4th Future CIO Conference Malaysia

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EVENT OVERVIEW

Budget 2026 has supercharged this momentum with landmark investments: RM2 billion for the Sovereign AI Cloud, RM5.9 billion for AI R&D and commercialization, RM53 million for the Malaysia Digital Acceleration Grant, RM18 million for the National AI Office, RM30 million for cybersecurity enhancements, and generous incentives such as a 50% tax deduction for SME AI and cybersecurity training. These initiatives, combined with booming data centre expansions and global tech commitments, position Malaysia as a regional AI and digital hub, demanding that CIOs, CTOs, and senior IT leaders move decisively from experimentation to enterprise-scale impact.

As Malaysia advances toward its AI Nation 2030 vision under the Thirteenth Malaysia Plan (2026–2030) and the National AI Action Plan 2026–2030, organisations must scale AI responsibly, safeguard sovereign capabilities, and reinforce cyber resilience amid full enforcement of the Cyber Security Act 2024. At the same time, they need to align with the Digital Trust and Data Security Strategy 2026–2030, embed sustainability into technology strategies, and deliver measurable business value—despite an increasingly uncertain global landscape.

At this defining moment for Malaysia’s digital evolution, the 4th Annual FutureCIO Malaysia Conference 2026, themed “Forging Future Advantage”, brings together Malaysia’s most forward-thinking IT leaders for a full day of actionable insights, peer-led discussions, and practical frameworks to navigate these priorities with confidence. Hear from and network with leading voices as they share proactive strategies on optimising workflows, strengthening resilience and driving sustainable growth.

Highlights of this year’s conference:

Exclusive insights into National AI and digital priorities
The shifts to sovereign, agentic and multi-agent AI at a scale
Moving AI beyond pilots to disciplined actionable blueprints
Aligning cyber resilience and data security strategies with 2026 mandates
Protecting revenue streams and maintaining stakeholder trust
Redefining leadership for AI-driven and sustainable transformation

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

CIOs, CTOs, Directors, Heads, MDs, SVPs, VPs, Leads, involved in:

Information Technology
IT Operations
Enterprise Architecture and Strategy
ITSM
IT Infrastructure
IT Application
Big Data/Analytics
Cloud Management
IT Security and Technology Risk
Privacy/Data Protection

WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND

The FutureCFO Conference aims to give CFOs, who also act as their company’s strategic business partner and catalyst, insights on ensuring corporate growth and successfully mitigating risks and challenges amidst the current economic and political uncertainties in their countries. The conference will also address strategies and best practices on how CFOs can reimagine finance functions and their organizations to survive and thrive in today’s fast-paced and digitally driven landscape.

This by-invitation only one-day event will gather over 120 senior finance leaders from multiple industries and offers the best opportunity to hear from the industry’s leading professionals, contribute questions from the floor, engage in incisive panel discussions that discuss real-life business cases, updates and strategies to meet the most pertinent challenges facing the finance function in 2020.

High-Level Industry Speakers

We gather 20+ industry speakers and experts from leading organizations for keynote presentations and incisive discussions so you can tap on their invaluable insights and best practices important to your finance function management and transformation.

Interactive Discussions

Be part of our interactive panel discussions that address the current hot topics, share ideas and experiences and get the answers to your pressing questions from prominent finance leaders on stage.

Networking Opportunities

Meet new business partners, engage and forge new connections with fellow finance and treasury leaders in the region, solution providers and many more at our event through luncheons, coffee breaks, one-to-one meetings and informal introductions.

Targeted In-Depth Sessions

8 hours of learning and networking opportunities packed into 10 in depth sessions. Listen to corporate-driven best practices and case studies sharing that are targeted to your profession through the personalized country-specific conferences we crafted for you - FutureCFO Conferences.

FUTURECIO & FUTURECISO CONFERENCE SERIES

2026 AGENDA

09:15

Opening Keynote: Updates on the National AI Plan 2026-2030

Overview on the AI Technology Action Plan 2026–2030: the goals and what it means to enterprises
Navigating the intersection of innovation and regulation in the dynamic AI landscape
The acceptable level of automation in the AI era

Reza Ali, Director of AI Policy, National AI Office (NAIO) (an agency under the Ministry of Digital, Malaysia)

09:40

Keynote: Finding Data – The Journey to Resilience in a Sea of Threats

From cloud sprawl to compliance, your data and AI trust journey starts by knowing where your sensitive data lives, securing it, building resilience, and unleashing it to deploy safe AI solutions. Increasing compliance requirements and tool overload makes it harder to gain the visibility and control needed to protect critical information. Discover practical strategies to identify and mitigate hidden risks, strengthen access controls, surface toxic combinations, and build a foundation for trusted data and AI.

Chia Chia Tay, Country Leader, Malaysia, Brunei and Emerging Markets, Veeam Software

10:05

Fireside Chat: CIOs as Revenue Co-Creators and Growth Architect

In 2026, Malaysian CIOs are shifting from cost stewards to revenue co-creators. Yet, a value gap persists as AI experimentation struggles to scale into financial impact. This session explores how technology leaders can drive growth, govern shadow AI, and build the business partnerships necessary to turn digital ambition into bottom-line results.

Moving AI from experimentation to scale to value
Governing “shadow AI” as a business partner
Adopting Finance-Technology value metrics
Practical learnings and hard lessons of revenue co-creations
Reskilling for inclusive digital growth

Interviewer:
Allan Tan, Group Editor-in-Chief, Cxociety

Interviewees:
Budiman Bujang, Deputy Chief Digital Officer, JCorp
Alex Tan, Group Chief Information Officer, Yinson Holdings Berhad

11:00

Keynote: Powering Agentic Enterprises with Trusted Context

AI needs Trusted Context to thrive. As enterprises race to forge future advantage, CIOs face a defining challenge: AI is only as powerful as the data foundation beneath it. Fragmented systems, siloed data, and ungoverned pipelines are silently undermining even the most ambitious AI strategies. In this session, discover how technology leaders like you can build a trusted data foundation to scale AI with confidence—delivering the governance, quality, and speed that Malaysia’s evolving digital landscape demands.

Steven Seah, Area Vice President, South Asia, Informatica from Salesforce

11:25

Fireside Chat: Embedding AI-Driven Continuous Improvement in Business Operations

How can organisations move past initial AI adoption to establish AI-powered continuous improvement cycles that iteratively enhance processes, customer experience, and operational efficiency? We will examine best practices for creating sustainable AI value through feedback loops and overcoming organisational inertia, thereby delivering ongoing, measurable business impact beyond pilots and experiments.

Designing AI feedback loops for continuous process improvement
Overcoming organisational barriers to AI-driven change
Integrating AI into business processes beyond pilots
Measuring business impact and ROI of ongoing AI initiatives
Leveraging AI for agile customer experience and operational efficiency

Interviewer:
Allan Tan, Group Editor-in-Chief, Cxociety

Interviewees:
Shahrin Oli Mohamed, Group Chief Technology Officer, Pos Malaysia Berhad
Ts. Dr. Ahmad Khalid, Chief of Technology & Innovation, UZMA Group

11.50

Keynote: AI Without Blind Spots: What CIOs Need to Stay in Control

AI is reshaping how engineering and operations teams work, accelerating deployments, surfacing anomalies, and scaling infrastructure. However, as AI takes on a larger role, the complexity of the systems around it grows too. The real challenge for most organisations isn’t deciding whether to adopt AI but ensuring they have the visibility and controls needed to operate it with confidence.

This session explores what it takes to build an operating model that keeps pace with AI-driven systems, closing visibility gaps and giving teams the clarity and control they need to make faster, better-informed decisions.

Yadi Narayana, Field CTO, Asia-Pacific & Japan, Datadog

13:20

Keynote: Scaling Predictive Operations: The Path to Autonomous IT

As digital environments grow more complex, IT teams remain stuck in reactive operations. This session explores how unified visibility across infrastructure, cloud, and Internet dependencies, combined with AI-driven prioritisation and automation, enables predictive operations at scale, reduces noise, and helps prevent disruptions before they impact revenue and customer experience.

Ritika Subudhi, Value Engineer, LogicMonitor

13:45

Panel Discussion: Scaling AI Right with Governance and Security in Focus

As organisations in Malaysia move AI from pilots to enterprise scale, the challenge shifts from adoption to scaling AI with a strong foundation of security and governance, as crucial guardrails for its expansion. IT leaders must adopt a proactive approach to mitigate risk, ensure compliance and safeguard enterprise data.

Recognising the impact of poor AI governance and risk management
Implementing consistent AI risk management practices across the enterprise
Building effective AI governance frameworks and effective implementation

Moderator:
Melinda Baylon, Editor, Cxociety

Panelists:
Tan Jit Wei, Chief Technology Officer, Mamee-Double Decker
Sudeep Srivastava, Head – KL IT Center, SLB
Emily Chow, VP, T&O Delivery, Standard Chartered Global Business Services

14:20

Keynote: Optimising IT Infrastructure Performance in a Complex Hybrid Environments

Aaron Tay, Technical Solution Consultant, ManageEngine

15:15

Panel Discussion: Cultivating AI-Confident Cultures and Bridging Talent Gaps for Transformation in 2026

Talent shortages and cultural resistance remain the biggest brakes on Malaysia’s AI acceleration — yet Budget 2026 offers 50% tax deductions for certified AI and cyber training. This session moves beyond generic “upskilling” talk to hard-hitting strategies that actually work: building genuine workforce confidence, closing the 28,000+ cyber/AI specialist gap, and co-creating transformation roadmaps with business leaders.

Closing IT talent gaps to power Malaysia’s digital future
Designing incentives and cultural transformation that spurs workforce confidence and retention
Enabling cross-team co-creation in modern enterprise
Proven tactics that turn fear of AI into excitement — and turn your people into your greatest competitive advantage

Moderator:
Melinda Baylon, Editor, Cxociety

Panelists:
Wai Ko-chi, Chief Technology Officer, CGC Malaysia
Abel Saw, Group Chief Transformation Officer, Chin Hin Group
Ahmad Jefry, Head of Centre of Excellence, EPF Malaysia
Dr. R. Sambasivam, AI and Data Thought Leader

15:50

Keynote: Balancing AI Growth, Energy Demand and ESG Commitments

Sustainable data centres and green IT
Energy implications of AI adoption
ESG-linked technology strategies
Responsible digital infrastructure development

Dr. Ambrose Corray, Vice President of InfoTech & Digitalisation, Hibiscus Petroleum

16:15

Panel Discussion: Strategic Tech Rationalisation and Future-Ready Tech Stack Optimisation

In a landscape of tighter IT budgets, increasing tech sprawl, and rapid emerging technology disruption, CIOs must go beyond modernization—they must rationalise and optimise IT portfolios with precision and strategic intent. In this session, discover how leading Malaysian organisations are ruthlessly auditing portfolios, eliminating redundancy, and intelligently layering next-generation technologies onto existing infrastructure — all while keeping the lights on and winning board approval.

Effective portfolio auditing and consolidation
Uncovering inefficiencies and simplify complex, multi-vendor tech stacks with AI-driven automation and analytics
Optimising the technology stack through emerging technologies adoption
Future-ready attributes for growth opportunities

Moderator:
Allan Tan, Group Editor-in-Chief, Cxociety

Panelists:
Shubashini Sandara, Consulting Director – Strategy Roadmap, DHL IT Services
Mohamed Aafrin, Director of Engineering, DKSH
Ts. Maz Mirza bin Mohd Aminurashid, Chief Digital Officer, KWAP
Nurul Haszeli Ahmad, Head of Software & Application, Syarikat Takaful Malaysia Keluarga Berhad