<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=2528533714139722&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
New call-to-action
https://4295993.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/4295993/INT_CIONET-International/VIDEO/CIONET_HM.mp4
CIONET - What's next

Connecting ambitious digital leaders and businesses around the globe.

Catch up on the upcoming CIONET Events

             
Banner

Germany May 12, 2025 Country Members Physical german

München: 1st CIDO-WOMEN Event @ Microsoft

Bauen Sie mit uns ein Netzwerk auf aus führenden WOMEN CIDOs aus dem IT und Technology Bereich.

Read More
Banner

Belgium May 13, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

Women of CIONET - How Female CIOs Drive Inclusive Tech Teams

The role of the CIO is evolving faster than ever, requiring a blend of strategic vision, innovation, and adaptability. As CIOs lead digital transformation, the skills needed in their teams are changing, too. This conference highlights how female CIOs are navigating this shift—reshaping their teams, prioritizing diverse skill sets, and leveraging inclusion as a driver of success. Discover how building diverse, future-ready teams enables CIOs to meet the demands of an ever-changing IT and tech landscape.

Read More
Banner

Belgium May 13, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

Code Red for a proactive, predictive cyber defence ; How to Turn Threat Intelligence into Cyber Advantage

As a CIO and CISO, you are facing an unprecedented challenge: transitioning from reactive incident response to proactive, predictive defence. While Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) promises to anticipate attacks, integrating it effectively into security and war room operations presents significant hurdles.

Read More
Banner

Poland May 13, 2025 Invitation Only Physical Polish

EXECUTIVE ROUNDTABLE: DIGITAL BLIND SPOTS: Czy wiesz, czego nie wiesz? Niewidoczne ryzyka, które zagrażają ciągłości biznesu.

Pierwsza awaria cię nie pogrąży, ale kolejna prawdopodobnie już tak - takie wnioski płyną z badania z udziałem CIO, które CIONET przeprowadził w Polsce w 2024 roku. Utrzymanie ciągłości biznesu pozostaje najważniejszym zadaniem liderów IT. Awarie platform technologicznych przekładają się na ogromne straty – od utraty przychodów i reputacji po kary nakładane przez organy kontrolne, w tym UODO, KNF czy UKE. Systemy analityczne i panele kontrolne zapewniają wgląd w wiele procesów, często pozostawiają jednak „martwe punkty” - obszary, w których kryją się niewidoczne problemy, nieefektywności lub ryzyka. Zapraszamy na ekskluzywne spotkanie Digital Blind Spots, organizowane z myślą o liderach technologii z różnych branż. Będziemy rozmawiać o doświadczeniach i wyzwaniach związanym z monitorowaniem, zabezpieczaniem i optymalizacją ekosystemów technologicznych.

Read More
Banner

Netherlands May 13, 2025 Invitation Only Physical dutch

Cognizant CIO Vision Dinner: Gen AI & Smart Industry

Alleen op uitnodiging. In een besloten setting, onder leiding van gastheer Herman van Bolhuis (Founder CIONET & bestuurslid FME), verkennen we de strategische impact van Generative AI en de volgende fase van digitalisering.

Read More
Banner

UK May 15, 2025 Country Members Physical english

Women of CIONET - Female Leadership Circle

CIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT.

Read More

Recent Cases

Please Log In with your CIONET account first

Trend Micro Apex One offers lightweight, flexible protection for forestry firm Coillte

Trend Micro Apex One offers lightweight, flexible protection for forestry firm Coillte

OVERVIEW

Coillte is not your typical business. The 30-year-old forestry and land solutions company has an estate representing nearly 10% of Ireland’s land, extending to over 440,000 hectares. How it takes care of this land matters more today than ever, in terms of social, environmental, and economic sustainability. It’s also big business; the forestry sector contributes over €2 billion to the Irish economy every year.

Marc Walsh is the firm’s cloud and security architect, responsible for the entire technology infrastructure across on-premises and cloud environments. He looks after approximately 700 employee end-users, and a similar number of endpoints, split between servers, desktops, and PCs, along with a Citrix® estate of virtual desktops (VDI).

 
 
CHALLENGES

Like most mid-sized organisations, Coillte is a target for ransomware, data theft, business email compromise (BEC), and other remote cyberattacks which could cause far-reaching reputational and financial damage. Trend Micro blocked over 27.8 billion unique threats in the first half of 2020 alone, over 90% of which were email-borne. This highlights one of the biggest challenges for IT security bosses like Walsh; protecting the organisation’s soft underbelly (its users) from these threats without impacting their productivity.

Unfortunately, the incumbent AV provider Coillte was previously using was slowing down performance of the Citrix platform and therefore negatively affecting users in their day-to-day work. Given that Citrix touts an optimised performance and highly reliable end-user experience, even across low-bandwidth or high-latency connections, this was unacceptable. The search was on for a new provider. 

 
 

WHY TREND

Walsh initially trialled several endpoint security solutions, carrying out a proofof- concept for a Citrix environment. Trend Micro Apex One came out on top for performance and was selected to run across the rest of the server estate, and then eventually all of the company’s laptop and desktop clients.

Trend Micro Apex One offers protection from all known and unknown threats on PC endpoints, Macs, and VDIs, from a single solution. Even better, it does this via an architecture that uses endpoint resources more effectively to outperform the competition on CPU and network utilisation.

In addition, Trend Micro Apex One offers:

  • XGen™ protection for cross-generational threat defence, including behavioural analysis, high-fidelity machine learning, app control, web and file reputation, and command and control (C&C) blocking 
  • Virtual patching to protect against known and unknown vulnerabilities
  • Centralised visibility and control via Trend Micro Control Manager™
  • Sensitive data protection via endpoint encryption, integrated DLP, and device control
  • Threat detection and response via integration with Trend Micro™ XDR
 

"Trend Micro Apex One has really helped us during lockdown in a work-from-home scenario, as we have endpoints updating from the cloud directly and via a central console."

Marc Walsh - Cloud and Security Architect, Coillte

 
 

RESULTS

Whilst migrating Trend Micro Apex One over to the firm’s hundreds of servers and endpoints, Walsh was presented with another challenge. COVID-19 lockdowns forced all of Coillte’s employees to work from home from company PCs and laptops. Fortunately, Trend Micro Apex One handled this shift in strides thanks to its cloud architecture.

“We’ve changed dramatically from a situation where we were having to switch off functionality in our previous security software, just to keep things running, to having full coverage from Trend Micro,” says Walsh.

“Trend Micro Apex One has really helped us during lockdown in a work-from-home scenario, as we have endpoints updating from the cloud directly and via a central console.”

Walsh has been so impressed with the performance and capability of Trend Micro Apex One that he’s now looking at Trend Micro™ Deep Security™ for enhanced server protection across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments.

 

"Trend Micro is very forward thinking with regards to its product roadmap. I see a lot of innovation, so we will probably look at integrating more security products in the future."

Marc Walsh - Cloud and Security Architect, Coillte

 
 

Technologies

Apex One™

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

 
Banner

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

Banner

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

Banner

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

Banner

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

Banner

CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor

Banner

CIOFEST 2025 - Introduction to the International Panel

CIONET Reports

 
Banner
Get your copy

The impact of AI on ICT

The evolution of AI is comparable to that of IT, but it’s happening much faster. As with IT in its early days, AI is becoming deeply embedded in almost every business function. Amara’s Law also applies here: we tend to overestimate AI’s short-term effects and underestimate its long-term impact. This makes it essential to embed AI across your company in a structured way.

Banner
Get your copy

CIOFEST UK: Charting Your CIO Career

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the event's insights and reflections from industry leaders, along with actionable takeaways for IT professionals aspiring to reach leadership positions.

Banner
Get your copy

Investment Report 2025- Risk-on, Risk-off

In this report, Roger Camrass reviews the financial events of 2024 and presents his opinion on investment prospects for 2025 Roger has followed global finance markets closely for over 40 years and summarises trends in investment reports annually1 As former Research Director at CIONET, Europe’s largest community of digital leaders2, Roger has first-hand knowledge of digital trends

Join over 10.000 digital leaders worldwide

in our exclusive CIO community

Latest CIONET News

Join your local CIONET community

Discover the CIONET app

Staying ahead of trends and connecting with other CIOs was never easier.

In our new app, our members connect with other digital leaders from around the world to find better solutions to their challenges.

Connect with digital leaders like you

Share ideas, best practices, and new resources

Experience inspiring and thought-provoking content and conversations you can’t find anywhere else

Make better, more well-informed decisions about the topics that are most important to you

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

Grow

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!

Contact us

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