Expert Events

Redefining Enterprise Data Center Operations: Automation, Resilience, and Edge Readiness

Name: Redefining Enterprise Data Center Operations: Automation, Resilience, and Edge Readiness
Start: 2026-03-04T13:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-03-04T14:30:00-05:00
Location: Virtual

Modern IT operations demand more than scale—they require resilience, automation, and edge readiness. Join senior IT leaders for a candid discussion on navigating complexity, reducing risk, and preparing infrastructure for what’s next.

Virtual

March 4, 2026

1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

About this event

Enterprise IT leaders face growing pressure to modernize infrastructure strategies as cloud adoption accelerates and business demands intensify. Traditional approaches are being tested by rising costs, rigid licensing structures, and the persistent risk of vendor lock-in. At the same time, workloads are increasingly distributed across private, hybrid, and edge environments, creating new opportunities for performance gains while adding layers of operational complexity.

As organizations navigate these challenges, aligning infrastructure decisions with business goals has become critical. Increasingly, leaders are turning to automation and AI-enabled operational intelligence to improve reliability, optimize performance, and manage complexity at scale. Private cloud continues to provide predictability and control, while open and edge-enabled approaches—augmented by intelligent orchestration—offer greater flexibility and resilience. Striking the right balance across these environments is no longer optional; it is essential to sustaining competitiveness and meeting customer expectations.

In partnership with Wind River, this Blend virtual roundtable will bring together senior IT leaders to share how they are modernizing infrastructure strategies across private, hybrid, and edge environments. The discussion will highlight real-world approaches to improving reliability, reducing cost, and preparing for future workloads, all while keeping performance and agility at the core.

Our speakers

Julia Belle

Head of Community - London

Julia is a broadcaster, political commentator, corporate event host and business trainer. She has been covering news, current affairs and entertainment for BBC Three for three years and before this she featured weekly on BBC 5 Live – discussing the newspaper headlines and the latest breaking news.

She hosted a BBC election show, diving into key voter topics, as well as a TED Talk titled “The Secret to Being Right” which was instantly selected amongst TED’s “Editor’s Picks.”

She has interviewed some of the most influential figures in politics and business, on a range of topics from general elections to generative AI.

She runs the London community of Blend as well as the members’ exclusive Blend Book Club, interviewing prolific business authors and sharing key learnings from a range of titles covering topics like leadership, negotiation, DEI, productivity and handling difficult issues.

Warren Bayek

Vice President of Intelligent Edge at Wind River

Warren Bayek is Vice President of Intelligent Edge at Wind River, where he leads strategy for the Wind River Studio Cloud Platform — powering the world’s most advanced 5G, Open RAN, and intelligent edge deployments. A technology leader with over 30 years of experience in real-time, high-availability software, Warren has held leadership roles at Wind River, Ribbon, Oracle, and more. He is a recognized voice in intelligent edge computing, working with telecom and enterprise partners to deliver cloud-native, AI-enabled networks at scale. Warren frequently speaks at global industry forums on cloud-native transformation, Open RAN adoption, and the future of edge infrastructure.

Key themes & discussion topics

Balancing Private, Hybrid, and Edge Environments

Automation as a Foundation for Resilience

Avoiding Vendor Lock-In While Scaling Operations

Preparing IT Operations for Future Workloads

Event agenda

Introductions & fireside chat

1:00 – 1:30 PM

Guided discussions

1:30 – 2:15 PM

Wrap-up & closing remarks

2:15 – 2:30 PM

Why should you attend?

Know how enterprises are determining the right mix of predictability, control, flexibility, and innovation across infrastructure environments.

Discover what role automation plays in reducing operational complexity while improving reliability and performance at scale.

Explore how organizations modernize infrastructure without sacrificing long-term flexibility or control.

Prepare for the capabilities that must be in place today to support tomorrow’s distributed, performance-critical workloads, and how much AI factors into these capabilities.

Who should attend

This event is tailored for enterprise IT and infrastructure leaders responsible for modernization strategy, reliability, governance, and large-scale distributed infrastructure initiatives across cloud and edge environments.

Attendees will engage with peers to share insights on aligning infrastructure decisions with business goals, navigating operational complexity, and building resilient, future-ready IT operations in an increasingly distributed enterprise landscape.

Venue

Virtual

N/A

Apply to participate