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Welcome to CIONET Belgium

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Upcoming Events

 
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Belgium 21-4-26 Invitation Only Physical english

From Victim to Victor: Cyber resilience is a means, providing Business Continuity the goal

In an era where every outage, audit, and cyberattack is a test of organisational survival, resilience has become the new currency of trust. While traditional perimeter security with: firewalls, intrusion detection, and scanners, remains essential, it is no longer a sufficient guarantee against modern threats that bypass these layers to penetrate your core systems. Today, enterprises require security and continuity that are built-in, not bolted-on. This CIONET roundtable focuses on the shift from reactive disaster recovery to proactive Business Continuity. Together with experts from HPE Zerto, we will explore how organisations can transform their recovery strategies into seamless continuity models.

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Belgium 23-4-26 Country Members Physical & Virtual english

CIOFEST BELGIUM: Leadership in the Agentic Era

AI is no longer confined to supporting human tasks. We are entering the agentic era, where autonomous systems act on behalf of people and organisations. These agents can gather information, make decisions, negotiate terms, and even complete transactions. The implications extend well beyond technology; they touch the very foundations of business models, governance, and leadership. For CIOs and their peers, the rise of “machine customers” and autonomous partners poses new questions: Market impact: How do you compete and create value when some customers and suppliers are machines? Governance: What trust, compliance, and accountability structures are needed when AI acts independently in financial, procurement, or customer-facing processes? Leadership: How should CIOs guide their organisations in redefining roles, responsibilities, and decision-making when agents take over parts of the value chain?Business strategy: What opportunities emerge for new revenue models, platforms, and ecosystems shaped by autonomous interaction? This session shifts the focus from the mechanics of AI agents to the decisions that will shape leadership in the next decade. It is a call for CIOs to prepare for a future where relationships, markets, and strategies are no longer limited to human-to-human interactions, but also extend to human-to-machine and machine-to-machine interactions.

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Belgium 29-4-26 Invitation Only Physical english

Building Future-Ready Application Ecosystems in the Age of Intelligent Automation

This CIONET workshop is a collaborative deep-dive into the practicalities of"rewiring the building" while it’s still occupied. Drawing onKyndryl’s deep heritage in mission-critical infrastructure and their latestresearch, we will dismantle the "hidden costs" of legacyenvironments. The conversation will focus on the transition from static,monolithic structures to composable architectures that allow intelligent agentsto operate seamlessly across hybrid landscapes.

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Upcoming TRIBE Events

 
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April 2, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

Taming the SaaS Sprawl: Tracking spend, ownership, and usage before it slips out of control

SaaS gave business units freedom: quick onboarding, no infrastructure, and instant results. But over time, that freedom turned into fragmentation. Each team now buys, renews, and configures its own stack. HR has one platform, finance has another, and marketing probably has ten. The invoices keep coming, usage keeps dropping, and no one is sure who’s accountable for what.

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May 12, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

Product-Centric IT 2.0: Blending product and project thinking

Everyone says they’ve gone product-centric. In reality, most organisations live in a hybrid world where projects, products, and platforms overlap. Teams manage releases while still chasing deadlines, and governance still thinks in milestones rather than outcomes. The shift is underway, but the mindset hasn’t caught up.

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May 19, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

AI vs AI in Cybersecurity: When defenders and attackers both use AI

The game has changed, clearly. Attackers have AI, defenders have AI, and both sides are learning faster than anyone expected, or maybe the attackers are just a bit faster. What used to take hours now happens in seconds, and detection windows close before alerts even appear. It’s adaptation beyond automation, and no one gets to sit still.

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CIONET Partner Updates

CIONET Partner Updates

Recent Cases

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Professional Services Firm achieves strategic growth goals with better cloud security

Operating out of Louisiana, this professional services firm provides accounting, insurance, audit, and IT consulting to small and large clients across a broad range of industries. Security is a top priority for the firm as it manages extremely sensitive financial data and personally identifiable information (PII).

 

 

 
 
 

CHALLENGES

“When I joined the firm, I inherited an uneven distribution of security solutions,” says Mark Ligget, Director of IT Services. “There were multiple platforms, some overlapping. It was a challenge to manage, and untenable with a small staff. We needed to make a systemic change.”

The company recently migrated from on-premises systems to a hybrid cloud environment to enable better agility and allow the firm to innovate faster. That’s important as the company expands its business to offer IT consulting and looks to develop a managed service provider (MSP) offering. “We have an advantage because we don’t have the weight of early development to reengineer. We are in a good spot to innovate faster,” says Liggett.

With a goal to protect “any data, any device, anytime, anywhere,” Liggett searched for a solution that would bolster IT security and ensure compliance with strict and frequently evolving regulations.

 
 

WHY TREND

Liggett first considered whether the firm could stick with its three incumbent security solution providers. “That didn’t work because different things were protected. We needed a single security platform that could work in the cloud as well as on servers and endpoints,” Liggett explains.

“Trend Micro covers all the major requirements, including PCI compliance and cloud-based solutions. We really liked the SaaS offerings, which makes deployment and management easy.”

 

With better visibility I can see what’s out there. BEC, ransomware, and email protection all work extremely well. Cloud App Security pays for itself every time I send a report to management.

Mark Liggett - Director of IT Services, Professional Services Firm

 

SOLUTION

The firm purchased Trend Micro Worry-Free Services endpoint protection to block ransomware and other targeted attacks. “Worry-Free Services provides the cloud-based endpoint protection I’m looking for,” Liggett notes.

The firm also uses Trend Micro Cloud App Security advanced threat and data protection for Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Gmail™, and cloud file-sharing services to extend protection beyond the perimeter. That’s particularly important in the wake of unprecedented events like COVID-19.

“Trend Micro Cloud App Security enables our remote workers to access their files securely through cloud applications like OneDrive and provides the IT team with greater confidence that key data is safe, especially during tax filing season. Had COVID-19 occurred before we started working with Trend Micro, I would’ve insisted everyone work via a VPN because I couldn’t guarantee security or compliance,” says Liggett.

“The rollout was simple and non-interruptive for users. Issues are quickly resolved, and I have confidence that my users are protected. I have everything I need to protect them without putting my hands on their keyboards.”

 

With Trend Micro, we’ve reduced the time spent dealing with phishing, spam and malicious emails by 90%, going from 10 hours to about an hour a week.

Mark Liggett Director of IT Services, - Professional Services Firm

 
 

RESULTS

Better security from the cloud has been a key to helping the firm achieve its strategic growth goals of 5% to 10% per year. With Trend Micro blocking ransomware, targeted attacks, and ensuring that endpoints, inboxes, and client data are fully protected, the firm is focusing on growing the business and expanding its offerings.

“It’s hard to fight what you can’t see. Now, with better visibility I can see what’s out there. Business email compromise (BEC), ransomware, and email protection all work extremely well. Cloud App Security pays for itself every time I send a report to management.”

The most recent monthly report Liggett pulled included scans of over 175,000 emails. Those emails included 20 attempts to compromise business emails, 60 phishing attempts, and multiple malicious files. All of these have escaped Microsoft 365 basic security but none made it past Trend Micro’s detection and protection capabilities.

“Our response time for an end user that’s having issues is reduced to minutes, not hours. We don’t have to hunt around, do scans, or do any heavy lifting to figure out what’s going on. With Trend Micro, we’ve reduced the time spent dealing with phishing, spam and malicious emails by 90%, going from 10 hours to about an hour a week.” says Liggett.

 
 

WHAT'S NEXT

“COVID-19 has been a good lesson for us, and we’re fortunate that all our users have laptops and can work from home,” Liggett says. “I’m always looking to improve security coverage and visibility in the field, so Trend Micro™ Deep Security™ will be our next strategic investment to secure our hybrid cloud workloads.”

 

CIONET Circles

CIONET Business Circles

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Cyber Circle

CIONET’s Cyber Circle: a new three-event programme exclusively focusing on the most urgent, complex, and high-impact challenges in cybersecurity today. Launched in 2026, this initiative brings together CISOs, CIOs, and senior IT executives with a strong interest in cybersecurity for three curated gatherings each year. As part of CIONET’s trusted executive community, the Cyber Circle provides a confidential, peer-driven environment to exchange insights, share real-world experiences, and address evolving cyber threats. Each session is designed to foster strategic dialogue, strengthen resilience, and elevate cybersecurity as a core driver of business value.

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Telenet Business Leadership Circle

The Telenet Business Leadership Circle powered by CIONET, offers a platform where IT executives and thought leaders can meet to inspire each other and share best practices. We want to be a facilitator who helps you optimise the performance of your IT function and your business by embracing the endless opportunities that digital change brings.

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Les Rencontres

Découvrez la dynamique du leadership numérique aux Rencontres de CIONET, le programme francophone exclusif de CIONET pour les leaders numériques en Belgique, rendu possible grâce au soutien et à l'engagement de nos partenaires de programme : Deloitte, Denodo et Red Hat. Rejoignez trois événements inspirants par an à Liège, Namur et en Brabant Wallon, où des CIOs et des experts numériques francophones de premier plan partagent leurs perspectives et expériences sur des thèmes d'affaires et de IT actuels. Laissez-vous inspirer et apprenez des meilleurs du secteur lors de sessions captivantes conçues spécialement pour soutenir et enrichir votre rôle en tant que CIO pair. Ne manquez pas cette opportunité de faire partie d'un réseau exceptionnel d'innovateurs numériques !

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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. Our mission is to shine the spotlight a little brighter on female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, and to empower each other through this inner network community.

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Check out our latest news

Testimonials

Geert Goethals
Geert Goethals
CIO
Sibelga
Bahadir Samli
Bahadir Samli
CIO
ING Belgique
2-Feb-29-2024-11-35-00-9309-AM
Bart Kerkhofs
Director Digital Technology
Tata Steel Nederland
Untitled design (1)-Apr-01-2022-10-58-34-57-AM
Michał Paprocki
Group CIO
Euroclear
1-Feb-29-2024-11-34-59-8990-AM
Manfred Boudreaux-Dehmer
Chief Information Officer
NATO
Untitled design-Nov-22-2023-08-42-05-3178-AM
Annick Faes
Vice President IT and CIO Medical Devices EMEA
Johnson & Johnson
Piet_De_Ceuleners
Piet De Ceuleners
Global IT Director
Melexis
Untitled design-7
Stef Schampaert
Country Managing Director BeLux
Red Hat
Kevin_Ledegen
Kevin Ledegen
Group IT director
SDWorx
Gunter-Van-Craen_Small
Gunter Van Craen
Chief Digital & Information Officer
Bekaert
Thomas Kessler
Thomas Kessler
Partner | CIO Programme Leader
Deloitte
Emmanuel Gob
Emmanuel Gob
CIO
DPD
pascal pauwels
Pascal Pauwels
CIO
Colruyt
Untitled design (4)-Dec-13-2023-10-53-15-5032-AM
Koen Segers
Managing Director Belgium and Luxembourg
Dell Technologies
benoit dewaele
Benoît Dewaele
Group IT Director
Vandemoortele
Dirk Deridder-1
Dirk Deridder
CTO - Technology Services & Practices
SMALS
Untitled design-Sep-18-2023-11-59-29-7866-AM
Koen Vandaele
CIO
Delen Private Bank
Untitled design (4)-Jun-12-2023-01-23-11-7540-PM
Liesbet D'hoker
Managing Director
Kyndryl BeLux
steven-vermeulen
Steven Vermeulen
CIO
Digitaal Vlaanderen
Jack Hamande
Jack Hamande
Director General Digital Transformation
Federale Overheidsdienst Beleid en Ondersteuning
Tom Tomczak
Tom Tomczak
Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
NRB
an swalens
An Swalens
Head Of IT (CIO)
National Bank of Belgium
Untitled design (2)-Apr-01-2022-10-58-34-68-AM
Elke Laeremans
Chief Technology & Transformation Officer
Krëfel
CIONET Belgium - Advisory Board Member - Koen Van Loo
Koen Van Loo
CIO
Group S.
CIONET Belgium - Advisory Board Member - Steven De Haes
Steven De Haes
Dean
Antwerp Management School
Marleen Thorré
Marleen Thorré
christel-plessers
Christel Plessers
Head of IT European Markets
Mercedes-Benz Europe
bauduin cor
Baudouin Corlùy
Chief Market Development Officer
LCL Data Centers
Steven Soers b&w
Steven Soers
VP Marketing
Telenet Business
CIONET-Belgium-Advisory-Board-Member-Carl-Tilkin-Franssens
Carl Tilkin-Franssens
Expert Consultant
BDO Belgium
Leen Van Rentergem (1)
Leen Van Rentergem
CIO
KU Leuven
bart van de walle b&w
Bart Van de Walle
CIO Belux
DHL

Team

Luc Hendrikx
Luc Hendrikx
Partner - CEO
Inès De Bien
Inès De Bien
Partner - CCO
1-Feb-08-2022-10-22-08-68-AM
Daniel Eycken
Partner - COO
Hendrik Deckers
Hendrik Deckers
Partner - Founder
foto Herman
Herman Roelandts
Tribe Master
Joseph Antoun
Joseph Antoun
Senior Programme Director
1-Dec-16-2021-02-15-57-02-PM
Eman De Sutter
Programme Manager
4-Feb-08-2022-10-22-09-03-AM
Shelly Deracourt
Programme Manager
Untitled design (5)-Sep-01-2022-02-47-55-60-PM
Charlotte Coen
Partner Success Manager
Untitled design (1)-Nov-22-2023-08-56-42-6802-AM
Ivana Bradvica
Programme Manager
Vlera Berishaa (1)
Vlera Berisha
Community Manager
Stanislav Mosan
Stanislav Mosan
Financial Director

Contact us

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