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CIONET - What's next

Connecting ambitious digital leaders and businesses around the globe.

Catch up on the upcoming CIONET Events

             
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UK Sep 30, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

How CIOs drive game-changing results at scale?

This exclusive Jefferson dinner, hosted by Mendix and CIONET, brings together a hand-picked group of senior executives and digital leaders from across the UK financial sector.

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Netherlands Sep 30, 2025 Invitation Only Physical dutch

Vision Dinner From the Network to the Data

Alleen op uitnodiging. Mastering Digital Sovereignty Control, trust and resilience in an era of geopolitical and regulatory shifts. From the Network to the Data.

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Belgium Oct 1, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

Telenet Business Leadership Circle - Legacy & Lifecycle Management

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, organisations face a critical challenge: how to modernise their legacy systems while managing costs, maintaining security, and ensuring operational continuity. This exclusive round table discussion brings together CIOs, CTOs, and Digital Leaders to explore best practices for legacy and lifecycle management. Key topics include extending the lifespan of existing systems, mitigating cyber security risks, optimising costs, and integrating legacy platforms with modern technologies. We’ll also delve into sustainability, workforce challenges, and future-proofing IT infrastructures to navigate technological obsolescence.

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Germany Oct 7, 2025 Country Members Virtual german

Online: KI-CHECK: Wo steht dein Unternehmen?

Alle nutzen KI, aber keiner weiß wie effektiv! Im Jahr 2025 sind wir als IT-EntscheiderInnen gefordert die Wünsche der Fachbereiche an Künstliche Intelligenz zu managen. Welche KI dient als Copilot für unsere Mitarbeitenden, inwieweit hat diese Zugang zu Firmenwissen und könnten wir heute bereits sinnvoll einen KI Agenten in die IT Systemlandschaft einbinden? Unser Business Partner Scheer PAS spricht als Anbieter einer Process iPaaS Plattform mit hunderten Unternehmen jedes Jahr über IT-Integration. In dieser Online-Session besprechen wir erste Reifegradmodelle zu KI, wo der deutsche Mittelstand sich befindet und wie wir die nächste Innovationsstufe erreichen. Wir teilen praktische Erfahrungen aus dem Marktumfeld und planen unsere nächsten Schritte in der Adaption von KI.

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Netherlands Oct 7, 2025 AB Members Physical dutch

Advisory Board Meeting

De Advisory Board van CIONET NL komt samen. We bespreken de planning voor 2025 en discussiëren over specifieke en door de board aangedragen onderwerpen.

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Spain Oct 8, 2025 Country Members Physical spanish

DATA Quest 2025

En un mundo cada vez más acelerado y competitivo, la gestión y el análisis de datos ya no son suficientes. Las grandes compañías deben avanzar hacia un enfoque basado en eventos, impulsado por la automatización y la analítica predictiva, para anticipar cambios, prevenir riesgos y capitalizar oportunidades.

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Recent Cases

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ABN AMRO modernizes its infrastructure in 9 months with Datometry and Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Dutch bank ABN AMRO was looking to move business-critical workloads from Teradata to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. As a result of leaving its legacy vendor, ABN AMRO realized significant scaling advantages, gained flexibility, and laid the foundation for a comprehensive cloud strategy.

ABN AMRO is one of the largest retail banks in the Netherlands, with more than 5.2 million retail clients and 20,000 employees worldwide, operating in 12 different countries. Its wealth management exceeds €200 billion in assets under management, serving more than 100,000 clients.

ABN AMRO wanted to move its workloads from its legacy system, Teradata, to Azure Synapse Analytics but did not find the conventional approach of code converters appealing. ABN AMRO found that code converters have limitations in converting legacy code with poorly documented business logic. Often, manual intervention to extract, modify, and reinsert the code is required.

A further complication was the nature of the business process served by the application. Several applications served sophisticated risk models that are subject to stringent regulation. These models are certified by a regulatory body, and changes would require a time-intensive certification process before putting them into production.

Finally, the deadlines were tight. The switchover from the legacy system to Azure Synapse Analytics needed to be performed with as little downtime as possible for business analysts and other internal customers. As much as the migration was a technical problem, it was also a formidable challenge in risk management and execution.

Database virtualization leads the way

ABN AMRO turned to Microsoft partner Datometry. Based in San Francisco, California, Datometry specializes in bringing virtualization to the database stack. Its Hyper-Q platform, available in the Azure Marketplace, lets enterprises move from Teradata or Oracle Exadata to Azure Synapse Analytics without headaches.

Before the formal project kickoff, ABN AMRO had a complete blueprint of its workloads through Datometry qInsight. The qInsight report provided the team with a detailed analysis, identifying any potential challenges up-front. Equipped with this knowledge, the bank embarked on the implementation knowing there would be no major surprises.

Instead of modifying applications, ABN AMRO leveraged Datometry Hyper-Q. The Hyper-Q platform translates SQL and API calls in real time. Through Hyper-Q, existing applications work directly with Azure Synapse Analytics. The operation is fully transparent, making changes to application code unnecessary.

Hyper-Q enabled ABN AMRO to operate with a small tactical team. By drawing on strong in-house talent, the bank did not need to augment its staff significantly. Being able to keep the size of the team small was critical to maintain agility, and it also contributed to the overall cost savings.

Liberated from having to rewrite a large body of applications, the ABN AMRO team took the opportunity to selectively adjust a few individual applications. These modifications would play specifically to the strengths of Azure Synapse Analytics.

Meeting deadlines while avoiding downtime

ABN AMRO completed the project on an aggressive timeline. In nine months, the entire workload was migrated off the Teradata system and ABN AMRO was able to decommission its Teradata appliance.

Mike Waas, CEO of Datometry, said, “ABN AMRO just set a record for moving from Teradata to Azure Synapse: In only nine months, they pulled off a full migration that seemed completely impossible. Accomplishing all that, while maintaining full compliance with strict regulations that prevented any changes to the SQL text, is a phenomenal feat.”

After the migration, both the legacy system and the future stack were operated for several months side by side. This enabled business users to validate data and functionality using their original applications.

Finally, when it came time to switch over, ABN AMRO did not schedule explicit downtime. Instead, the company moved its business users to Azure Synapse Analytics, the new core data platform, completely seamlessly.

“With Datometry we have delivered a successful transformation,” said Marcel Kramer, Head of Data Engineering at ABN AMRO. “We moved our mission-critical workloads from Teradata to Azure Synapse seamlessly. With a legacy of more than 15 years of business logic, this is a remarkable result.”

The foundation for a comprehensive cloud strategy

By migrating on a short timeline, ABN AMRO realized considerable savings. The bank was able to decommission its legacy system, avoiding a costly renewal and potentially a refresh of the hardware that would have come due. Leaving the applications intact saved time and effort for rewrites and upheld regulatory requirements. Additionally, it eliminated the undue risk and room for error any modifications would have caused, ensuring the ABN AMRO team was in full control of any risk during the project.

Through Datometry's virtualization, ABN AMRO elegantly solved its migration challenge, and at a fraction of the cost of a conventional migration. Now on Azure Synapse Analytics, ABN AMRO has a strong foundation for the future.

ABN AMRO just set a record for moving from Teradata to Azure Synapse: In only nine months, they pulled off a full migration that seemed completely impossible. Accomplishing all that, while maintaining full compliance with strict regulations that prevented any changes to the SQL text, is a phenomenal feat. 

Mike Waas: CEO

Datometry

 
A screenshot of the downloadable asset for this story
 

 

Checkout our CIONET COOKBOOK

cookbook

Embark on a culinary journey through the ever-evolving world of digital leadership with our third edition of the CIONET Cookbook: Recipes for Digital Success. Unveiling the intricate trilemma faced by today’s Master Chefs, our trailblazing European CIOs address a challenge at the nexus of customer interests, digital transformation strategies, and IT modernisation. Their secret? Synchronising the gearing between customer, business, and technology to create a frictionless movement through the digital landscape.

The CIONET Cookbook uses the analogy of a five-star restaurant to explain the importance of optimally integrated technology, with the CIO as Master Chef. In order to provide the best service to its customers, a top restaurant must have the right atmosphere, an inviting menu, a well-equipped kitchen, talented and committed front-of-house and kitchen staff and smooth-running processes that ensure an enjoyable experience for diners.

CIONET TV

 
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Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge

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Isabelle Droll - CIO for Airline, Corporate, Hotels & Resorts and Sustainability at TUI - Data, Diversity, and Destinations

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Sharon Prior - CIO in transition - How Great Tech Leadership Begins with Business Thinking

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José Antonio López, Group CIO at TOUS - Jewels, Data & AI: Inside the Digital Transformation of TOUS

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Tom Tanghe - General Manager ITC EMEA at Daikin Europe - Reinventing the CIO Role

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CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor

CIONET Reports

 
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Get your copy

A research proposal_AI and the Human Experience

As AI transitions from a specialised tool to an all-pervasive force, understanding its profound implications for our human lives is no longer merely academic but an urgent imperative for social well-being and strategic preparedness.

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Get your copy

Cybersecurity in critical infrastructure

Geopolitical tensions have dominated the headlines for over two years now. In this context, the cyber threat landscape is also evolving rapidly. The protection and security of critical infrastructure – both physical and digital – is becoming increasingly important.

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Get your copy

HDS - From Hype to Reality Navigating the Challenges of GenAI

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Anna Kopp (1)

Anna Kopp

Head of IT Germany and Regional Office Lead Munich, Microsoft

“The CIONET App allows us to learn from eachother and and find the courage to be authentic by hearing stories from others! Thanks to Tobias and the whole team for bringing us together:-) ”
Mauricio Amaro

Mauricio Amaro

IT Director, IT Thinker

“The main things that I would like to get from our community of Digital Leaders are: networking, share experiences, share best practices and successful cases, and comments and recommendations about providers.”
Vijay Anand

Vijay Anand

Vice president IT & Compliance, VisionaryRCM (A Carlyle Grp Company)

“The CIONET app provides a really cool platform to network and share insights.”

About CIONET

CIONET’s mission is to help IT executives become more at ease and above all more successful in their jobs. So they can do more than just keep up with change but ultimately define it. CIONET opens up a whole new universe of opportunities in IT management.

With the largest membership of corporate digital leaders across Europe, Latin America, US and Australia, CIONET has the expertise and pioneering vision to solve or address any IT management challenge.

Why join CIONET?

From our local and global events, from our publications and research to our executive education programmes, everything we do is aimed at making sure digital leaders maximise their potential.

Connect

with digital leaders who share your interests, who face the same challenges, who care about the same topics.

Share

stories, experiences, and ideas around our shared mission.

Learn

from our exclusive events, publications and research.

Find

inspiration, thought-provoking conversations, expert perspectives and exclusive first-hand content each and every day

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and make better, more well-informed decisions on how to lead your digital business.

Maximise

your potential. Realise your ambitions.

About CIONET

Join CIONET

We'd love to welcome you as the newest member of our CIONET community where Digital Leaders unite. 

You can either send us a registered handwritten letter explaining why you'd like to become a member or you can simply talk to us right here!

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Would you like to know more about CIONET, membership or partnership opportunities? Do you have feedback or any other question? Send us a message!