Three times a year, executives from the world's leading companies gather, quietly, to plan the future of mankind's technology. Membership in this club -- in which meetings often are undisclosed, research frequently is conducted in secret, and documents always are highly classified -- is by invitation only.
It's not a setting from a Tom Clancy novel. It's the Research Board, a bona fide think tank open exclusively to CIOs from the world's most profitable companies. Its mission is the same today as it was at its inception 35 years ago: to inform, stimulate, counsel, and connect the world's top I.T. executives.
It's a private organization that's hidden in plain sight. The Research Board is headquartered at an elegant town house in midtown Manhattan. Behind its doors, members mingle, pore over research, debate best practices, and entertain presentations from technology vendors who would give their last ounce of RAM for an audience with these CIOs, who collectively wield billions in I.T. buying power  .
The group's clandestine nature has fueled intense speculation about exactly what happens at that brownstone on 5th Avenue and West 54th Street. The Research Board's Web site consists of a single page that provides a brief description of the organization, its address, phone number, an e-mail link -- and that's all.
The man in charge of this shadowy fellowship says discretion is a large part of the organization's appeal, but he insists there's nothing funny going on.
"The board's activities, research, meetings, and other exchanges are conducted in such a way that members' confidentiality is assured," said Research Board CEO Peter Sole. "This enables a quality of dialogue which would not otherwise be possible and is a key factor in delivering value to members. Due to our low public profile we may give the impression of being secretive; this is not the case, but clearly discretion is an essential ingredient in all of our activities."
The exact nature of those activities remains something of a mystery, however.
The Ones in Charge
This media-shy organization is owned by none other than the highly respected Gartner firm, a provider of research and analysis about the global I.T. industry. Gartner acquired the Research Board in 1998 when it bought Wentworth Research, a service founded by Sole in 1993 specifically for CIOs.
"We are owned by Gartner but operate as an independent business unit maintaining the confidentiality of our research and relationships with members," Sole said. In other words, don't expect that other Gartner clients ever will see the high-level research data generated by the Research Board. Only members get to see the material. (continued...)
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