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Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
Germany Oct 20, 2025 Country Members Virtual german
Die Realisierung des Potenzials von KI und datengesteuerten Strategien stellt nicht länger nur einen Wettbewerbsvorteil dar, sondern ist Heute auch entscheidend für den langfristigen Erfolg eines jeden Unternehmens. Unsere Wissensaustausch-Briefings "AI & Data Knowledge Transfer" zielen darauf ab, CIDOs und Senior Digital Leaders praktische Anwendungen aufzuzeigen und umsetzbaren Erkenntnissen von Fachexperten zu vermitteln, die den Weg für die transformative digitale Reise ebnen und beschleunigen.
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Belgium Oct 21, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
In today's competitive landscape, customer expectations have never been higher. They demand a personalised, seamless experience at every touchpoint, from initial marketing contact to post-sale service. Unified data is at the heart of creating engaging customer experiences and is meant to fuel the 360 profile. However, for many organizations, a complete picture of the customer is fragmented, with critical data scattered in disconnected systems and departments. This exclusive roundtable will bring together Digital Leaders active in multiple industries to discuss a critical challenge: breaking down data silos to build a true 360° view of the customer. We will explore how to solve the complex integration challenges that prevent a unified view, and how to transform disparate data into a single source of truth. Join us to: Discover how to overcome the technical hurdles of integrating critical business systems, such as ERP and CRM platforms, to unify customer data. Explore real-world case studies on how organisations have successfully created unified customer insights to enhance personalisation and boost commercial and operational efficiency. Discuss best practices for turning fragmented data into actionable insights that can anticipate customer needs, drive revenue growth, and foster long-term loyalty. This is a unique opportunity for Digital Leaders who are ready to transform their customer engagement strategy and unlock the full potential of their data.
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Spain Oct 22, 2025 Country Members Physical spanish
Descubre cómo las organizaciones están utilizando la tecnología para impactar en el negocio a través de casos reales de uso y aprendizajes clave en áreas como ciberseguridad, automatización o data, contados por los protagonistas. Un espacio diseñado para inspirarte, conectar con expertos y potenciar la innovación en tu organización.
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Belgium Oct 22, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
Enterprises are questioning whether private networks and stacked firewalls are still worthwhile investments. A newer approach operates on the open internet with Zero Trust, eliminates perimeter complexity, and reframes cybersecurity as a business performance metric for boards and audit committees. This is a closed-door, peer discussion, not a lecture. We’ll examine the promise and its pitfalls: Are the promised savings significant, or are they too good to be true? What risks do you introduce? How does this collide with your installed base, legacy OT, entrenched processes and team competencies, and how do you overcome that without breaking operations or credibility with the board? Two senior leaders from global companies will spark the dialogue with lived experience: Kurt De Ruwe, CIO AkzoNobel Frank Bolata, CIO Syensqo
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Poland Oct 23, 2025 Invitation Only Physical Polish
Cloud UP! ’25 to miejsce spotkań managerów, którzy chcą świadomie i skutecznie rozwijać swoje organizacje, wykorzystując najnowsze technologie. Nieformalnym hasłem tegorocznej edycji jest “Chmura gotowa na AI” - będziemy rozmawiać o tym, co sztuczna inteligencja naprawdę potrafi oraz pokazywać, jak wdrażać ją w praktyce. Wspólnie z ekspertami przeanalizujemy, jakie warunki muszą zostać spełnione, aby wdrożenia AI były zarówno skuteczne, jak i bezpieczne. Zerkniemy za kulisy najnowszych rodzimych produktów AI-owych, by zobaczyć ich możliwości, a także poznamy najciekawsze wdrożenia z wykorzystaniem Agentspace. Po raz kolejny spotkamy się w formule Share.Explore.Execute. Stawiamy na wymianę wiedzy i doświadczeń zdobytych podczas realizacji projektów. To one stanowią punkt wyjścia do odkrywania, testowania i skutecznej implementacji najlepszych rozwiązań w organizacjach. Cloud UP! ’25 to cztery ścieżki tematyczne, na które złożą się prezentacje, rozmowy, sesje live-demo oraz pogłębione dyskusje w formule roundtables: AI: Beyond the Hype Data Mastery Resilience & Regulatory Advanced Practitioners Dołącz do liderów chmurowych innowacji w Polsce i spotkaj się z nami już 23 października w Event Hall w Fabryce Norblina.
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Belgium Oct 23, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
How to lead responsibly when technology can deceive better than a human? AI’s ability to shape our perceptions and create new realities is becoming increasingly sophisticated. While it opens significant opportunities, it also carries risks. What happens when AI goes beyond data and algorithms to influence - or even deceive - our senses? How does this change not only our understanding of reality but also the foundations of trust, creativity, and truth in business? AI isn’t just transforming business, it is altering how we experience and interpret everything around us. From AI-generated deepfakes to personalised experiences designed to influence behaviour, the line between truth and illusion is increasingly blurred. This event combines a roundtable discussion among peers with a hands-on sensory workshop, where you will experience illusions through sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Through these experiments, we will confront the ethical dilemmas that arise when AI has the power to fabricate realities and influence decisions.
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Ahold Delhaize is dedicated to improving the lives of its customers through technology. To this end, the company has embarked on a digital transformation that focuses on improving loyalty programs and personalization. The Ahold Delhaize solution is based on the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform.
“At Ahold Delhaize, our goal is simple. Helping our customers to lead healthier, more convenient lives, and our partners to thrive in a competitive market. All with the aid of technology.”
Thanh Hà Nguyen, Senior IT Director of Data and Analytics & Digital Engagement at Ahold Delhaize, is describing the culture of customer and partner empowerment that his company promotes – and the role that technology plays in realizing it.
As a leading European retailer serving 54 million people every week, Ahold Delhaize is no stranger to the pressures that the industry is facing to provide unique, tailored services to its customers – and the importance of data in achieving them.
“Data is the essence of all we do at Ahold Delhaize,” Nguyen says. “And together with our partners, we’re committed to making the most of it.”
That has meant building a data platform that allows it to gain user insights, personalize its offering and identify convenience opportunities within the global network of brands it manages.
“We’ve created a whole new customer experience centered around providing healthier recommendations for our customers and sending out more targeted, personalized promotions,” he says. “Of course Privacy compliance is at the heart of everything we do at Ahold Delhaize. Such targeted, personalized promotions are sent only to customers that have given their consent for it.”
“But that was just the beginning. We now have a platform that allows us to generate value across the entire organization – ultimately helping us and our partners to pursue collective success.”
Ahold Delhaize operates 19 retail brands across Eastern US, Europe and Indonesia – serving millions of customers each week and running around 7,000 stores.
Within this network, Nguyen’s division serves local brands in Belgium, Greece, Serbia, Czech and Romania.
“Our mantra is ‘eat well, save time, live better’, and it’s all about helping people to buy healthier products and shop more efficiently,” he says. “We want to inspire, create convenience and provide recommendations to our customers whilst also generating revenue.
“All of that starts with data.”
Over the years, Ahold Delhaize has been exploring ways to create data-driven value throughout multiple parts of its business – from driving financial insights to improving store operations, optimizing the supply chain and more.
In Belgium, where Nguyen operates, that led them to rethink the loyalty program, which he calls “the heart of customer lifetime value”.
“We saw our Belgian customer loyalty program as the perfect steppingstone for our digitalization ambitions,” he says. “For years, this was outdated, slow, and centered around targeting households rather than individual customers,” he says.
“But it became clear that a new vision was required; that enriching the program would allow us to drive personalization, insights, and by default, more revenue. And we hoped it would trigger more and similar initiatives across the other brands in our network.”
Soon enough, however, Ahold Delhaize realized that this couldn’t be achieved without support.
“We needed to develop advanced analytics platforms that would give us that kind of power,” he says, “while also being scalable for all the other business areas we wanted to transform using our encrypted data.
“Thankfully, Microsoft was the ideal partner to achieve these goals.”
Ahold Delhaize’s Azure Data Platform aims to bring together previously siloed data sources into a single location – and then leverage them to drive personalization, optimize operations and unlock alternative revenue streams.
“We wanted to start using the cloud technology to perform advanced analytics,” says Stephane Desaeger, Data & Analytics Center of Excellence Domain Lead at Ahold Delhaize.
“We already had various other platforms at our disposal, but we still needed one for personalization and insights. So, we started thinking about how we could invest strategically in the cloud, and in solutions that would allow us to perform these advanced analytics. The one that best met our criteria was Microsoft.”
According to him, the platform uses Azure Data Lake technology to store raw data that is then ingested with Azure Data Factory. The encrypted data is then processed through Azure Databricks where it undergoes further processing until it is finally pushed into Azure Synapse Analytics. This technology then allows to prepare the data and structure it in a consumable way for Power BI or other endpoints like engagement platforms.
“We are now moving more into Synapse Serverless SQL Pool, which allows us to query the data in a performant and cost efficient way and serve various use cases,” he adds.
“That’s because with twenty-eight data products on the platform, proper data governance and privacy compliance is a prerequisite. At the same time, we see a growing need for self-service, so we wanted to provide data catalogs that are fully embedded into the platform."
“This guarantees clarity for our users on the data provided, right where they need it – on a Power BI dashboard or using data sets in Azure Synapse. In the next stages, Azure Purview will be implemented to deliver any additional catalog capabilities such as lineage.”
According to Nguyen, essential to the initiative has been the company’s ‘Scaled Agile’ working philosophy – which allowed Ahold Delhaize, its internal and external partners and brands, to collaborate on the creation of a scalable platform centered around empowering collective success.
“What I love about this platform is that it’s the result of a great collaboration between us, Microsoft, and some key partners such as Avanade and DXC Technology.
“In line with our ‘Me-To-We’ motto, we have embedded our partners into our teams as one, carrying out work based on best practices, agreeing clarity on what’s coming next, and creating a space for feedback too.”
But even more than partnerships, he adds, it is the user experience and consumption that determines the success of the platform.
"That’s precisely what we’ve achieved here: a data community practice at scale,” he says.
The platform sits at the core of Ahold Delhaize’s marketing and customer loyalty initiatives – which are now more tailored and targeted, centered around augmenting the shopping experience.
“From online to in-store and app-based shopping, our solution allows us to be more proactive in our marketing and promotion than ever,” says Nguyen. “For example, instead of passively waiting for customers to check our web shop for promotions or rewards, we can push those out to customers that have given consent based on their habits and behaviors.”
This is even more crucial when the recommendations are targeted towards healthier alternatives. “We strive to put our live better motto truly at the heart of all we do,” he explains. “That means using the visibility and extended reach the platform gives us to promote healthy and sustainable products amongst our customers.”
There is much more to Ahold Delhaize’s platform than the customer loyalty program, says Nguyen.
“Playing our role in tackling climate change is paramount for our organization – and the data platform is the perfect place to start,” he says.
Food waste is a prime example. “In Romania, one of our brands is using our advanced analytics capabilities to better track expiring products and optimize when they’re put on sale,” he continues.
“In the future, we plan to apply this principle to environment-centric initiatives too.”
Ahold Delhaize is also focusing on enabling its wider partner ecosystem with the benefits of the platform. “Customer loyalty is crucial for us,our partners, brands and teams. We can provide them context and meaning to data so they can increase their performance” says Desaeger.
“That's something that’s valuable for us and them. It’s an opportunity for us to empower them even more.”
“We have great ambitions for the coming years,” says Nguyen. “We want to use our data even more and transform it into actionable information that will generate value at every iteration, and at all stages of the value chain.
“To do it, we need to keep on democratizing the use and activation of our data through a solid foundation. Thanks to our new platform, we are confident that we’re heading in that direction.” "
From online to in-store and app-based shopping, our solution allows us to be more proactive in our marketing and promotion than ever.Thanh Hà Nguyen: Senior IT Director of Data and Analytics & Digital Engagement - Ahold Delhaize
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CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor
The role of the CIO has evolved from managing systems to shaping outcomes: growth, resilience, and competitive edge are now won or lost in the technology arena. Today ’ s CIOs must balance stability with innovation, control costs while attracting scarce talent, and modernise legacy infrastructure while adopting emerging technologies.
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.
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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