Gartner C-level Communities

Gartner C-level Communities, known as Evanta until March 2025, runs regional peer communities for six C-level roles: CIO, CISO, CHRO, CDAO, CFO and CSCO. It reports 101 communities worldwide, 14,000 members and more than 400 programmes a year across ten countries. Each community is governed by a Governing Body of serving C-level practitioners from that region, who set the agenda under what the organisation calls a "By C-levels, For C-levels" model; Gartner staff provide programme management rather than facilitation. Members attend a mix of formats: one-day executive summits, smaller inner-circle sessions, virtual town halls and curated one-to-one peer meetings, several times a year in their own community. Membership is vetted against published criteria - enterprise-wide C-level status, or business-unit or regional C-level responsibility for a private-sector unit above $500 million in revenue or a public-sector body above 1,000 employees, reporting to the CEO or one level below. Membership fees are not published; the commercial model is sponsor-funded, with vendors paying for access to the events.

How it works

A candidate applies online, is vetted against the published criteria, and then speaks with a Community Program Manager who completes onboarding and gives access to the year-round calendar. Each regional community is led by a Governing Body of practising C-level executives who shape the agenda. Members attend in-person executive summits, inner-circle discussions, virtual town halls and facilitated one-to-one peer meetings, and can access community benchmarking and survey results.

Typical member

Members are enterprise-wide C-level executives, or business-unit and regional C-level leaders responsible for a private-sector unit above $500 million in revenue or a public-sector body with more than 1,000 employees, who report to the CEO or one level below. Gartner says 93% of the Fortune 100 are represented and 74% of members come from companies above $1 billion in revenue.

The governing-body model is the substance here: agendas are set by serving executives in each region rather than by staff, which is why the programmes track live issues closely. The trade-off is structural and should be understood before joining. The communities are funded by sponsors, who buy access to exactly the executives in the room - Gartner's own sponsor page sells "C-level access" to "hard-to-reach decision makers" and "deal acceleration" - so this is a vendor-adjacent environment, unlike a dues-funded peer forum that keeps vendors out. There is also no standing confidential group of eight to twelve peers; contact is event-based, several times a year. Membership cost is not published anywhere, which for most qualifying executives means it is free at the point of use. The eligibility bar is high and clearly stated, and the CFO and CSCO communities are small and thinly spread compared with CIO and CISO.

Editorial analysis by Peer Group Guide editors. It is separated from the record above and follows the editorial policy.