDev, OutSystems
Amr Hafiz, Managing Director, Envnt
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Agentic AI and the Human Equation: Building Trust-Driven Customer Intelligence

Agentic AI is no longer a theoretical capability — it is entering enterprises as a decision-maker, an actor, and, increasingly, a source of risk. As autonomous systems move from pilot programs into production, CIOs are facing a new reality: success is no longer defined by technical performance alone, but by trust, governance, and accountability.

Jim Dwyer
Sutherland
Chief Transformation & Innovation Officer
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Modernizing for Autonomy: How Migration and Platforms Enable Agentic AI

As enterprises move toward agentic AI, systems capable of acting autonomously and making decisions, the greatest barrier is rarely intelligence. Instead, it is the readiness of enterprise platforms. Most organizations continue to operate on architectures designed for stability, predictability, and human-led decision-making. While effective for traditional workloads, these environments struggle to support autonomous decision loops without introducing operational risk.

Nadeem Qureshi
Integra Technologies
Sales Director
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From CDN to IDN: Why the Shift, and Why Now?

As digital services become mission-critical to enterprise growth, the question facing CIOs is no longer whether delivery performance matters — but whether today’s delivery architectures are still fit for purpose.

Global digital traffic continues to grow at 20%+ annually, driven by video-heavy consumption, cloud-native applications, real-time services, and AI-enabled platforms.

Sonny Tran
EdgeNext
Director, Strategic Growth & Network Strategy
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Your Competitive Edge Isn’t AI — It’s What Comes Before It

AI has become a board-level priority across industries. Organizations are investing heavily in advanced models, automation platforms, and intelligent agents, all in pursuit of faster decisions, improved efficiency, and competitive differentiation. Yet, despite this momentum, many AI initiatives struggle to move beyond pilots or fail to deliver meaningful, lasting impact.

Ali Sallam
Iron Mountain
Digital Solutions Architect
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The Real-Time Imperative: Navigating the Velocity of Modern Data

In the rapidly evolving digital landscape of the Middle East, the gap between data generation and actionable insight is closing. For the modern CIO, the challenge is no longer just about storing vast quantities of information; it is about the latency of decision-making. As regional enterprises embrace the “AI-first” era, the underlying architecture must shift from traditional batch processing to a real-time intelligence model.

Arno van Driel
ClickHouse
Vice President
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AI-Human Harmony: The Future of Customer Engagement

Customer engagement is undergoing a profound shift. For years, enterprises relied on a simple formula: automation to scale, humans to empathize. That balance held until customer expectations changed. Today, people want to be recognized and understood instantly, across every channel, with experiences that feel intelligent and human at the same time. Incremental improvements will not meet this demand. What is needed is a complete redesign of how intelligence powers every interaction.

Sachin Bhatia
Exotel
Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer
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From Compliance to Control: A CIO’s Guide to Data Sovereignty

Data has become one of the world’s most valuable resources, and it flows across borders instantly. This freedom creates incredible opportunities for innovation and growth. It also creates a tangled web of legal and security challenges. Governments everywhere are tightening their grip on how digital information is stored, processed, and transferred.

Adam Gale
NetApp
Chief Technology Officer
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Transforming Digital Leadership: How Middle East CIOs Can Bridge Strategy and Execution

As organizations across the Middle East accelerate their digital transformation journeys under national visions such as UAE Vision 2031 and Saudi Vision 2030, CIOs are confronting a dual mandate: drive innovation at speed while ensuring that transformation efforts consistently translate into measurable business outcomes. This year’s IDC Middle East CIO Summit arrives at a pivotal moment — when technology leadership must evolve from operational stewardship to strategic value orchestration.

Stephen Fernandes
Planview
Chief Growth Officer & Head (Middle East)
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From Experimentation to Impact: Why Engineering Must Become AI Native

The next wave of engineering transformation will be defined by who rebuilds engineering around AI as a foundational capability. Many organizations are already experimenting with copilots and automation tools. While deploying intelligent tools in pockets may deliver short-term or incremental gains, it rarely delivers lasting value. Speed alone does not create advantage if it comes at the cost of quality, resilience, or trust.

Ehsan Shariff
Managing Director
Nagarro
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Data Discovery First: Why Modern Data Governance Needs DSPM

Every part of enterprise IT has found its “next-generation” model, yet data governance in many organizations is still being asked to work with assumptions designed for a slower, simpler data world.

That world disappeared quietly, then all at once. Hybrid work normalized new ways of creating and sharing information.

Ibrahim Çallı
DECE Software
Sales & Marketing Director
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