Artificial intelligence is expanding at a staggering pace, fundamentally reshaping how businesses function at every level. Modern models are tackling increasingly complex challenges, while autonomous agents manage everything from marketing campaigns to deep data analytics. However, this historic industrial shift brings unprecedented vulnerabilities. Organizations worldwide are racing to defend against sophisticated AI-driven cyber threats while leveraging the exact same technology to outpace leaner, hyper-fast competitors.

Because of these shifting dynamics, leaders managing digital roadmaps and technological growth have never been more vital to enterprise survival. They face intense pressure to accelerate innovation while strictly guarding corporate security and maintaining fiscal efficiency. Moving far beyond traditional operational oversight, they now serve as core business architects.

Celebrating its seventh year, the Forbes CIO Next roster shines a spotlight on these exceptional executives—encompassing Chief Information Officers, Chief Information Security Officers, Chief Digital Officers, Chief Technology Officers, and Chief AI Officers. This year's honorees hail from diverse sectors, ranging from healthcare networks like AtlantiCare and industrial titans like Boeing and ConocoPhillips to media giants like Fox, retail mainstays like Target and Home Depot, and tech pioneers like Cohere.

To curate this definitive index, Forbes launched an open call for nominations and conducted extensive independent research. After evaluating hundreds of submissions, editorial teams analyzed detailed applications to select 25 standout professionals demonstrating extraordinary leadership. Notably, this curation is unranked; rather, it serves as a celebration of the finest innovators in the discipline. Selection prioritized individuals delivering measurable corporate impact, recent milestones, and undeniable, tangible successes.

When Mike Blandina arrived at cloud and AI data powerhouse Snowflake, he directed his engineering group to substitute 250 sales dashboards with a unified conversational agent, projected to yield multi-million dollar annual savings. He also turbocharged corporate velocity, condensing product development sprint cycles from three weeks down to one. Furthermore, he deployed a fleet of autonomous AI agents to manage IT help desk inquiries, successfully resolving 60% of them compared to the previous 40%. To foster a company-wide digital culture, he mandated that every single worker build a functional application using internal AI coding suites, successfully onboarding nontechnical staff into the technological fold.

Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President, The Home Depot

Angie Brown commenced her journey at The Home Depot as an entry-level engineer in 1998, steadily ascending to the CIO position in 2025. She currently directs technological infrastructure across more than 2,300 retail locations throughout North America. In August 2026, Brown spearheaded the expansion of Magic Apron—an AI shopping companion introduced in 2025—to upwards of 2,000 domestic stores. The utility fields millions of monthly consumer inquiries, assisting shoppers in locating merchandise, verifying stock levels, and gathering home renovation guidance. Brown additionally oversees systems supporting Sidekick, a 2023 computer-vision initiative that audits retail shelving, flags restocking necessities, and assigns priority tasks to floor associates. Her division similarly revolutionized fulfillment infrastructure, enabling same-day or next-day delivery capabilities for 65% of available parcel transactions.

Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Yum! Brands

Dausch commands the entire technology ecosystem for Yum! Brands, parent company of KFC and Taco Bell, while also acting as president of Byte, its proprietary restaurant management platform handling ordering, workforce scheduling, POS operations, and inventory. Operating for under two years, this platform has been integrated into 38,000 global establishments and processed in excess of 370 million transactions during its inaugural year. Digital sales under his supervision—encompassing web transactions and in-store touchscreen kiosks—surpassed $17 billion through the first half of 2026. He is additionally introducing voice-activated AI to Taco Bell locations, deploying the technology to manage drive-thru and telephone orders across more than 900 U.S. restaurants.

Chief Information Digital Officer, The Boeing Company

An industry veteran whose resume includes CIO tenures at the Department of Defense, JPMorgan, and BP, Deasy is steering the aerospace conglomerate through a comprehensive AI evolution. Since joining Boeing in January 2025, his department has rolled out an artificial intelligence framework utilized daily by 16,500 personnel spanning 65 nations. He has also directed the automation of key procurement pipelines, cutting processing durations by roughly one-third. Under his command, the enterprise is simultaneously rebuilding its cybersecurity framework upon zero-trust methodologies to fortify defenses against cyber intrusions.

Executive Vice President of Product and Engineering, Fox Corporation

Fiedler manages the operational delivery of more than 25 digital properties, leading cross-functional teams stationed in Los Angeles, New York, and India. He architected and executed the nationwide rollout of Fox One, the company’s direct-to-consumer streaming destination, which successfully hosted all 104 live World Cup fixtures. He champions the integration of machine learning across these digital touchpoints to curate individualized viewer experiences while streamlining backend software engineering. Additionally, he managed technical operations for Tubi's historic streaming broadcast of the 2025 Super Bowl—the largest digital audience ever recorded. A 21-year veteran of the organization, Fiedler has directed the technological architecture behind Fox News digital election reporting since 2008.

Since assuming the CTO role at Google Cloud in 2020, Robert Grannis has watched divisional revenues surge from $13 billion to $58 billion while scaling integrated AI architectures. His contributions laid the groundwork for the strategic AI alliance forged between Google and Apple earlier this year, and he is currently redesigning Google Cloud into an entirely agent-first enterprise. Toward this objective, he and his engineering units deploy intelligent agents to assist with strategic planning and budget allocation, reducing non-coding administrative burdens for Google Cloud personnel by 66%. He has also championed the creation of specialized AI models tailored for highly regulated sectors such as healthcare and public administration.

Chief Technology and Information Officer, Bank of America

Back in 2018, when customers struggled to locate specific tools buried inside the bank's mobile application, Hari Gopalkrishnan directed the internal team that conceptualized and released Erica, Bank of America’s consumer-facing virtual assistant. Over the intervening years, the platform has attracted 50 million active users, accompanied by 75,000 functional updates, including automated alerts regarding loyalty rewards eligibility. Internally, he contributed to the creation of EricaAssist, a generative AI assistant empowering over 18,000 bank representatives to deliver elevated client support. These milestones form part of the institution's massive $14 billion annual technology commitment, which includes $4 billion specifically earmarked for novel innovations like artificial intelligence.

Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Levi Strauss & Co.

Since entering Levi Strauss & Co. as its inaugural chief digital officer in 2023, Jason Gowans has spearheaded the iconic denim brand’s operational AI integration both on the sales floor and behind the scenes. He directed the introduction of STITCH, an AI tool born from an internal hackathon project that assists retail personnel with sizing, inventory checks, and return protocols. The platform has expanded to over 70 U.S. stores, yielding customer satisfaction ratings eight points higher than non-participating locations. Gowans has further authorized the deployment of more than 1,000 automated enterprise agents, including a system that processes wholesale orders originating from emails, spreadsheets, and PDFs, reducing turnaround from five days down to 10 minutes.

Corporate Vice President of Employee Experience, Microsoft

Nathalie D'Hers, a two-decade veteran of the enterprise, served as Microsoft’s CIO for ten years prior to the retirement of that specific title. Since August 2025, she has held the position of corporate vice president of employee experience, tasked with supplying the company's 220,000 global personnel with efficiency-driving tools. The strategy is yielding results: automated internal workflows have saved 7,000 cumulative hours within the human resources department alone since last October. Candidate recruitment has accelerated by 17% due to streamlined screening workflows. Engineering productivity has similarly surged, with one team successfully shipping a product in a single quarter instead of the traditional full year, according to corporate disclosures. Her milestones for the fiscal year include eliminating over 100,000 operational hours company-wide through automation and slashing HR help desk resolution times by half.

Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Unilever

Huria engineered the development of gro24/7, Unilever’s B2B merchant portal active across 12 countries, which has scaled to handle $1 billion in total gross merchandise value. He also introduced a specialized micro-wholesale platform catering to independent mom-and-pop shop owners throughout Asia, which now records €2.5 billion in annualized turnover. Within the United States, his department deployed an AI-driven revenue optimization framework, assisting planners in structuring promotions, establishing pricing strategies, and maximizing distribution efficiency across Unilever's portfolio of over 400 consumer labels.

Following a distinguished 30-year career at Accenture, Tony Leraris assumed the CIO mantle in September 2025, taking charge of technology operations for the professional services giant's approximately 814,000 personnel spread across 120 nations. He has facilitated the integration of generative AI applications for more than 750,000 employees, automating workflows such as commercial proposal drafting and talent acquisition screening. Under his governance, Accenture account teams now generate preliminary customer pitches 50% faster. Leraris has also introduced automated recruitment utilities that streamline applicant vetting, cutting hiring cycles by 28%. Within Accenture's internal IT division, his groups launched threat-detection systems capable of identifying and remediating security incidents without human intervention, with these autonomous frameworks now resolving 20% of all AI-flagged security events.

MacLean oversees the information technology infrastructure for MedStar Health, a $10 billion healthcare network encompassing 10 hospitals and more than 300 care sites throughout Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. His 500-person department manages a digital grid connecting over 100,000 medical hardware units across the region while increasingly supporting complex robotic surgical procedures. A primary ongoing initiative involves pruning redundant enterprise software solutions and simplifying administrative protocols to ease daily workloads for physicians and care providers.

Global Chief Information Officer, Marriott International

As Marriott’s CIO, Naveen Manga manages a sprawling digital footprint supporting 12,500 direct employees, contractors, and technology vendors, alongside roughly 10,000 properties across 146 countries. To dismantle legacy operational silos, Manga engineered a unified framework in 2023 dubbed the Travel Innovation Platform, complete with pending patents. This infrastructure has enabled the corporation to onboard newly acquired properties with unprecedented speed, absorbing 700 hotels over a three-year window. Consumers have reaped direct benefits from these digital upgrades; in June, he debuted Ask Bonvoy, an AI conversational concierge enabling travelers to effortlessly evaluate properties and pinpoint specific amenities like onsite spa facilities.

Chief Digital Information Officer, ConocoPhillips

Throughout her five-year tenure as ConocoPhillips CIO, Mathur has successfully led the digital and AI reinvention of the $60 billion energy enterprise, centering on operational standardization.