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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 Oct 20, 2025 Country Members Virtual german

Online: AI & DATA Knowledge Transfer - Briefing 20

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

CIONET Round Table - From Disconnected Data to Unified Insight ; Building a 360° customer view to unlock commercial growth

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

Barcelona TECH Quest 2025

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

The End of the Firewall

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

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

AI: The Great Illusionist

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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Recent Cases

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An energy giant takes the leap into AI automation

ENN taps into hyperautomation to boost productivity

ENN Group Co., Ltd. is deeply committed to solving the energy challenges of tomorrow with the technology of today. The green energy giant—which serves customers in more that 80 cities in China and beyond—has long been at the forefront of technological innovation in the industry. Its ultimate goal: to drive clean energy options that improve the quality of peoples’ lives.

In early 2020, the onset of COVID-19 required thousands of the company’s office-based employees to shift to working from their homes almost overnight. Demand for IT services related to remote working—such as requests for VPN permissions and password downloads and resets—instantly skyrocketed. IT help desk personnel were overwhelmed.

Fortunately, ENN was on the cusp of rolling out a new virtual assistant that combined AI from IBM® watsonx Assistant and IBM Watson® Discovery technologies, as well as automation capabilities of the IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with Automation Anywhere solution, to interpret and respond to IT employee service desk requests. Within a half a day, the virtual assistant helped enable thousands of employees with the technology they needed to work remotely. Previously, that effort would have taken days—perhaps even weeks.

The company’s digital automation journey had started well before COVID-19 began making headlines. A year earlier, it introduced a virtual employee—“Little ENN Assistant”—into its Financial Sharing Center.

 

 

Reduced response

Time to respond to thousands of employee help desk requests 0.5 days

 

 

Faster set up

Time to get new virtual assistants up and running 2 days, versus multiple weeks

 
 
Our AI automation platform provides employees with personalized AI skills, helps employees perform daily tasks, frees them from repetitive daily tasks and unleashes their creativity and imagination. 
Li QiangIT Platforms ExecutiveENN Group Co. Ltd.
 
 

Based on IBM RPA technology, the automated financial assistant performed basic back-office tasks, such as pulling reports or handling monthly ledger booking. It was a resounding success, completing 2,000–3,000 tasks per day, implementing over 70 business scenarios resulting in millions of dollars of value and reducing processing time by 60%.

And that was just the beginning. As a complex, multifaceted company, ENN faced climbing operating costs, growing customer expectations for top-notch products and services, constantly changing business requirements and an ongoing need to keep employees satisfied. The company was ready for the next step in its automation journey: hyperautomation. Named by Gartner Research as the top strategic technology trend for 2020, hyperautomation combines automation with AI to drive actions based on intelligent decision-making.

 
 
Two hands + one brain

To that end, ENN chose to build upon its existing IBM RPA foundation, incorporating the AI capabilities of the IBM Cloud Pak® for Business Automation offering combined with IBM watsonx Assistant and IBM Watson Discovery solutions, both of which run on the IBM Cloud Pak for Data platform. This single platform provides ENN with a foundation for future solutions, as well as the ability to consolidate, operationalize and govern data from across its operations, reducing costs while eliminating data silos.

The choice was well-founded: IBM watsonx Assistant software was named as a leader in conversational computing by analyst firm Forrester in 2018, and the IBM Watson Discovery solution garnered “Best Innovation in Natural Language Processing (NLP)” in the Alconics enterprise AI awards in 2019. On top of that, IBM Cloud Pak for Automation offers the convenience of pre-integrated automation technologies and low-code tools, so clients can design, build and run automated applications and services quickly and at scale.

With IBM Watson technology providing the “brain” of AI, ENN’s updated virtual AI assistants are able to query users on intent, then pass that information over to IBM RPA’s “two hands” of automation to perform appropriate actions.

The use of these intelligent virtual assistants now spans employee and customer self-service functions. The IT desktop services AI assistant launched at the beginning of the pandemic continues to apply the IBM watsonx Assistant and IBM RPA solutions to query and assist employees with their IT requests.

For finance-related issues, an AI assistant, also built on IBM watsonx Assistant technology, supports complex multicycle conversations and interactions between diverse internal business and finance teams and the Financial Sharing Center, shortening communication cycles and granting access to financial data based on authorization and business need.

Customer-focused AI assistants provide business and IT services to customers. Customers can get their questions answered—such as the status of a bill payment—quickly and easily, improving the customer experience while reducing operating costs.

An employee AI assistant provides ENN’s 50,000 employees access to information housed in hundreds of business systems. Employees can get status updates on internal processes, such as expense reports, without logging into individual internal systems or performing manual queries. Using the IBM Watson Discovery solution, the virtual assistant can intelligently search enterprise and knowledge databases to help customer service personnel answer complex customer questions.

And an “expert” assistant, also powered by IBM Watson Discovery technology, parses through large volumes of unstructured and structured data—such as that found in manufacturing manuals, development files and internal user guides—to provide employees easy access to information previously unavailable or only accessible through time-intensive training or searches.

 
 
About ENN Group Co., Ltd.

ENN (link resides outside of ibm.com) is a multinational, vertically integrated supplier of energy. Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Langfang, China, it has more than 100 subsidiaries and focuses on energy distribution, solar energy, energy chemicals and the development of energy technologies. ENN provides gas storage and distribution services to more than 80 cities across China, employs more than 50,000 people and reports total assets of more than CNY 40 billion. In 2019, the company listed annual revenues at CYN 164.5 billion.

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

How CIOs drive game changing results at scale?

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.

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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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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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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.

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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.

Maximise

your potential. Realise your ambitions.

About CIONET

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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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