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Belgium 27-8-26 AB Members Physical english

Summer Festival: Advisory Board

CIO agendas are crowded: cost pressure, cyber, regulation, talent, data, AI, vendor dependency, business expectations. Most organisations are trying to do too much at once, and the “must-do” work often blocks the strategic work. CIONET only creates value if its agenda matches what CIOs truly need, in the right format, at the right time. The challenge Pick the few priorities that matter most for 2027, then translate them into a clear CIONET agenda. Outcome we leave with A ranked CIO agenda for 2027, and a directly aligned CIONET programme outline (themes, formats, cadence), with a shortlist of speaker and case targets.

Belgium 27-8-26 Country Members Physical english

Summerfest: From Story to Habit

How to align people, shift routines, and prove value Technology transformations often fail not because the tools don’t work, but because people don’t change their work habits. Boards want proof of value, executives want business outcomes, IT wants clarity, and employees want ease. Between these expectations, the CIO’s role is no longer just to deliver platforms; it is to tell the story that motivates people and turn that story into daily habits. This session will explore: The narrative: how to craft a simple, repeatable story that explains the “why” behind change for every stakeholder. From story to routine: practical ways to embed new behaviours through manager rituals, team incentives, and visible leadership. Reskilling and new expectations: preparing teams for evolving roles, from cross-department collaboration to AI-enhanced workflows. Measuring what matters: showing progress in speed, quality, and resilience — not just in licences bought or trainings completed. The aim is to equip CIOs with a leadership toolkit: a story that unites, habits that endure, and proof that convinces even the toughest boardroom.

Belgium 8-9-26 Invitation Only Virtual english

What an AI Architect Actually Does in Practice; Skills, responsibilities, interfaces, and career moves behind one of the most misunderstood emerging roles.

The AI architect role is becoming more visible, and the scope varies across organisations. The challenge is defining what the role owns, where it sits, and how it works with existing architecture, data, security, risk, and business teams. Three pressure points need clarity. - Role definition matters because the position can span solution architecture, data architecture, governance, integration, security, vendor selection, and business process design. - Interfaces matter because the role must connect teams while respecting existing responsibilities. - Skills matter because technical depth needs to be combined with judgement around controls, delivery choices, and operational boundaries. The working question is simple: how do we define the AI architect role so it becomes useful, credible, and connected to delivery? If this role is emerging in your organisation, let’s compare how others are defining it and where they are placing it.

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Isracard creates foundation for faster, innovative development

In response to rapid industry change, Israeli credit card company Isracard sought to speed and
simplify its service development approach. By building a new container-based IT infrastructure
with Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, Isracard has cut provisioning times from weeks to minutes
and improved resource use. Now, its developers can focus on exploring new, innovative solutions
to customer demands, and its infrastructure team can take advantage of the latest security and
management capabilities

Reinventing complex IT systems and processes
Israel’s financial market has experienced massive shifts in recent years, such as rapid fintech growth
and significant regulatory changes that required banks to divest their credit card businesses.
Formerly part of Israel’s largest bank, Isracard now serves close to half of the country’s credit card
market. It provides payment, loan, and other services to business and consumers, including through
partnerships with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
As a smaller organization than its larger parent institution, Isracard sought to take advantage of
opportunities to embrace new technology as a market leader.
“While we lost some of our power to acquire and retain new customers as an independent organization,
we also gained the freedom to reinvent our business strategy and processes. For example, we have
the chance to be part of the industry-changing open banking revolution,” said Dvir Ben-Aaron, Chief
Technology Officer, Isracard. “To take advantage of this opportunity, we chose to evolve our legacy
technology environment to more efficient, container-based development and delivery.”

Creating new credit services with a supported, container-based foundation
After researching and testing potential solutions, Isracard selected Red Hat OpenShift as its new
IT foundation. This enterprise container platform supports innovative application development,
deployment, and management across hybrid cloud environments.
“We were looking for a technology platform that would serve our business for years to come. We
found that Red Hat OpenShift is more mature and provides stronger security capabilities than other
solutions in the market,” said Ben-Aaron. “Red Hat has a proven record of success with securitysensitive organizations and the availability of skilled local support. They were able to demonstrate
the value of their technology and services for our developer, infrastructure, and security teams.”
Isracard’s teams—many of whom were new to using Kubernetes—worked closely with Red Hat
Consulting during and after implementation to learn best practices and define, design, and create
workloads for the company’s new on-premise OpenShift environment. After a successful initial
implementation, Isracard recently upgraded to Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, a set of products
that add advanced management, security, and storage capabilities to Isracard’s existing OpenShift
foundation. For example, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes helps organizations
reduce operational risks and costs with built-in security across the entire application development
life cycle.
Isracard now uses on-premise Red Hat OpenShift to support a variety of projects, including
integration with Israel’s 20 major banks, accelerating time to market for new services, and
reconfiguring a critical back-end system.
“We want to keep our platform updated with comprehensive security and the latest container features,”
said Ben Aaron. “OpenShift Platform Plus gives us flexible, low-code features that will help us bring
even more speed and innovation to our infrastructure architecture and processes. For instance, new
hybrid cloud capabilities will help us distribute new services that we develop locally.”

Adopting more efficient back-end processes to focus on customer-facing innovation
- Reduced infrastructure setup time from weeks to minutes with automated provisioning processes
- Increased developer independence with self-service environment management, freeing time and
resources for innovative work

Improved resource use, reducing reliance on growing server footprint
- Established in-demand container technology foundation for partnerships with other banking and
fintech organizations

Continuing successful container adoption journey with new strategic projects

After its initial success with containers, Isracard can now focus on new, innovative projects for both
customers and its development teams. The company is adding several new Red Hat OpenShift
clusters to support several upcoming projects, including customer-facing credit approval and other
digital applications, unified management, and support for cloud-based workloads. Isracard plans
to continue working closely with Red Hat’s technology experts to take advantage of these new
opportunities and grow its reputation for innovative financial services. In the near future, the team
will expand its OpenShift environment with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubenetes,
as well as Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation.
“We see our relationship with Red Hat as strategic to our ongoing success in our transformation
journey,” said Ben Aaron. ”In addition to bringing open banking benefits to our customers, we’re
using Red Hat OpenShift to work toward our goal of becoming a credit services provider to other
businesses as well, from tools to processes and more. Our team is excited to see their ideas become
reality, keep learning, overcome our challenges, and continue to grow.”

About Isracard

Isracard is the leading and largest credit card group in Israel with over 45 years of experience. It
operates mainly in the areas of financing, issuance of debit cards and clearing payment services.
Isracard holds significantly higher market shares of the market vis-à-vis its competitors. The group
operates about 4.4 million active credit cards of the following brands: Isracard, MasterCard, Visa
and American Express (exclusively in Israel). The group provides clearing services to most of the
clearing businesses in Israel. Our company provides consumer and commercial credit to the extent
of approximately NIS 6.2 billion and also manages the largest and leading consumer clubs in Israel
with significant value propositions for customers and partners.

Technologies

Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus

Partners

CIONET Business Circles

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.

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.

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 !

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.