76 hotel CIOs met in Milwaukee for three days
Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals and Hospitality Upgrade hosted 76 chief information officers and hospitality professionals for the 24th CIO Summit. The summit ran 9 to 11 September at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee. The programme covered hotel economics, payments technology, artificial intelligence, cyber resilience and intellectual property rights.
Attendance sits below the 80 recorded for the 23rd edition. That edition ran 3 to 5 September 2025 at the Hyatt Regency in Vancouver.
The summit is invitation-only. The attendee group draws from hotel brands, management companies, cruise lines, gaming operators and independent hotels.
Sessions on hotel economics and payments
Profit First, presented by Cindy Estis Green, co-founder and chief executive of Kalibri, covered shifts in hotel economics.
Payments Without the Pain covered hotel technology payments. Matt Schwartz, chief technology officer at Sage Hospitality Group, moderated the panel. The panel members were Jeffrey Horowitz, chief growth officer at POST; Nick Moiseykin, director of global consumer payments at Hyatt Hotels & Resorts; and Leroy Prout, chief information officer at HRI Properties.
AI is Reshaping Technology Buying Before You Meet the Vendor, presented by Michael Goldrich, founder and chief advisor at Vivander Advisors, examined how a technology purchase reaches a decision.
Beyond the Breach covered cyber resilience across the hospitality enterprise, presented by Ashley Bennett Jones, senior vice president of AI risk and advisory at Lockton Companies LLC. Protecting Hospitality Innovation covered intellectual property risks and litigation, presented by Ben Hodges, principal at Foster Garvey PC.
The ownership panel
What Owners Want put the ownership view in the room. Julian Bish, global director of IT at Hyatt Hotels Corporation, moderated. The panel members were Dharam Chaudhari, chief executive and founder of Westbridge Hotel Group; Trevor Warner, president of Warner Consulting Group; and Steve Steinberg, president of Murphy Asset Management.
The CIO Summit Round Table closed the programme. John Burns, president of Hospitality Technology Consulting, moderated. Mark Gage, vice president of IT and information systems at Tanzerra Resorts, took part.
What the organisers said
Sandra Alpert, principal at Salamander Hotels, said the summit gave her new connections, fresh perspectives and conversations with peers. Geneva Rinehart, publisher of the HFTP Media Division, said the full review of the week appears in the next issue of Hospitality Upgrade.
The programme events page lists the 2026 summit as the current edition. No dates and no venue are published for 2027.