The City CIO Club Dinner: Leading Technology at the MOD

​Leading Technology at the MOD · City CIO Club Dinner · Thursday 1st October, 2026, The Walbrook Club · City of London

​

​What it takes to lead technology at national scale inside the Ministry of Defence, and what enterprise leaders can learn from running critical systems where resilience is everything.

​

​Our speaker is Charlie Forte, outgoing CIO of the Ministry of Defence. Charlie has led digital and information technology across UK defence since 2019, running one of the largest and most security-critical technology estates in Europe, spanning everything from battlefield systems to the core networks that keep national defence operating. He leaves the role with a rare view of what resilience really costs, what it demands of leadership and how to modernise legacy systems while adversaries are actively trying to break them.

​

​He'll walk us through what running technology at national scale really involves and what enterprise leaders can take from an organisation where failure is never an option.

​

​These evenings are built for good conversation over dinner. Guest places are by approval, so if you'd like to bring a colleague or peer who'd get value from the room, please let us know their name first and we'll confirm the seat.

​

​The evening runs under the Chatham House Rule with no vendor presentations and no sponsored content. Research and briefing materials are provided by The Executive Summary.