“I had to go to a leadership meeting and tell the whole team we’re going to ditch the solution that we spent nine months choosing,” said Michael Lewis, chief technology officer of Management Controls.

He was speaking at the CIO Peer Forum in Ottawa, sharing the kind of admission that many would steer clear of. For Lewis, it was a decision that had cost time, money and internal credibility. And it had to be reversed.

“I was very nervous going into that meeting because that’s a good amount of company resources that I essentially wasted, to a degree, on the solution.”

There was no spin and no softening. Just a direct statement in front of peers that something had gone off-course and needed correcting.

Lewis’s story reflects a larger theme of the day. Effective leadership, especially in moments of complexity, requires a willingness to be clear and candid, even when doing so comes with risk.

In sessions on AI governance, hybrid work and public-sector trust, leaders emphasized the same point: clarity builds confidence and credibility comes from saying what is true, even when the pressure to stay silent feels safer.

That moment, a clear-eyed decision shared without defensiveness, quietly set the tone for day one of the CIO Peer Forum in Ottawa. 

Hosted by the CIO Association of Canada (CIOCAN), the annual gathering brought together hundreds of CIOs, CISOs and technology executives from across the country to explore the evolving demands of leadership in a time of accelerated change.

The theme was “The Rise of the Makers: Orchestrating Value at Scale” and reflected how the rise of artificial intelligence and escalating cybersecurity demands are reshaping the CIO mandate. Leaders are being asked to guide complex transformations, align diverse teams, and maintain trust through uncertainty.

CIOCAN, now representing more than 600 members across the Canada, has seen its community grow alongside these pressures.

“Change has never happened this fast before, and it will never be this slow again,” said Amber Mac, president of AmberMac Media who delivered the opening keynote.

On day one, that pace was not just acknowledged — it was challenged. Sessions turned toward what it takes to lead through change with clarity, care and credibility. 

Trust is the foundation for transformation

“We have to decide what good looks like in AI systems,” said Madelin Santana, senior director, executive leadership, Gartner. “And we have to do that before we scale.”

Santana challenged the audience to go beyond efficiency metrics and think about governance as an expression of values. If leaders don’t define success up front, she argued, AI projects will deliver outcomes that are faster but not necessarily fair, explainable or inclusive. 

Her perspective reframed governance as a cultural act, not a compliance checklist.

“If we’re only talking about efficiency and speed, we’re missing the point,” said Santana. “Governance is about power. Who has it, how it’s used, and whether people trust the outcomes.”

That focus on trust returned throughout the day, in session after session. 

Speakers acknowledged that while AI has become more accessible, it has also become harder to explain. For CIOs tasked with building adoption, the challenge has moved from selecting tools to ensuring that teams, boards, and communities understand what those tools are doing.

“Without trust in the systems we manage, and the processes we follow, there is no transformation,” said Romanus Prabhu Raymond, director of product support, ManageEngine. “You can’t innovate on a shaky foundation.” 

Read more in his recent interview with Digital Journal here: From fortress walls to fluid threats: Romanus Raymond says AI is reshaping cybersecurity strategy.

That foundation isn’t built through code. It’s built through relationships across departments, with stakeholders, and with users.

“If you are feeling resistance from your team members, that is absolutely real,” said Amber Mac. “And trust me, you can’t just ignore it. It is not going to go away.”

Change is personal before it is strategic

That human-centred message shaped much of the day’s discussion. 

Jean-Paul Lalonde, chief information and data officer at the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, pointed to the reality that transformation often feels like loss of familiarity, of relevance, and of control.

“Technology is easy, but people are hard,” he said.

Lalonde said it’s not enough for technology leaders to design for function, and today they must also design for trust and seriously consider the way people perceive and react to change. As part of that, an honest conversation around the pace of disruption and the burden it places on teams is important.

Those deeper conversations point to the evolving role of CIOs themselves, as the job increasingly involves translation and it requires fluency in policy, ethics, risk, language and value.

Read more in his recent interview with Digital Journal here: From assistive tech to AI ethics, Jean-Paul Lalonde is designing a future with people at the centre.

Orchestration is the work

As complexity rises, the role of the CIO is shifting. It is no longer just about control, but about coordination across systems that span functions, geographies and disciplines. 

And these environments are too vast and too interconnected for any one leader to manage alone.

That need for clarity and care is not just a matter of tone, but a response to a deeper challenge. The systems CIOs are guiding today are shaped as much by human expectations as by technical infrastructure, and orchestration means aligning both, even without full visibility.

“None of us has the whole picture anymore,” said Michael Muldner, chief information and technology officer of Calian. “The systems are too complex. We need each other to make sense of it.”

Read more in his recent interview with Digital Journal here: From AI experiments to board conversations: A look inside Calian’s tech strategy.

The CIO Peer Forum is built on that exact idea — no single leader has all the answers, and no transformation effort is purely technical. The work ahead will require clarity, courage and a deeper commitment to trust than most organizations have had to sustain before.

“Can you live in predictable unpredictability on this AI journey?” asked Amber Mac in her opening keynote.

That question lingered as the day closed, and it felt less like a provocation than an honest assessment of the work still ahead.

Pressure and possibility are converging

The challenge of leadership today goes beyond keeping up with the pace of change, as CIOs are facing growing pressure to anticipate risk, deliver value across the organization and navigate conflicting demands — all while maintaining trust. 

And technology leaders are no longer evaluated only by system performance or efficiency but by their ability to lead through complexity.

“It’s not about whether your data centre is secure,” said Lalonde. “It’s about whether your decisions are transparent and whether your community trusts you. That’s a different bar.”

That bar is rising across sectors. 

In a session led by leaders from the City of Cornwall, Louis Savard, manager technology & innovation, shared how trust, communication and shared language matter more than any single tool. He noted that many tech leaders are being asked to deliver both speed and stability, often with limited resourcing.

“Every time you roll something out, it’s about confidence,” said Savard. “Not just your team’s confidence in you, but your stakeholders’ confidence that you understand the consequences.”

That idea of consequence and that every decision has a ripple effect framed several of the most grounded discussions. 

Speakers from Calian, a national health and defence tech company, raised the point that alignment between teams is now as critical as technical readiness. When teams move quickly without context, the result is often duplicated effort or gaps in resilience.

“There’s no shortcut around context,” said Savard. “If you don’t bring people with you, the systems will fragment.”

In that sense, the CIO is not only a translator but also a convener, someone who can surface the unspoken, make risk visible and guide teams toward outcomes they can explain, not just execute.

Digital Journal is the national media partner for the CIO Association of Canada.