No sponsors. No media. No sales. Just value.

Spark is a private event series for senior technology and business leaders. Each session is focused on providing a private venue for open collaboration and sharing of  insights on issues and trends in business and technology. Attendees can establish and enhance valuable relationships, creating value that endures well beyond the sessions themselves.

Upcoming Sessions

Current and Previous Session Topics

COMING SOON: NYC December 4, 2024

• The Enemy Within: Business as Usual
• Unlocking SaaS Value: Rethinking Cost, Strategy, and Deployment
• Embracing and Amplifying Your Superpower
• Cybersecurity Without Borders: Integrating the C-Suite for Resilience
• Is Industrial Age Thinking Sabotaging the Digital Future?
• Balancing Innovation with Human Connection: AI and the Future of the Customer Experience

Napa May 2024

• Investing in Innovation
• The Evolution of the Workforce & Workplace
• The Cyber Poverty Line
• A New Approach to the Cloud
• Breaking the Legacy of Managed Services
• The Great Data Pressure Test
• Quantum Leap or Quantum Bust?
• Diversity in Leadership

NYC 2023: The AI Session

• Moving Beyond the Noise of AI Risk
• The Next Wave of Competitive Advantage: The Workforce
• The Intersection of Legacy and Generative AI

The Evolution of Spark

The idea behind Spark began with a business called Telwares and an event called the CIO Global Forum. During advisory board discussions, it became quite clear that there was very little opportunity for CIOs to connect in an intimate, collaborative environment where the agenda was not influenced or dictated by vendor sponsorship – where CIOs were truly among senior-level peers and participants could relate their successes, but more importantly, their failures and lessons learned. That led us to create the CIO Global Forum, an event comprised of timely and important educational sessions.

Between 2004 and 2012, approximately 2,000 CIOs and senior executives engaged in the program's twice-annual main sessions or regional dinners, and it rapidly gained wide respect as one of the premier C-level events. After the final sale of Telwares in 2012, the CIO Global Forum was disbanded.

Yates Ltd was born in 2014. Much like Telwares, Yates is an outcome-based management consultancy that works with senior executives to accelerate opportunities for business transformation. We believe that creating powerful C-Level relationships between the enterprise and its suppliers can unveil alchemy that enables innovation and unprecedented results. In working with IT and business leaders, it became clear that there were no venues for senior leaders to have open and honest exchanges or identify best practices in enterprise technology management, organizational change, and business and digital transformation. So we assembled the Spark Executive Forum™ and held our inaugural session October 3-4, 2018.

The People Behind Spark

Charlotte Yates is an executive and entrepreneur who has been at the forefront of large-scale business transformation for more than 30 years, helping major enterprises adapt to and take advantage of disruptive shifts in markets and technologies. She has extensive experience in M&A, organizational strategy and design, supplier contract negotiations, and corporate cost reduction.

As the founder and CEO of Yates Ltd, Charlotte guides some of the world’s best-known companies to achieving rapid optimization and transformation, cost reduction, and competitive advantages. Combining deep industry expertise, cutting-edge strategy, and an aptitude for building mutually beneficial relationships, Yates Ltd helps enterprises save millions, pivot their businesses, and gain new capabilities.

Charlotte is also a partner at Seraph Group, a structured angel investment fund. She serves on the board of Academy of Art University and is a former advisory board member for Sumeru Equity Partners, a technology-focused growth capital firm. An avid philanthropist, she is the founder of the Global Academy for Inspirational Arts, which uses art and music to uplift education, build resilient communities, enrich lives, and create a brighter future.

Previously, Charlotte was a co-founder and partner at Telwares, a leading provider of network transformation and advisory services, strategic sourcing, and telecommunications expense management solutions to global enterprises. She served as CEO and Vice Chairman of Telwares through its sale to private equity, roll-up of multiple expense management providers, and divestiture to Tangoe, Inc. in 2011. She has also held executive positions at both Sprint and IBM.

Early in her career, Charlotte worked as a tour production manager for Bill Graham Presents and orchestrated a European tour for the Rolling Stones. She holds both a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Florida. 

Michael Voellinger is Principal Executive of the Spark Executive Forum and Managing Director at Yates Ltd. He is responsible for planning and execution of Spark and leads select Fortune 500 client engagements as well as marketing activities for Yates Ltd.

Prior to Yates, Michael was Managing Director and Global Head of Business Development at Austin-based ClearBlade Inc., an industrial Internet of Things software company. Previously, Michael served as EVP of Marketing and leader of the Mobile Technology practice at Telwares, Inc. He also served as the Executive Producer of the CIO Global Forum, an exclusive group of CIO thought leaders that met twice annually to drive an agenda of innovation, technology achievement, and idea exchange. Prior to joining Telwares, Michael served as Partner and Principal Consultant at OES Telecom, and he held operational leadership positions at both AT&T and Nextel.

Michael has also served as a strategic advisor to Electronic Polymers (manufacturer of tuneable polydiodes), Angelspan (investor relations software and services), and NuLite Technologies (cold cathode lighting).

He is an active supporter and participant in Haymakers for Hope, a series of charitable boxing tournaments raising money for cancer research, as well as Covenant House, the largest charity in the Americas serving homeless, trafficked, and runaway youth.