When our company 9.9 Media acquired the CTO Forum we discovered that its flagship annual conference was held overseas.  I initially thought this was to help our Indian CIOs imbibe best practices from their counterparts in more developed markets but it soon became clear that the reason was to lure CIOs to an exotic location and have dedicated time away from home and work. Nevertheless, we were afraid to go against tide and went ahead with CTO Forum annual conferences in Macau, Beijing and Dublin.  It was with some courage accompanied with some trepidation that we decided to organise this year’s CTO Forum annual conference in Kovalam, right here in India.  Some CTO Forum veterans and industry experts felt we were diluting the value proposition for both attendees and sponsors.  But we knew the reduced travel hassles and the availability of more time for the conference itself would more than make up for this, especially if we continued to innovate on the agenda. Somewhere along the way, we were also tempted to increase domestic consumption and add to the India story!

I am happy to report that the just concluded 12th annual CTOF Forum was well-attended and based on participant feedback, the India location was a big hit.  Over a 100 CIOs joined us at the spectacularly located Leela Kempinski in Kovalam for 4 days.  No connecting flights to worry about, no jet lag, no late check-ins, and a superb facility.

The conference itself was themed CIO & Leader, defined by our continuing belief that the CIO must be both a technology specialist and a business and people leader.  This issue of our magazine captures some of the key takeaways from the event for those of you who could not attend.  But we were fortunate to have a highly engaged audience of CIOs who not only came, but spoke and listened, engaged and contributed, and left with a promise to return - undoubtedly the best testimony to our efforts.

What we are most grateful for is their enthusiastic support and encouragement that has given us the confidence to organise future CTO Forum annual conferences in India itself.  To all those of you who came to Kovalam : thank you for showing leadership in challenging the status quo and bucking the trend.  We hope to see all of you next year at a bigger and better annual conference in India!