Registration and Morning Refreshments in the Exhibit Area

Opening Remarks

Dru Rai, Chief Information Officer and Director, Office of Information Technology Services, State of New York

Keynote – Debrief to Win: Building Teams that Succeed in Disruption

In times of turbulence and disruption, even the best teams can struggle to stay focused, aligned, and accountable. Overcoming these challenges requires a shift in mindset and the right leadership tools to create resilient, high-performing teams. Learn from a former U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School (“Top Gun”) instructor how elite military teams succeed by centering on a shared mission, driving purpose, and embracing accountability as a path to growth, not blame. Walk away with actionable strategies and inspiring insights to help your teams thrive under pressure and achieve lasting success.

Robert “Cujo” Teschner, Founder and CEO, Vmax Group

Networking Break in the Exhibit Area

Concurrent Sessions

Stakeholder Management for Modernization: Partnerships That Deliver

In a fast-moving environment, even the best plans can stall without the right partnerships behind them. Whether you’re coordinating across agencies, working with vendors, engaging unions, or aligning internal teams—especially when projects involve modernization, cloud migration, cybersecurity requirements, and vendor delivery—success often comes down to one thing: your ability to build trust and drive shared ownership when priorities compete and pressure is high. This session focuses on the real-world skills leaders need to manage stakeholders effectively, setting clear expectations early, navigating conflicting interests, and creating alignment around mission and outcomes.

Leading IT Teams with Empathy and Accountability

In high-pressure environments, leaders are expected to deliver results—while also keeping teams motivated, supported, and engaged. That balance is harder than ever as expectations rise, burnout is very real, and teams span different roles, generations, and work styles—often across hybrid teams supporting 24/7 operations, cybersecurity demands, and high-visibility service delivery. Through real-world scenarios, you’ll explore how to prioritize work, protect capacity, and prevent burnout without compromising standards. You’ll challenge the false choice between being understanding and being tough—and learn how to lead with empathy while still driving accountability.

Culture Change in IT: Driving Adoption, Accountability, and Execution

Culture change is one of the most talked-about goals in leadership—and one of the hardest to achieve. Most organizations don’t fail because they lack a vision; they fail because the day-to-day behaviors, incentives, and habits never truly shift. Real culture change isn’t a poster on the wall—it’s what people prioritize, tolerate, and repeat when no one is watching. This is especially true in IT—from driving adoption of new platforms to improving security habits and standardizing delivery practices. This session breaks down what actually makes culture change stick, what quietly derails it, and the specific traits leaders must cultivate to sustain progress—purpose, trust, learning, and resilience. You’ll leave with a practical culture playbook you can apply immediately to shift behaviors, reinforce accountability, and build a team that can execute consistently through disruption.

Lunch

General Session – Leading Through Disruption: Keeping Teams Aligned, Accountable, and Energized

In today’s environment of constant disruption, success isn’t just about strategy — it’s about leadership behaviors under pressure. Building teams that stay focused, aligned, and accountable under pressure requires leaders who can create clarity, strengthen trust, and turn challenges into momentum. But when priorities shift, uncertainty rises, and the pace of change accelerates — how do you keep people moving in the same direction without burning them out or losing buy-in? Through practical examples and lessons learned from cultural change efforts across government, academia, and industry—whether modernizing training and workforce development, strengthening community engagement, advancing responsible AI, or fostering inclusion and belonging—this discussion will explore what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Short Break

Please proceed to the concurrent sessions.

Concurrent Sessions

Leading Through Emerging Tech: Influence in Uncertainty

The pace of change has outgrown any one leader’s ability to have all the answers—and that’s not a leadership failure, it’s the new reality. Whether you’re navigating AI, cloud, zero trust, data governance, or legacy modernization, the leaders who succeed aren’t the ones who know everything—they’re the ones who can create clarity, build confidence, and keep teams moving forward anyway. This session explores what effective leadership looks like when the path isn’t obvious. You’ll learn how to lead with credibility without pretending to be the expert, how to ask better questions that surface risks and solutions faster, and how to make decisions with imperfect information while staying aligned to mission and outcomes. Participants will leave with practical strategies to inspire action, strengthen trust, and guide teams through uncertainty with purpose and momentum.

Building the IT Leadership Bench: Mentorship and Knowledge Transfer

Great teams don’t happen by chance—they’re developed. In an era of workforce turnover, retirement waves, and increasing demands on public sector IT, mentorship has become more than a nice to have. It’s one of the most effective ways to strengthen retention, build resilience, and ensure leadership continuity—especially when organizations can’t afford to lose institutional knowledge in systems, infrastructure, and security operations while developing new leaders. Join this session to explore how mentorship can be used as a practical leadership strategy—not just informal advice. Participants will examine different models, including peer mentorship, sponsor-based support, and structured versus organic approaches, along with what makes mentorship actually work across generations and roles. Walk away with actionable ways to strengthen your leadership bench, accelerate growth, and build a culture where talent is supported, challenged, and prepared for what’s next.

Upskilling for AI, Cyber, and Modern IT Operations

When disruption hits, skills gaps don’t stay hidden—they show up immediately in missed handoffs, slower delivery, increased risk, and overwhelmed teams. And in areas like IT, cybersecurity, data, and leadership, the cost of being underprepared is simply too high. The organizations that succeed aren’t the ones that train more—they’re the ones that train smarter, with clear purpose and measurable outcomes. In this session, you’ll explore how to build a practical, future-ready upskilling strategy that strengthens core fundamentals while preparing teams for what’s next—including the growing expectation for baseline AI literacy and responsible adoption. We’ll discuss how to design training that actually sticks by connecting theory to real workflows, reinforcing learning through repetition and coaching, building confidence through hands-on application, and measuring impact over time so training investments translate into real performance gains.

Networking Break in the Exhibit Area

General Session – Talent in the Public Sector: Building the Next-Gen Public Sector IT Workforce

Hiring in government isn’t just competitive—it’s complex. From civil service rules and lengthy timelines to limited flexibility in compensation and titles, many leaders are feeling real frustration when trying to recruit and retain the IT talent needed to deliver modern, secure services. This session offers a candid, practical discussion on the realities of civil service hiring—and, more importantly, what public sector leaders can do to move faster, plan smarter, and build sustainable teams within the system. The focus is on bringing new talent into the organization by navigating civil service constraints, strengthening pipelines, and modernizing recruitment strategies that work within today’s realities—for mission-critical IT roles across cybersecurity, infrastructure, data, and service delivery.

IT Leadership Programs: Updates from the New York State Forum

Join us for an insightful update on the New York State’s Forum’s IT Leadership Programs and the progress made since last year’s forum. Designed to cultivate excellence in public sector technology leadership, these programs have evolved to address emerging challenges, enhance professional development, and expand opportunities for IT leaders across the State.

Fran Reiter, Executive Director, New York State Forum

New York IT Leadership Awards Program

Be ready to celebrate with the New York Government Technology community as we recognize the amazing technology and service work done for the people across the state.

Hosted by:

Dru Rai, Chief Information Officer and Director, Office of Information Technology Services, State of New York

Networking Reception in the Exhibit Area

Network with your colleagues and discuss technology solutions with the event exhibitors.

End of Summit

Conference times, agenda, and speakers are subject to change