Published on the 11/12/2025 | Written by Heather Wright
Ecosystm leads the push for ecosystem synergy…
Next year’s CIO Summit will have a different look and feel a different market analyst firm – Singapore-based Ecosystm – taking over the reins from IDC.
The new ‘strategic partnership’ will also see the addition of an invitation-only ‘Innovation Forum’ to kick off the three day line up, with the event now called the New Zealand CIO Innovation Summit and Awards.
“It’s a privilege to reimagine a platform that celebrates innovation, leadership and New Zealand’s spirit of progress.”
It’s a big change for the summit, which has long been the domain of IDC. It founded the CIO Summit and accompanying CIO Awards in 2008, alongside Conferenz. Fairfax was briefly involved, before ownership reverted back to IDC in 2013 – at a time when Ullrich Loeffler was country manager for IDC NZ. He’s now co-founder and CEO at Ecosystm.
There’s another strong Ecosystm link to the event’s early days, with Amit Gupta, Ecosystem co-founder and group CEO, who helped kick off the first New Zealand CIO Summit nearly 20 years ago.
He says Ecosystm’s involvement is a ‘back to the future’ moment. “I was fortunate to help shape the foundations of the New Zealand CIO Summit nearly 20 years ago. It’s a privilege to return… to reimagine a platform that celebrates innovation, leadership and New Zealand’s spirit of progress.”
There’s no word on the reasoning behind the change, which comes as Louise Francis, IDC New Zealand country manager departs the company after 18 years, starting as a market analyst in 2008 and moving up to the country manager role in 2019.
Brightstar says the move to Ecosystm provides a fresh injection of new ideas and energy, and adds ‘a new layer of global insight and data-driven expertise’ ensuring the summit is ‘rooted in world-class best practices and actionable intelligence for the digital economy’.
“New Zealand’s story has always been one of turning ingenuity into progress,” Gupta says. “As AI reshapes the world, it gives New Zealand a defining opportunity to turn innovation into its competitive edge. This next-generation summit unites the nation’s innovation ecosystem to define its leadership in an AI-driven future.”
The pre-summit Innovation Forum, on August 3, sets the stage, with plenary sessions, panels and interactive roundtables to encourage collaboration while exploring how progressive policy is shaping New Zealand’s innovation landscape and how ecosystem-led (no coincidence there, right?) approaches are driving the next wave of growth and transformation. Brightstar says the Forum will connect enterprise leaders with cutting edge research and investment.
It’s followed by the two-day Innovation Summit at the New Zealand International Convention Centre in Auckland, which is due to open its doors for the first time in February. The summit’s key themes, under a banner of ‘The Future C_O’, include sovereign AI and digital trust, scaling deep tech and enterprise leadership and ‘the human edge of enterprise innovation’.
The awards will also come during the Summit and feature the same award categories as last year’s event. Rounding out the summit will be an Emerging Leaders Forum, limited to just 50 participants and focusing on the skills, attributes and attitudes required to become a CIO and lead teams, projects and departments.
