diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 7669a653..d48f16d6 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ Changelog for Cass Operator, new PRs should update the `main / unreleased` secti
 * [BUGFIX]
 ```
 
-## unreleased
+## v1.16.0
 
 * [CHANGE] [#542](https://github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/issues/542) Support 7.x.x version numbers for DSE and 5.x.x for Cassandra
 * [CHANGE] [#531](https://github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/issues/531) Update to Kubebuilder gov4-alpha layout structure
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 14568669..99782b32 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -51,13 +51,13 @@ Default installation is simple, the kubectl will create a namespace ``cass-opera
 Default install requires cert-manager to be installed, since webhooks require TLS certificates to be injected. See below how to install cert-manager if your environment does not have it installed previously.
 
 ```console
-kubectl apply --force-conflicts --server-side -k github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/deployments/default?ref=v1.15.0
+kubectl apply --force-conflicts --server-side -k github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/deployments/default?ref=v1.16.0
 ```
 
 If you wish to install it with cluster wide rights to monitor all the namespaces for ``CassandraDatacenter`` objects, use the following command:
 
 ```console
-kubectl apply --force-conflicts --server-side -k github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/deployments/cluster?ref=v1.15.0
+kubectl apply --force-conflicts --server-side -k github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/deployments/cluster?ref=v1.16.0
 ```
 
 Alternatively, if you checkout the code, you can use ``make deploy`` to run [Kustomize](https://kustomize.io/) and deploy the files.
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ You can now install new version of cass-operator as instructed previously.
 If you have Prometheus installed in your cluster, you can apply the following command to install the Prometheus support:
 
 ```console
-kubectl apply -k github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/prometheus?ref=v1.15.0
+kubectl apply -k github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/prometheus?ref=v1.16.0
 ```
 
 ### Install cert-manager
@@ -113,10 +113,10 @@ kind: Kustomization
 namespace: cass-operator
 
 resources:
-  - github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/deployments/default?ref=v1.15.0
+  - github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/deployments/default?ref=v1.16.0
 
 components:
-  - github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/components/cluster?ref=v1.15.0
+  - github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/components/cluster?ref=v1.16.0
 ```
 
 We provide both components to modify the installation as well as some additional resources for custom features. At the moment, you can modify the behavior of the installation in the following ways, or remove a component to
@@ -151,7 +151,7 @@ kind: ImageConfig
 metadata:
   name: image-config
 images:
-  system-logger: "k8ssandra/system-logger:v1.15.0"
+  system-logger: "k8ssandra/system-logger:v1.16.0"
   config-builder: "datastax/cass-config-builder:1.0-ubi7"
   imageRegistry: "localhost:5000"
 defaults:
@@ -182,7 +182,7 @@ apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
 kind: Kustomization
 
 resources:
-  - github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/deployments/default?ref=v1.15.0
+  - github.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/config/deployments/default?ref=v1.16.0
 
 components:
   - components/private_image_config
@@ -194,7 +194,7 @@ If you also wish to load the cass-operator from a different path, you will need
 images:
 - name: controller
   newName: localhost:5000/k8ssandra/cass-operator
-  newTag: v1.15.0
+  newTag: v1.16.0
 ```
 
 Run ``kubectl apply -k our_installation`` to install cass-operator.
@@ -219,7 +219,7 @@ reclaimPolicy: Delete
 Paste the above to a file and apply:
 
 ```
-kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/v1.15.0/operator/k8s-flavors/gke/storage.yaml
+kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/k8ssandra/cass-operator/v1.16.0/operator/k8s-flavors/gke/storage.yaml
 ```
 
 ### Creating a CassandraDatacenter
diff --git a/config/manager/image_config.yaml b/config/manager/image_config.yaml
index 9259b4e2..c2308975 100644
--- a/config/manager/image_config.yaml
+++ b/config/manager/image_config.yaml
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ kind: ImageConfig
 metadata:
   name: image-config
 images:
-  system-logger: "k8ssandra/system-logger:latest"
+  system-logger: "k8ssandra/system-logger:v1.16.0"
   config-builder: "datastax/cass-config-builder:1.0-ubi7"
   # cassandra:
   #   "4.0.0": "k8ssandra/cassandra-ubi:latest"
diff --git a/config/manager/kustomization.yaml b/config/manager/kustomization.yaml
index 7621efda..5b1a1bd1 100644
--- a/config/manager/kustomization.yaml
+++ b/config/manager/kustomization.yaml
@@ -14,4 +14,4 @@ kind: Kustomization
 images:
 - name: controller
   newName: k8ssandra/cass-operator
-  newTag: latest
+  newTag: v1.16.0