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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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Germany Sep 9, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Frankfurt: AI Driven Logistics

Vom ersten Use Case zur strategischen Neuausrichtung CIONET lädt bereits zum vierten Mal zu einem exklusiven Roundtable für CIOs und Digitalverantwortliche aus Logistik und Handel ein. Im Mittelpunkt des Abends steht die Frage, wie Unternehmen ihre KI-Initiativen erfolgreich skalieren und aus ersten Use Cases echten strategischen Mehrwert schaffen. Microsoft 365 für Frontline Worker: Moderne Tools, die Mitarbeitende im Tagesgeschäft entlasten ServiceNow für Prozessintegration: Automatisierte End-to-End-Workflows – vom Schadensfall bis zur Retourenabwicklung KI-gestützte Disposition und Planung: Mit smarten Algorithmen zur optimierten Supply Chain Digitale Lieferketten und letzte Meile: Transparenz, Effizienz und Kundenzentrierung durchgängig gedacht

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Belgium Sep 13, 2025 All Members Physical english

CIONET Cycling Event

Join us for a wonderful ride. The ride is accessible to all levels of riders and doesn't require extensive technical skills. More information will follow soon. Looking forward to ride together!

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Germany Sep 17, 2025 Country Members Physical german

München: Cyber Security Fatigue

Cybersecurity ist längst kein reines IT-Thema mehr – sie betrifft das gesamte Unternehmen. Doch während die Bedrohungslage zunimmt, geraten viele Security-Verantwortliche an ihre Belastungsgrenzen: zwischen 24/7-Verantwortung, wachsenden Anforderungen und dem ständigen Innovationsdruck.

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Germany Sep 17, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Köln: CIO & CISO, das Rezilienz-Power-Duo

IT-Betrieb und Cybersicherheit stehen heute unter extremem Druck: steigende Komplexität, wachsende regulatorische Anforderungen (NIS2, DORA, KRITIS), chronische Ressourcenknappheit – und gleichzeitig eine Bedrohungslage, die keine Verzögerungen duldet. Trotzdem agieren viele IT- und Security-Teams noch immer in Silos. Die Folge: ineffiziente Abläufe, Tool-Wildwuchs, langsame Reaktion auf Vorfälle und unklare Verantwortlichkeiten.

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Germany Sep 18, 2025 Country Members Virtual german

Online: Nachhaltige IT - CIDO Priorität

Nachhaltigkeit ist für CIOs nicht nur ein „Nice-to-have“, sondern eine strategische Priorität – sie beeinflusst direkt die finanzielle Performance, die operative Effizienz und die langfristige Wettbewerbsfähigkeit.

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Belgium Sep 18, 2025 Country Members Physical french

Les Rencontres: La dette technique : Un défi stratégique pour les entreprises

La dette technique est comparable à la négligence des réparations d'une maison. Ignorer un toit qui fuit peut faire gagner du temps aujourd'hui, mais cela pourrait conduire à l'effondrement du plafond plus tard. Pour remédier à la dette technique, il faut trouver et réparer ces fuites dès maintenant et mettre en place un plan d'entretien de la maison afin qu'elle soit prête pour les extensions futures. Pour résoudre ces problèmes, il faut définir des priorités stratégiques, communiquer clairement avec les parties prenantes et établir une feuille de route à long terme pour la modernisation. Cet événement se déroulera entièrement en français.

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Recent Cases

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Unilever: Using AI to freeze out competition & discover “breakfast for dessert”

Unilever has used AI to sort through their structured data for years. Partnering with American, Chinese, Israeli and U.K. startups to analyze information from content people post and reactions to that content, Unilever has been able to unearth insights in gap areas in their marketing they would have otherwise missed.

Unilever, a British consumer goods company, made a sugary sweet move to freeze out their competition when they implemented the usage of twenty-six AI data centers across the globe to synthesize insights from a range of sources, including social listening, CRM, and traditional marketing research. Unilever owns over 400 brands spread across 190 countries, and thirteen of those brands have sales over a billion dollars. Such brands include Lipton, Sunsilk, Dove, Knorr, Magnum and hundreds of other food, vitamin, beauty and cleaning products. While Unilever has used AI to sort through their structured data for years, they recently took a deep dive into their qualitative data by gleaning through text, audio, social media and phone activity as a means to influence more of its marketing. Partnering with American, Chinese, Israeli and U.K. startups to analyze information from content people post and reactions to that content, Unilever has been able to unearth insights in gap areas in their marketing they would have otherwise missed. 

 

A prime example is their development of Ben & Jerry’s cereal-flavored ice-cream (Fruit Loops and Frozen Flakes) after listening to over 50 songs in the public domain that had lyrics talking about “ice cream for breakfast.” One of the AI algorithms Unilever enlisted in a partnering startup recognized a data set that revealed an opportunity for a new product. Although Dunkin Donuts sold ice cream in the morning for years, Unilever never had the data to prove this customer pain point. As a result, ice cream companies like Ben & Jerry’s missed this niche market opportunity. With the new product on the shelves, competitors are now incorporating breakfast ice cream in their own name brand product lines, But that’s just the icing on the (ice cream) cake.

 

 Ice cream is part of Unilever’s food business that has to compete with other companies in the fast moving consumer goods segment.

In addition to infiltrating the ice cream market, Unilever is using AI to pioneer the recruitment of executives and marketers in order to decrease the money and time spent invested in the hiring process. They currently spend over 100,000 hours hiring over 30,000 people a year and processing 1.8 million job applications. Partnering with Pymetrics, Unilever built an online platform that used the aptitude, logic and reasoning of a candidate acquired through a neuroscience gaming activity to sift through preliminary screening of applicants. Pymetrics used this information and measured it against the role for which they applied as well as the profiles of successful employees currently working at the company.

 

Unilever deployed video analyzing software in 2018 that introduced candidates into the second stage of the interview process where  their facial expression, body language and word choice were scanned from the comfort of their own homes as they sat in front of their computers or mobile phones. The machine learning algorithm examines the candidate after listening to the candidates answer questions for 30-minutes and then determines who is a good-fit through a variety of natural language processing and body language analysis.

 

Thumbnail for Pathways to a Just Digital Future.
 

This automated screening system is programmed to look for cues in behavior that selects candidates who demonstrate “systemic thinking, resilience, and business acumen.” Unilever also uses this proprietary technology to deliver feedback to applicants by giving them a detailed list of how they did in the interview, what characteristics align with the company, what traits do not, and how to be more successful in the application process in the future. The irony is that artificial intelligence is actually allowing companies to be more human. Instead of large companies allowing applicants CV’s fall into the black hole, they are connecting and addressing areas of growth and improvement.

 

 

Within the first 90 days of adoption, Unilever doubled the amount of application to jobs success rate moving from 15,000 to 30,000. In addition, they hired their most diverse candidate pool by focusing on hiring non-white applicants and increasing representation 2,600 universities as opposed to 840 universities in the years prior. For the first time in their hiring history, they achieved gender parity in their hiring, as well as increasing socioeconomic representation by 20%. In terms of the efficiency of the hiring process, the average hiring time went from four months to four weeks and saved a cumulative 50,000 hours. Recruiters spent 75% less time reviewing applications, and the acceptance rate of offers to candidates went from 64% to 82%, and the completion rate of the Pymetrics game was 98%.

 

 

After the hiring process, Unilever incorporated machine-learning into their onboarding initiatives to help new employees adapt to new routines and corporate culture. They built a bot using natural language processing to understand important employee information that is retrieved for new candidates and acts as an HR specialist, IT assistant, and general logistical support that answers questions pertaining to parking, salary, reviews, and time-off allowances. A customer-service corporate bot varies with a consumer-facing bot in that it must appropriately identify the employees information by using geographical location, level of seniority and other differentiating information in order for real and authentic support to be provided.

Current data comes from internal sources like schedules, policy documents, guidelines and the warehouse of data that comes from the litany of questions employees pose everyday. This data is currently being used to develop learning material.

Other initiatives Unilver is piloting is their smart sourcing technology that uses satellite imagery, cloud computing and AI to help achieve sustainable commodity sourcing by monitoring the effect sourcing has on the environment and communities. Their goal is to help companies avoid waste by building out an algorithm that shows the “optimum probability curve of need, demand and consumption.”

Unilever is harnessing the latest advancement in AI to most past outdates recruitment practices and improving candidate and employee experiences. In addition, they are using AI to innovate and learn from their users to create products that people crave, and not just for breakfast.

 

 

 
 

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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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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HDS - From Hype to Reality Navigating the Challenges of GenAI

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Integration In An Era Of AI: Challenges And Opportunities

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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.

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

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stories, experiences, and ideas around our shared mission.

Learn

from our exclusive events, publications and research.

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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.

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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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