September 7, 2026
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The Handelsblatt Summit Zukunft IT 2026 is the premier annual conference for strategic IT management and digital transformation in Germany, held from 7 to 9 September 2026 at the Handelsblatt Media Group headquarters on Toulouser Allee in Düsseldorf. Organised by Euroforum Deutschland GmbH in cooperation with Handelsblatt, the event takes place for the first time on the Handelsblatt campus as part of the publication's 80th anniversary. The three-day programme brings together CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CISOs, and senior IT decision-makers from leading German and European companies for keynote presentations, fireside chats, panel discussions, best practice sessions, and parallel masterclasses, combined with over eight hours of structured networking. An evening networking event on the rooftop terrace of the Handelsblatt Media Group and a communal evening dinner at the Frankenheim Brauereiausschank complement the formal programme.
The event is designed for senior IT leaders and digital transformation executives from large and mid-sized enterprises across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Speakers confirmed for 2026 include Hanna Hennig, CIO of Siemens; Dr. Hanna Huber, CTO of Flix Tech; Dr. Stefan Lemke, Board Member and CIO of Signal Iduna; Dr. Frederike Fritzsche, Chief Tech Transformation Officer of Otto Group; Sebastian Weber, CIO of E.ON; Dr. Karsten Rech, CIO of Vonovia; Dr. Georg Ziegler, Group CIO of thyssenkrupp; Thomas Kleine-Möllhoff, CIO of Gardena and Vice President IT at Husqvarna Group; Dr. René Deist, CIO/CDO of EnBW; Frank Fischer, Group CISO of DHL; Stefan Latuski, CIO of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit; and Linda de Winter, CIO of Swisscard. Political speakers include Thomas Jarzombek, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation; Ina Scharrenbach MdL, Minister for Home Affairs, Municipalities, Construction and Digitalisation of North Rhine-Westphalia; Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus, Hessian Minister for Digitalisation and Innovation; and Dr. Fabian Mehring MdL, Bavarian State Minister for Digital Affairs. Organisations represented across the full speaker faculty include Bayer, Bilfinger, Bundesagentur für Arbeit, DHL, E.ON, EnBW, Husqvarna Group, IBM DACH, KGAL, MBDA Deutschland, Open Grid Europe, Payback, Sana Kliniken, Siemens, Signal Iduna, thyssenkrupp, Vonovia, and ZenDiS, among others.
Day One on 7 September opens at 1:00pm and covers the conference opening, a keynote on AI readiness from Siemens CIO Hanna Hennig, a fireside chat on digital sovereignty in healthcare, a government keynote on Germany's digital future, an opening panel discussion, a defence innovation session from MBDA Deutschland, AI in practice at Flix, AI transformation in the insurance sector from Signal Iduna, a discussion on enabling teams to harness generative AI, and a closing creative impulse by Düsseldorf sculptor and carnival float builder Jacques Tilly, followed by the rooftop networking evening. Day Two on 8 September begins at 8:30am and covers the AI and agentic AI track including sessions from Swisscard, thyssenkrupp, Vonovia, Bayer, and IBM DACH; a robotics session on autonomous industrial robots from Bilfinger; a cybersecurity block covering AI-driven threats and defence strategies with DHL CISO Frank Fischer; a digital sovereignty track featuring the Sovereign Tech Agency, ZenDiS, Open Grid Europe, and KGAL; and a closing session on digital transformation and the labour market featuring the CIO of Bundesagentur für Arbeit and a best practice on diversity and talent. Day Three on 9 September opens with political keynotes from ministers representing Hesse and Bavaria, followed by an analysis of AI's impact on the labour market from the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, a panel on scaling AI economically with a focus on cost, benefit, and ROI, parallel masterclasses, and afternoon sessions on digital transformation case studies from Opernhaus Zürich, E.ON, SWICA, EnBW, and Biesterfeld Group, concluding with a wrap-up at 3:20pm.
The agenda addresses the full strategic IT management and digital transformation agenda for German and European enterprises. Key themes include making organisations AI-ready at scale; the practical implementation of agentic AI and generative AI across business, technology, and operations; enabling workforces to productively use AI tools; scaling AI economically and measuring return on investment; autonomous robotics in industrial environments; cybersecurity in the AI era including new attack vectors, defence strategies, and the evolving CISO role; digital sovereignty as a governance and competitive imperative for companies relying on cloud, AI, and data platforms; open source technology and its role in sovereign public infrastructure; the digital transformation of Germany's public sector and critical infrastructure; the impact of AI on employment and the labour market; data mesh architecture as a pathway to AI readiness; the changing role of IT leaders in the AI era; and lessons in digital transformation from sectors as diverse as healthcare, energy, insurance, logistics, and the arts.
The Handelsblatt Summit Zukunft IT 2026 concludes on 9 September with a wrap-up at 3:20pm, following the final afternoon sessions on practical AI scaling, IT turnaround strategy, and data-driven transformation. The three-day programme at the Handelsblatt headquarters in Düsseldorf closes having addressed the full strategic, technical, and leadership dimensions of digital transformation for senior IT decision-makers across the German-speaking market.
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