What Practitioners Built When the Industry Stopped Building It For Them.
ITAM Summit 2026 — August 25–27, 2026 — Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Three days of mentored, 300/400-level intelligence on ITAM, SAM, CMDB, and FinOps. Vendor-neutral. No sponsored sessions. No sales pitches.
Some call it a seminar. Practitioners call it a Summit.
Built for the experienced ITAM, SAM, CMDB, and FinOps practitioner — the one carrying the scar tissue, looking to evolve the discipline. Including the professional where the discipline is now on your desk, this room is made for you.
Connect Three Days. One Room. The Practitioners Who Actually Run These Programs.
Practitioners across ITAM, SAM, AMDB/CMDB, and FinOps convene in Oak Ridge for three days of mentored, 300/400-level work — vendor-neutral, with no sponsored sessions or no sales pitches. Every conversation is peer-vetted. Every framework is built from real audits, real renewals, and real environments.
The Summit was originally designed as two days. After the first year, attendees asked for a third. That request became Day 3 - the deeper-work day where the most direct vendor and audit conversations actually happen.
The Practitioners You Will Learn From
Faculty selected for scars, not titles. Three IAITAM Fellows. A sitting CFO. A sitting CIO. A former enterprise-software CEO. The former Gartner Worldwide Practice Leader for ITAM. Zero 100-level reruns. Nothing you could have gotten from a webinar.
Our mentors include...
Bill Talbot, Founder, ITMC & ITAM Kitchen | The ITAM Mechanic™
Topic: Designing the Role You Were Built For — Becoming Irreplaceable in a Discipline That Demands More
Bill Thurman, Founder, ITMC | CFO/Treasurer
Topic: The CFO's Changing View of ITAM — What's Earning Funding Now and What's Losing It
Patricia Cicala, Advisor, ITMC | IAITAM Fellow | Former Practice Leader, Gartner
Topic: The Future of Software Licensing: A Roller Coaster Ride – New and More of the Same
Larry Shoup, Advisor, ITMC | IAITAM Fellow | Former CEO, Janus Software
Topic: AI Doesn't Solve ITAM — And How to Tell Management That
Catherine Jostad, Founding Member, ITMC | VP Vendor & Contract Management
Topic: Where to Draw the Line: Terms & Conditions That Protect Value and Reduce Risk
Alexander Golev, Advisor, ITMC | Partner, Head of Consulting and Services, SAMexpert
Topic: Winning the Audit, Finding the Savings, and Sustaining the Pace Without Burning Out
Robert Collins, 30-Year ITAM Practitioner | Government Sector
Topic: Standards-Grounded ITAM — Building Programs That Survive Scrutiny
Deanna Hennigar, 20-Year ITAM Practitioner | ITAD & Training Specialist
Topic: ITAD Under Pressure — Data Risk, Regulatory Expectations, and the 2026 Disposition Standard
Rennie Rollinson, Director, IT Asset Management Services
Topic: Leading the ITAM Team — The Manager's Playbook
William Choppa, President & General Manager, Americas, OpenLM | Former CEO, Eracent
Topic: SAM's Blind Spot: The High-Performance Computing Licenses You Don't Control
Jessica Thomas, Organizational Change Consultant
Topic: Stay Calm. Energize the Room. Lead the Change ITAM Actually Needs.
Chad Gates, Chief Information Security Officer
Topic: A CISO's Take on ADHD — Leveraging It, Supporting Yourself, and Solving the Problems Your Boss Actually Cares About
Neal Reyes, COO/CIO/CTO | Host, The Executive Perspective Podcast
Topic: ITAM Through the CIO Lens — What Gets Funded, What Gets Cut, and How You Become Indispensable
Plus: Daily Round Tables and Peer Breakout Sessions
...where mentors and practitioners sit at the same table, and the most candid conversations of the entire Summit happen.
Location: Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Set in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, the TownePlace Suites by Marriott in Oak Ridge gives the Summit a quiet, focused environment for the conversations that matter. Modern accommodations, a built-in conference space, and panoramic mountain views — close enough to the venue that you'll never miss the work.
— Exclusive ITAM Summit rates at the Towneplace Suites by Marriott.
Event Address: 300 South Rutgers Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN 37830
— Steps from the event venue. (in the hotel conference center)
— Limited rooms available. Book yours today.
Attendees from the past three ITAM Summits have used the frameworks, peer connections, and executive communication models from Oak Ridge to win promotions, secure budget approvals, and deliver measurable program improvements. The work continues long after the room empties.
Need to Make the Case to Your Leadership?
We've already built the case for you. Three documents — the Submission Brief for the manager meeting where the decision actually gets made, the Executive Approval Memo for the CIO, CTO, or CFO conversation, and the Business Justification for the deeper review.
The work is done. The case is built. The only thing missing is your decision.
Who This Summit Is For
Built for the experienced practitioner — the one who has done the work, has the scar tissue, and is ready to evolve the discipline.
ITAM and SAM practitioners — leading discovery, contracts, audits, renewals, and the financial discipline of the assets in their domain
CMDB and AMDB practitioners — architecting the foundation where ITAM and configuration management meet
FinOps practitioners — partnering with ITAM, SAM, and configuration management on cloud and SaaS spend governance
Department leaders and program managers — accountable for budget, risk, and outcomes
Industry executives and consultants — shaping where the discipline goes next
Practitioners new to the discipline while seasoned in the business — procurement, sourcing, IT operations, finance, or contracts, now carrying ITAM, SAM, or CMDB work
This means...
A peer network that doesn't expire — the conversations and connections from Oak Ridge continue long after the room empties
Skill development from practitioners who've done the work — frameworks, sequencing, and applied techniques you can use Monday morning
Shared scar tissue — practitioners learning from each other's audits, renewals, and program failures, not from theory
Ongoing access to mentors and peers — the Summit isn't a three-day event; it's the entry point to a discipline community
The credential that proves the work — the Certificate of Applied Impact, earned by building an Applied Maturity Plan for your own program during the Summit
If you've been doing this work long enough to know what's broken and what's coming, this Summit was built for you.
Who This Summit Is For
Built for the experienced practitioner — the one who has done the work, has the scar tissue, and is ready to evolve the discipline.
ITAM and SAM practitioners — leading discovery, contracts, audits, renewals, and the financial discipline of the assets in their domain
CMDB and AMDB practitioners — architecting the foundation where ITAM and configuration management meet
FinOps practitioners — partnering with ITAM, SAM, and configuration management on cloud and SaaS spend governance
Department leaders and program managers — accountable for budget, risk, and outcomes
Industry executives and consultants — shaping where the discipline goes next
Practitioners new to the discipline while seasoned in the business — procurement, sourcing, IT operations, finance, or contracts, now carrying ITAM, SAM, or CMDB work
This means...
A peer network that doesn't expire — the conversations and connections from Oak Ridge continue long after the room empties
Skill development from practitioners who've done the work — frameworks, sequencing, and applied techniques you can use Monday morning
Shared scar tissue — practitioners learning from each other's audits, renewals, and program failures, not from theory
Ongoing access to mentors and peers — the Summit isn't a three-day event; it's the entry point to a discipline community
The credential that proves the work — the Certificate of Applied Impact, earned by building an Applied Maturity Plan for your own program during the Summit
If you've been doing this work long enough to know what's broken and what's coming, this Summit was built for you.
Sound Familiar?
The CFO wants the case in their language — not yours
The vendor renewal is in 90 days, and you're already behind
AI is being bolted onto broken ITAM / SAM / CMDB data
You won the audit, found the savings, and now everyone wants more
The team needs to outlast you — and you don't have the playbook
You're done with conferences full of 100-level reruns
If any of these are the conversations you're having — Oak Ridge is the room where they actually get answered.
What Makes This Different
Mentors Leading Practitioners
Mentored conversations with practitioners who have decades inside the discipline — direct access, real frameworks, no theory.
Vendor-Neutral
Select sponsors underwrite the Summit. None of them pitch in the room. The room is built around the practitioner, not the vendor.
Frameworks From the Field
Real audits. Real renewals. Real scar tissue. Every framework taught has been applied, tested, and refined in production.
Ready Monday Morning
You leave Oak Ridge with the language executives fund, the roadmap for the change your program needs, and a 90-day execution plan built in the room.
Mentors Stay Reachable
Daily Round Tables. Peer Breakout Sessions. Direct access to the practitioners who built and lead these programs — long after the Summit ends.
What Makes This Different
Mentors Leading Practitioners
Mentored conversations with practitioners who have decades inside the discipline — direct access, real frameworks, no theory.
Vendor-Neutral
Select sponsors underwrite the Summit. None of them pitch in the room. The room is built around the practitioner, not the vendor.
Frameworks From the Field
Real audits. Real renewals. Real scar tissue. Every framework taught has been applied, tested, and refined in production.
Ready Monday Morning
You leave Oak Ridge with the language executives fund, the roadmap for the change your program needs, and a 90-day execution plan built in the room.
Mentors Stay Reachable
Daily Round Tables. Peer Breakout Sessions. Direct access to the practitioners who built and lead these programs — long after the Summit ends.
Three Days in Oak Ridge
Day 1 — Foundations
The discipline's foundational frameworks. Vendor licensing trends. Audit preparation. Executive communication models. Governance.
Day 2 — Application
Where AI meets the discipline honestly — what it fixes, what it magnifies, and what it can't. SaaS governance before the renewal lands. Leading the team that has to outlast you.
Day 3 — The Deeper Work
Standards-grounded programs that survive scrutiny. The CIO's view of what gets funded and what gets cut. Then the room turns hands-on — a working session where you build against your own program, not a slide deck.
A Day at the Summit
08:30 AM — Doors Open
09:00 AM — Morning mentor blocks begin
12:00 PM — Round-table lunch
01:30 PM — Afternoon mentor blocks
06:00 PM — Wrap-up
06:30 PM — Day Ends
The Math on the Investment
What practitioners walk back to their organizations with — and what it's worth.
One Renewal Improvement: Vendor renewal improvements average 8–12% on enterprise software contracts. On a $1M annual software spend, a single improved renewal returns $80,000–$120,000.
One Restructured Conversation: The biggest single-year ROI lever often isn't a vendor — it's executive language. ITAM/SAM/CMDB teams who learn to communicate ROI in CFO terms unlock budget that wasn't approved before.
One Audit Avoided:
Audit findings on enterprise software typically range from $200,000 to $2M+ in true-up costs. A single avoided finding pays back the Summit investment many times over.
One Career Pivot: Practitioners who walk into executive conversations with the right frameworks earn promotions, lead larger teams, and increase their personal market value. The Summit pays back at the career level.
The Peer Network Itself: Direct ongoing access to practitioners who run programs at organizations like yours — through audits, vendor escalations, and budget battles. The conversation that saves you a $50K mistake often happens long after the Summit ends.
Three days in Oak Ridge. Frameworks worth six figures. The decision is whether your organization invests in the practitioner — or pays the cost of not investing.
The Math on the Investment
What practitioners walk back to their organizations with — and what it's worth.
One Renewal Improvement: Vendor renewal improvements average 8–12% on enterprise software contracts. On a $1M annual software spend, a single improved renewal returns $80,000–$120,000.
One Restructured Conversation: The biggest single-year ROI lever often isn't a vendor — it's executive language. ITAM/SAM/CMDB teams who learn to communicate ROI in CFO terms unlock budget that wasn't approved before.
One Audit Avoided:
Audit findings on enterprise software typically range from $200,000 to $2M+ in true-up costs. A single avoided finding pays back the Summit investment many times over.
One Career Pivot: Practitioners who walk into executive conversations with the right frameworks earn promotions, lead larger teams, and increase their personal market value. The Summit pays back at the career level.
The Peer Network Itself: Direct ongoing access to practitioners who run programs at organizations like yours — through audits, vendor escalations, and budget battles. The conversation that saves you a $50K mistake often happens long after the Summit ends.
Three days in Oak Ridge. Frameworks worth six figures. The decision is whether your organization invests in the practitioner —> or pays the cost of not investing.
Oak Ridge not in the cards.
For the first time, the ITAM Summit is a hybrid event. You don't have to be in the room to be in the work. The room is still capped at 100 — but if Oak Ridge isn't in the cards this year, here's how you still do the work with us.
VIP Virtual Pass:
Can't get to Oak Ridge, yet still want to be there? VIP Virtual Pass puts you in the working breakout rooms, live on Zoom — doing the actual work alongside experienced practitioners, not watching. Capped at 100, same work as the room.
Kick-off Pass:
New to the ITAM Summit, or want a look inside before you commit? The Kick-off Pass gets you the morning of Day 1, live online, for $197. It's the entry point, not the full program — no breakout work, no Certificate. Just a real look at what Oak Ridge is doing.
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