ITAM Forum

In hybrid and multi-cloud organizations, financial accountability and asset visibility often live in separate domains — leading to blind spots in spend, compliance, and operational risk. This session will explore how IT Asset Management (ITAM) and FinOps practitioners can break down silos and build integrated data models that deliver unified visibility across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments. Attendees will walk away with actionable frameworks for data unification, governance processes that support both cost optimization and compliance, and real examples of how collaboration between ITAM and FinOps drives measurable business value.In hybrid and multi-cloud organizations, financial accountability and asset visibility often live in separate domains — leading to blind spots in spend, compliance, and operational risk. This session will explore how IT Asset Management (ITAM) and FinOps practitioners can break down silos and build integrated data models that deliver unified visibility across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments. Attendees will walk away with actionable frameworks for data unification, governance processes that support both cost optimization and compliance, and real examples of how collaboration between ITAM and FinOps drives measurable business value.It’s 2026 and it’s time to make new friends.

Come along to this Online Summit and hear everything you need to know about fostering close ties between ITAM and FinOps, playing to your strengths, and managing your increasingly complex and essential IT estate.

This summit will cover:

*   What is FinOps and why is it important for ITAM teams
*   Practical strategies for engaging with FinOps teams
*   Understanding how your strengths in ITAM are vital to FinOps’ continuing success – and to ensuring your IT estate delivers business value and competitive advantage
*   The role you will play in managing the coming wave of AI solutions – measuring ROI, measuring business value, and ensuring governance which enables innovation
*   Best practices and case studies provided by our patrons

## **Agenda:**

**14:00 - 14:05: Welcome & Introduction, AJ Witt**

**14:05 - 14:35: Executive Reality Check: Your AI Spend Isn’t Special—Apply FinOps Unit Costs + ITAM Controls Before You Scale, Kevin Wade, SHI**

AI promises transformation—but without financial discipline, it can quickly become a margin-killer. AI workloads don’t just consume resources—they magnify bad financial habits. Boards are asking tough questions: What’s the true cost per inference, per customer, or per model run? Traditional chargeback models can’t answer—and that’s where risk begins. This session shows how FinOps unit economics and ITAM governance deliver the clarity leaders need to turn AI from an uncontrolled experiment into a strategic advantage. Learn how to enforce tagging standards for model IDs and GPU pools, apply lifecycle controls for AI licenses, and calculate cost per inference or training epoch. By mastering these practices, FinOps and ITAM become strategic catalysts for innovation—helping CFOs, CIOs, and CTOs scale AI responsibly, make smarter investment decisions, and deliver measurable ROI. Don’t let AI derail your forecasts—govern it for growth.

**14:35 - 15:05:** **Maximising ESR: Win at cloud cost optimisation with this playbook for ROI, Jeremy Chaplin, Flexera**

We’re all making significant investments in technology to power our businesses, whether it’s on AI, containers, on-premises, or IaaS and PaaS services from the hyperscalers. Measuring and achieving a return on this investment can be challenging, but when done well, FinOps can help improve margins, deliver better value, and drive growth. Hear how Flexera’s FinOps portfolio can help you achieve market-leading Effective Savings Rates (ESR), a key FinOps metric for ROI.

**15:05 - 15:35: Java, AI, and FinOps: Intelligent Control at the Intersection of ITAM and Cloud Spend, Simon Taylor, Azul**

As AI adoption accelerates, Java continues to underpin enterprise AI platforms, data pipelines, and cloud-native services. These Java-based AI workloads introduce highly dynamic consumption patterns that challenge traditional IT Asset Management (ITAM) and drive unpredictable cloud spend. FinOps is essential to restoring visibility and accountability—but without application-level intelligence, cost optimization remains reactive. By combining AI-powered in-use intelligence with Java runtime data, organizations can converge ITAM and FinOps into a unified decision framework. Machine learning enables teams to correlate Java activity with AI workload demand, cloud consumption, and licensing exposure—transforming raw telemetry into actionable insight. The result is smarter forecasting, optimized licensing strategies, reduced cloud waste, and proactive risk management. This session explores how Java, AI, ITAM, and FinOps together enable intelligent governance of modern AI-driven cloud environments.

**15:35 - 16:05: Bridging ITAM and FinOps for a Unified Cloud & Asset Strategy, Beau Nelford, Anglepoint**

In hybrid and multi-cloud organizations, financial accountability and asset visibility often live in separate domains — leading to blind spots in spend, compliance, and operational risk. This session will explore how IT Asset Management (ITAM) and FinOps practitioners can break down silos and build integrated data models that deliver unified visibility across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments. Attendees will walk away with actionable frameworks for data unification, governance processes that support both cost optimization and compliance, and real examples of how collaboration between ITAM and FinOps drives measurable business value.

**16:05 - 16:35: 3 ways to apply FinOps practices to your SaaS Management Strategy. Ben Kamper, Calero**

As perpetual licenses age into obsolescence (or become an intolerable security risk), successful ITAM practices must identify models accommodating increasingly complex SaaS license and pricing scenarios. The FinOps framework offers a compelling solution by emphasizing shared ownership, continuous optimization, and event-based management. Attendees of this session will get practical tips for transitioning to a SaaS-first environment, including how to balance cost avoidance, accountability, and business agility in a dynamic software landscape.

**16:35 - 17:00 Q\&A & Close**

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