CTO Breakfast Utah

Summary

CTO Breakfast Utah is a monthly, open, in-person gathering of technology leaders — CTOs, CIOs, VPs of engineering, and people doing those jobs without those titles — that meets the second Friday of each month at 8:00 AM at the IHOP in American Fork. There is no program, no speaker, and no sponsor. The organizers' standing invitation is to "bring a friend and a topic to discuss" (2026 announcements).

The chapter says it has been running for over 20 years (chapter page), which would make it one of the longest-running recurring technology gatherings in the state, though nothing located substantiates the number.

The interesting thing about it is not the breakfast. It is that a group with no budget and no programming has written down five explicit norms and runs by them — including Chatham House Rules, which changes what the meeting is for.

Who It's For

Working technology leaders in Utah County and along the Wasatch Front: CTOs, CIOs, engineering directors, and founders carrying the technical load themselves. It is a peer group rather than a learning event — the value is in the room, so someone looking to be taught will find little, and someone with a live problem and no one to compare notes with will find a lot.

It is open: there is no membership, application, or vetting, and the invitation to bring a friend is standing.

What It Provides

A monthly, recurring, agenda-less conversation among people with comparable jobs — and the norms that make that conversation possible. From the chapter page, in the organizers' own words:

• Chatham House Rules — what is said is attributed to the room, not the individual.
• One conversation at a time — so the whole table can participate rather than fragmenting.
• We go dutch — everyone pays for their own breakfast, and tips well.
• No politics or religion — the stated boundary is technology leadership.
• Intros every time — name, company, role, at every meeting, so newcomers are never lost.

Chatham House Rules is the load-bearing one. It is what lets an attendee describe a failing vendor, a layoff being planned, or a technical decision going badly, and the reason a bare summary of "monthly breakfast for CTOs" understates what the meeting is. It also means no record of the discussions exists or should be expected — including in this wiki.

The absence of sponsorship is structural rather than incidental: no one buys the room, so no one gets to pitch it.

How To Use It

Show up. Second Friday, 8:00 AM, IHOP in American Fork; bring a topic. Everyone pays their own way, so attendance costs the price of breakfast and nothing else.

Two practical notes:

• Confirm the date before you go. The published cadence is a flat "every second Friday", but in 2026 the June meeting moved to the first Friday and returned to the second in July. The move was announced only in the Forge Utah Slack #localevents channel, where the organizer posts a reminder each month, and the website never reflected it.
• Joining the Slack community requires an email with a short introduction, rather than an open invite link — a deliberate, if small, gate.

Cost / Eligibility

Free to attend; you buy your own breakfast. No membership, application, or affiliation is required, and the group is explicitly open to guests.

Best Fits

Someone senior enough that their hard problems are not technical-first — hiring, vendor selection, team structure, when to rewrite — and who has no peer inside their own company to test a decision against. The Chatham House framing makes it usable for exactly the conversations that cannot be had at a conference or in a public channel.

It is a poor fit for anyone looking to sell, recruit at scale, or be taught: there is no stage, and the norms are pointed away from all three.

Evidence

• Source: CTO Breakfast Utah chapter page · https://ctobreakfast.com/communities/utah/ — cadence, venue, the five norms, "over 20 years"
• Source: CTO Breakfast Utah 2026 scheduling announcements (Forge Utah Slack) — four consecutive months in 2026, and the June cadence exception

Open Questions

• Is "over 20 years" accurate? It is the chapter's own round number with no founding date, founder, or continuity record attached, and nothing independent was located. The longevity is plausible; the figure is not evidenced.
• Who organizes it, and under what entity, if any? Derek Carter posts the monthly announcements, but no organizing body, registration, or funding arrangement was located. The multi-city ctobreakfast.com site invites readers to start a community, which suggests a loose federation rather than an organization.
• How many people attend? No attendance figure exists anywhere, and given Chatham House Rules, none is likely to.
• Why did June 2026 move to the first Friday? The organizer flagged the change but not the reason.
• How does the Utah chapter relate to the other CTO Breakfast communities? Whether anything is shared beyond the name and the norms is unestablished.

See Also

• Forge Utah — the Slack workspace where the monthly reminders are posted
• Utah Tech Calendar — lists the breakfast among statewide events
• AI Builder Day — the opposite format: programmed, sponsored, and built for beginners