Drawing tech execs from companies such as AIA, HALO, PCNA, Gemline, Magnet, Starline, the Summit Group, iPROMOTEu, Edwards Garment Co. and Hub Promotional Group, the fourth annual ASI CTO Summit, held in conjunction with the ASI Chicago Show, showcased a curated slate of topics designed to inform, inspire and enlighten the industry’s premier technology leaders.

Armughan Rafat, executive vice president and CTO of the ASI Family of Companies, spearheaded the event in an effort to promote collaboration among the industry’s foremost technology innovators. “It was another fantastic Chicago CTO Summit, with an information-packed day that included sessions and panel discussions on cloud computing, ERP, security, PromoStandards, business intelligence, corporate culture shifts, GDPR, Hackathons and Prop 65,” says Rafat. “There was a wealth of information with great networking among other industry leaders. This was a conference for the industry and done with industry participation. The panels were really informative and I learned a lot from our colleagues.”

One session of particular interest included an interview with Dale Moir, HALO’s CTO, regarding the company’s recent ransomwear attack and how it quickly handled and rectified the incident, in addition to strategic takeaways from the week-long ordeal. As Moir candidly shared the story of HALO’s tech being compromised, other CTOs and CIOs in the room offered their own anecdotal accounts of defending their companies’ networks from repeated and ever-changing threats.

“The CTO Summit has grown each year to be a solid networking and education event, and this year was no different,” says Jon Norris, vice president of operations for Top 40 supplier Starline. “I love that the technology community in the industry is becoming a collaborative think tank. This event fosters that collaboration and helps drive the industry forward. I will be back next year.”

Jonas Temple, CTO for Top 40 supplier The Magnet Group and the 2018 Counselor Technology Person of the Year, concurred. “Hats off to Armughan and the entire team at ASI for hosting another successful CTO Summit,” says “The topics were informative and relevant, the discussions were engaging and the networking opportunities were excellent. I’m excited to see the continued growth of this Summit and am looking forward to the next one.”

Click here for a video slideshow of the networking cruise on Lake Michigan held the evening before the full day of sessions.