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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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Netherlands Nov 10, 2025 Public Physical english

Reis mee: CIO Innovation trip Web Summit 11 nov 2025 Lissabon

CIONET Nederland vertrekt met een groep Nederlandse CIO's en digital leaders 10 t/m 12 november 2025 voor de geheel verzorgde CIO Innovation Trip naar de Web Summit in Lissabon, Portugal. Reis jij mee of neem je collega(s) mee!

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Germany Nov 11, 2025 Country Members Physical english

München: The Agentic Advantage

On the eve of the ServiceNow World Forum, CIONET invites you to an exclusive dinner in the fabulous Restaurant Little London in the heart of Munich City. Join leading CIOs, CDOs, and ServiceNow product owners for a candid exchange on how to get the most from your ServiceNow investment.

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Switzerland Nov 12, 2025 Country Members Physical english

Zurich: Mastering Digital Sovereignty

CIONET invites you to a private dinner with a select group of enterprise CIOs and senior infrastructure leaders in Zurich – part of a multi-country dialogue series with IT executives across Europe. This strategic dialogue is designed for digital leaders to share insights on one of the most pressing challenges facing today's leaders: How can organisations build true digital sovereignty in the face of geopolitical uncertainty, regulatory pressure, and growing technological dependencies?

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Germany Nov 13, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Frankfurt: CIDO Women - Female Leadership Circle

Bauen Sie mit uns ein starkes Netzwerk führender WOMEN CIDOs aus der IT- und Technologiebranche auf! Unser zweites Treffen findet im PwC Experience Center in Frankfurt statt.

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Belgium Nov 13, 2025 Country Members Physical english

The New CISO - CIONET Belgium: Community Event

The Role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) The role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is no longer confined to securing the network perimeter. As organisations become more digitally connected and data-driven, the CISO’s responsibilities have expanded far beyond traditional security measures. Today’s CISO must not only defend against cyber threats but also enable the business to innovate securely, manage complex regulatory environments, and instill a culture of trust across the organisation. This event will explore the evolving role of the CISO as a strategic leader who balances security with business enablement. As digital transformation accelerates, how can CISOs align their security strategies with organisational goals, ensure compliance, and lead their teams in the fight against increasingly sophisticated threats? Key Discussion Points: From Gatekeeper to Strategic Partner: How CISOs can shift from being seen as barriers to innovation to becoming key enablers of business agility and transformation through security. Balancing Risk and Innovation: Learn how top CISOs navigate the delicate balance between mitigating risk and supporting the organisation’s need to innovate and scale in a secure environment. Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): Explore how CISOs are managing an increasingly complex regulatory landscape, ensuring compliance while still driving business objectives forward. Building a Security-First Culture: Practical strategies for CISOs to foster a culture where security is embedded into every part of the business, from boardroom discussions to frontline operations. CISO as Crisis Manager: How to prepare for and lead your organisation through major cybersecurity incidents. From ransomware attacks to data breaches, we’ll discuss how today’s CISO is as much a crisis manager as they are a strategist. Why You Should Attend: As a CISO, your role is evolving faster than ever before. This event is designed to provide you with actionable insights into how to embrace your expanded responsibilities while keeping your organisation safe and secure. Whether you’re focused on aligning security with business goals, navigating regulatory challenges, or leading in times of crisis, this event will equip you with the strategies to lead the next era of cybersecurity.

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UK Nov 13, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

Engineering the AI-Native enterprise: From legacy burden to innovation engine

Join us on November 13th for the exclusive roundtable powered by Cognizant.

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Recent Cases

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How Vandebron scaled their chat support by 150% without scaling their team

Green energy provider Vandebron needed to manage a surge in volumes, while ensuring customers received the instant support they expect — all without hiring a single extra agent.

 

Vandebron at a glance

TheCustomer-Vandebron

The customer

Vandebron is a green energy company providing households across the country with solar, wind, and bio energy.

TheMarket-Vandebron

The market

Vandebron serves 200,000 energy consumers with customer support in Dutch.

TheSupportTeam-Vandebron

The support team

45 full-time employees receive an average of 5,000 chat requests per month.

TheChannels-Vandebron

The channels

Vandebron agents work across phone, email, and chat, with self-service available to logged-in customers.

TheSituation-Vandebron

The situation

Vandebron wanted to empower its customer support team to meet a surge in requests during the 2022 energy crisis.

TheSolution-Vandebron

The solution

Chat automation that fully resolves 50% of requests and proactively guides customers to self-serve and seamlessly integrates with its CRM platform: Salesforce.

 

Getting started with Ultimate

Vandebron wanted to make their CX as smooth as possible in the midst of a 2022 surge in energy prices. This included training their customers to self-serve, so they would get what they were urgently looking for faster. Vandebron found Ultimate through their CRM Salesforce's marketplace “Appexchange”, choosing it over the competition thanks to its seamless Salesforce CRM integration

Automation helped Vandebron and their customers power through the energy crisis, letting them manage 150% higher volumes without needing to scale their team or tech resources. Now, their bot is doing the work of one entire support team.

 
 
 
"Changing monthly payments, updating an address: We analyzed our data and found 70% of all customer questions could be grouped into 5-6 topics. These turned into the intents we began automating first."

Bob Molenaar
Digital Experience Manager, Vandebron

 
 
Vandebron_CaseStudy_ContentBlock_1_2x

 

AI use case spotlight: training customers to “go digital”

  • Vandebron customers’ top FAQs revolved around monthly payments, energy usage, meter readings, and changing personal information. Answers to all of them were available on the website, so Bob's team only needed to efficiently triage requests and direct users to the right place to get started.

  • Their virtual agent, or bot, identified intents based on natural language processing (NLP), a branch of artificial intelligence. It would then handle simple requests fully, or collect information and create a case in Salesforce to reduce average handling time (AHT) for requests that ended up being escalated to a human.

  • Due to the energy crisis, monthly requests increased from 2,000 to 5,000 requests a month, but a 50% automation rate helped the team easily handle more volumes in less time.
 
Vandebron_CaseStudy_ContentBlock_2_2x

 

 

AI use case spotlight: monitoring customer satisfaction by measuring NPS

  • Vandebron has two ways of asking for customer feedback: random surveys throughout the year and regular feedback check-ins after every conversation, including post-chat.

  • Customers can give a star rating following a chat conversation. And the majority responds favorably to it: 50% give the bot 4 or 5 stars on average.

 

 

The success story

Scalable-Vandebron

Scalable

Currently, every season is busy season for Vandebron, so the fact that automation handles the work of an entire additional team is a life saver for them.

Headless-Vandebron

Headless

Vandebron chose Ultimate because it was recommended on the Salesforce marketplace, meaning they were able to integrate into Salesforce without creating silos or any interruptions to their existing tech stack.

CustomerFriendly-Vandebron

Customer-friendly

Vandebron carefully tracks their NPS and have seen that customers are taking exceptionally well to automated, 24/7 chat.

CostEffective-Vandebron

Cost-effective

A 50% automation rate is driving down Vandebron's cost per interaction, enabling Vandebron to handle more overall volumes at a lower cost.

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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Giuseppe Ficara - The Untold Story of Amplifon's Data & AI Transformation

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Jesús Oliva, Head of Data & AI at Moeve - From Data Challenges to AI Leadership

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Radosław Maćkiewicz - CEO at COI - Empowering Citizens Through Digital Innovation

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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

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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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

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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!