Following Conde will be an analyst forum featuring Craig Weber, senior vice president of Celent; Matt Josefowicz, director-insurance practice for Novarica; and Deb Smallwood, founder, SMA Strategy Meets Action.

"The analyst forum translates things into a CIO's perspective--how the economy impacts IT spending," says Boyd. "The whole theme here is the post-recessionary impact on property/casualty and life/health and where things are going."

Vendors will have their say in the third morning session titled "Rolling With the Punches: The Evolving Insurance Solution Space." Speakers include Andy Scurto, president and CTO for ISCS; Peter Zale, vice president of business development for Vertafore; and James Hurley, principal architect, P&C technology division, for CSC. George Grieve, CEO of CastleBay Consulting, will serve as moderator.

"One thing different this year is in previous years a sponsor would run a session," says Boyd. That has changed, but Boyd and his committee wanted to display some continuity with the themes. "The sponsors were on board with the [new] format," he says. "At the same time, from a CIO perspective, we're very interested in understanding how the vendors are reacting coming out of the recession. How is this changing their model on big alliances, licensing models, SaaS, cloud computing? Those are all things CIOs want to know."

Following lunch with the CFOs that features IBM's Craig Bedell speaking on business analytics, the roundtable will continue with two high-powered sessions, says Boyd.

The first is "Getting Strategic: Insurance CIOs Talk Shop" and will feature John McDermott, CIO of Xerox Corporation; John Campbell, CIO of American Modern Insurance Group; Greg Ricker, senior vice president and CIO of Atlantic Casualty Insurance Company; and Sally Graves, the head of IT of U.S. insurance with ING.

"This session is the strategy session--less technology but more managing up to the board," says Boyd. "We will be talking about the CIO's role as company strategist and how to fit into that role."

The final session of the day, "Using Technology to Transform: CTOs Take Center Stage," focuses on technology. Panel members include Joe Singleton, CTO of Insurance.com; Gerald Shields, CIO of AFLAC; and Doug Winter, president and CEO of Objectiva. "We wanted to have a panel that is talking about what technologies are going to shape our industry in the coming years," says Boyd.

The goal of the roundtable was to get a set of presentations that build off each other, explains Boyd. "We want [attendees] to feel like they hit a lot of information from several different perspectives and walk away feeling enriched," he says. "CIOs don't have a lot of time on their hands, so if they are going to make the trek to a conference, we want it to be value-added time."