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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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Making Sasol a digital business in an analog industry
A journey from ultra-traditional to ultra-agile in a hands-on business.
Overview
International integrated chemicals and energy company, Sasol, has over 30,000 people in 33 countries. It develops technologies – and builds and operates world-scale facilities – to make liquid fuels, chemicals and low-carbon electricity. Founded in Sasolburg, South Africa, back in 1950, it’s the world's first oil-from-coal company. And its Secunda Collieries form the world’s largest underground coal operations.
Sasol reorganised in 2014 to be a nimbler organisation, but it struggled with an inflexible global network. Communications between global centres were expensive and unreliable. Centralised applications were sluggish and kept dropping out, so Sasol people weren’t as productive as they could be. All that made it difficult for management to get a single view across worldwide operations. So they called on us to help.
The challenge
Having forty-four service providers at Sasol meant a lot of network hops and access points. And that meant a lot of points things could go wrong. Our Advise consultants managed a transition and transformation project that saw our Internet Connect solution installed at key data centre hubs – giving Sasol people everywhere access to the web.
“We had a highly complex landscape. There were some areas where we weren’t sure of the number of users on a site, or we lacked an asset register. Under those circumstances BT did a tremendously effective job.” - Sudhish Mohan
VP, IM Services Southern Africa & Technology Architecture, Sasol.
Digital innovation transformed Sasol from its ultra-traditional roots. Their mix of service providers meant lots of their people had to wait for global applications to respond. With our help, Sasol unified everything on a single IP Connect platform. By switching their infrastructure onto a single service that linked 68 sites worldwide, Sasol is now more agile, responsive and competitive.
We’ve got our network to a brilliant baseline. So now we can deliver new services as and when BT evolves them. They innovate and we benefit.”
Sudhish MohanVP, IM Services Southern Africa & Technology Architecture, Sasol.
The solution
We installed a single network to bring everything under one roof for Sasol. Now, our incident management process tackles threats and incidents before most Sasol people ever hear about them. And to make sure nothing compromises the improved applications performance at a local level, all Sasol’s LANs are now under a single One Enterprise contract.
Connect Acceleration (based on Riverbed) protects WAN bandwidth so that applications work properly and anything time-sensitive reaches its destination quicker. At all times. Having a single network means that Sasol can cope with sudden, extreme fluctuations in demand while staying robust. Since implementing Connect Acceleration, Sasol can manage and segregate the traffic flow better – and has more insight into what’s happening.
John Watters is Sasol’s Global Well Delivery Manager. His work involves discussing locations, tests, analyses, maintenance plans and logistics – and collaborating with teammates constructing new wells in every corner of the globe. John’s team is spread over four countries – Canada, South Africa, Mozambique and the UK – and keeping them motivated, productive and informed used to mean two time-and-energy-sapping international trips every month.
But John now only has to make one trip every six weeks thanks to 32 new high-end One Collaborate TelePresence suites in key sites around the world. They’re saving Sasol both time and money. And on top of that, our One Collaborate MeetMe and One Mobile secure access services mean Sasol people can work safer – not having to risk unnecessary travel through areas that can be dangerous or remote .
For John, the outstanding quality of telepresence makes it “pretty much as good as face-to-face”. It picks up the nuances and intuitive aspects of collaborating that audio or standard video conferencing can’t deliver. “Before BT installed telepresence, I’d often be travelling to meetings on Sunday evenings, or back on Friday evenings” says John. “Now my team are more engaged, I’m doing my job more effectively, and I get my weekends back.”
SASOL occupies a fascinating niche in the worldwide energy industry.
The result
It used to be hard for Sasol designers and engineers in different countries to draw up blueprints for new plants. Now they share CAD files and collaborate on them simultaneously. They hold video conferences and find on-the-spot answers to problems. They dial desk-to-desk. Everything’s faster and more streamlined.
“We have roughly 14,000 people in Secunda,” says Sudhish. “There’s been a network challenge in that area for four years; I’d describe past performance as horrendous. But since we cut over to BT, there’s been a tremendous amount of feedback that the network performs amazingly in terms of availability and performance.”
There are deeper shifts ahead for Sasol to become truly digital. But the new network provides the foundation. It means Sasol can take advantage of new services and technologies fast. Sudhish says: “BT innovates and we benefit.”
“It was a massive, complex job. BT performed very well, even in the face of a lot of challenges. When you work in partnership, you can foresee risks and take proactive steps around them together. Because BT had been there before, the process was simple and credible.”
Sudhish Mohan
VP, IM Services Southern Africa & Technology Architecture, Sasol.
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
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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