A CTO Summit for the Ages

Monday May 14, 2018 | Filed under:

A guest blog post from Armughan Rafat, EVP, chief technology officer for the ASI Family of Companies:

In recent years, the role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) has evolved well beyond mastery of technology-based activities. Today’s CTO is a business executive, a key player in the overall corporate strategy who fully grasps the profitable applications to products.

To help technology leaders working throughout the promotional products industry keep pace with the ever-changing demands of our profession, every July I host the ASI CTO Summit 

(#ASICTOSummit) in conjunction with our Chicago trade show. Over two days – Monday, July 23, and Tuesday, July 24 – innovators and decision-makers enjoy a unique opportunity to discuss the technologies of the future, share our ideas and challenges and learn from our peers.

What sets this gathering apart from any other is my determination to share real conversations about how to solve industry problems while discussing what parallel industries are doing to solve similar issues. In the end, you’ll take concrete, actionable ideas from the summit. It’s a great group and I’d love for you to join us.

Click here to find out more and to register. As a special incentive, you can register for the second for a registration-only fee of $150, which includes a boat tour, full day of sessions/breakfast/lunch for anyone who doesn’t need a room at the London House. Use code CTODAYPASS when registering.

This year’s theme is “Lead, Reimagine and Reinvent.” My chief goals at this year’s gathering are to help CTOs:

  • Become a change agent and a revenue generator
  • Create a strategy to protect their organization from cyber attacks
  • Develop a product roadmap to lead their organization
  • Get inspired to transform industry standards
  • Discover the latest trends and optimize solutions
  • Learn how to keep teams motivated and bring innovation

I’m excited to announce we’ll be joined this year by industry leaders who are building the systems that help power our industry, including Jon Norris, VP of operations for Starline USA and Jonas Temple, CIO of The Magnet Group.

I’m equally excited we’ll learn from an elite panel of speakers from outside the industry from companies like:

  • Salesforce, discussing CRM strategies
  • Microsoft, educating us about Azure cloud and discussing an ASI case study

Plus, we'll enjoy a compliance discussion from a legal expert around Prop 65 and GDPR.

Ever since ASI changed the way we all do business with the launch of ESP over 25 years ago, we’ve led the industry in providing the best available technology and most superior user experience to the industry, which is why we’re uniquely qualified to spearhead this summit.

Hopefully, I’ll see you in Chicago!

– Armughan Rafat, EVP, chief technology officer for the ASI Family of Companies