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Welcome to CIONET Belgium

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Upcoming Events

 
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Belgium 28-8-25 Country Members Physical english

20 Years CIONET - CIONET Belgium: Summer Festival

A special celebration marking 20 years of CIONET—two decades of empowering digital leaders and driving innovation in the technology landscape. This exclusive event will bring together our members to reflect on the incredible journey we've shared and look ahead to the future of digital leadership.Featuring keynote presentations from visionary CIOs, industry pioneers, and founding members, we’ll explore how far we’ve come and what lies ahead in the ever-evolving world of technology. Together, we will honour the contributions of our members who have shaped CIONET’s legacy while offering insights into how the community will continue to lead in the years to come.This is more than a celebration—it’s an opportunity to reconnect, reflect, and recharge with your fellow digital leaders. Don't miss this exclusive experience packed with inspiring talks, networking opportunities, and special recognitions that highlight the best of CIONET’s history and future.Let’s celebrate the past, present, and future of the digital community you helped build.

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Belgium 28-8-25 Country Members Physical english

Summer Festival - Advisory Board

A special celebration marking 20 years of CIONET—two decades of empowering digital leaders and driving innovation in the technology landscape. This exclusive event will bring together our members to reflect on the incredible journey we've shared and look ahead to the future of digital leadership. Featuring keynote presentations from visionary CIOs, industry pioneers, and founding members, we’ll explore how far we’ve come and what lies ahead in the ever-evolving world of technology. Together, we will honour the contributions of our members who have shaped CIONET’s legacy while offering insights into how the community will continue to lead in the years to come.

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Belgium 2-9-25 All TRIBERS Virtual english

What Does It Cost to Host an App? ; A practical guide to calculating hosting costs across infra, licenses, and operations

You’ve been asked a simple question: “What does it cost to host this application?” But the answer is anything but simple. The platform sits across multiple data centres. The app spans a few VMs, shares a backup system, uses licensed monitoring, and touches five different teams. Your CMDB should help, but it’s rigid, outdated, or incomplete. And yet, you still need to provide a number, clear, explainable, and grounded in reality.

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Upcoming TRIBE Events

 
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August 20, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

Motywowanie pracowników - programy, metody i dobre praktyki

To oczywiste, że o sukcesie organizacji decydują ludzie. Ci powinni być zmotywowani i uśmiechnięci. Wysoki poziom identyfikacji i zaangażowania buduje się długo i mozolne, ale najlepsi managerowie mają sprawdzone techniki, praktyki i metody cierpliwego podnoszenia motywacji zespołów.

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August 20, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical polish

SECURITY TRIBE: SESJA STRATEGICZNA

Podczas wystąpień, case studies i stolików dyskusyjnych omówimy następujące zagadnienia:    Wdrożenie Zero Trust Cybersecurity risk assesment / Risk management / Zarządzanie ryzykiem w organizacji kluczowej Zarządzanie tożsamością / PIM/IAM / IAM Bezpieczenstwo w łancuchu życia aplikacji i systemów (Bezpieczestwo SDLC)

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August 26, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

AI w chmurze czy on-prem? Praktyczne porównanie środowisk w budowie i rozwoju projektów

Marek Laskowski z Domański Zakrzewski Palinka, opierając się na doświadczeniach z wdrażania rozwiązań AI zarówno w chmurze, jak i w środowiskach on-premises, przedstawi praktyczne porównanie obu podejść. Omówi kluczowe aspekty: od kosztów i time-to-market, przez wymagane kompetencje i model organizacji zespołów IT, po utrzymanie i skalowanie rozwiązań. Marek przyjrzy się zaletom i wadom obu modeli i wskaże, jakie kryteria powinny decydować o wyborze środowiska dla konkretnego projektu AI.

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CIONET Partner Updates

CIONET Partner Updates

Recent Cases

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AI with a human touch

Consult Venture Partners differentiates itself with Alda Ai, a finance-savvy AI assistant

Consult Venture Partners is a global consultancy firm that provides thought leadership and insights in digital transformation, fintech, AI and wealth management. Founded in 2022, its genesis results from the success of City Wharf Private Wealth Ltd. (CWPW), formerly a digitally-led wealth management firm in the UK.

Having first founded CWPW, Ashlea Atigolo and Elemi Atigolo capitalized on the company’s achievements to launch Consult Venture Partners. The story of CWPW—and its pioneering use of the Alda Ai digital concierge from IBM Business Partner INATIGO—provides insight into one of Consult Venture Partners’ key marketplace differentiators, its customer service.

CWPW was launched in early 2020 in partnership with St. James’s Place PLC, a leading FTSE 100 wealth management group. It was one of only a handful of firms to fully integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles into its core values.

From the outset, CWPW’s founders had envisioned bringing much-needed digital innovation to the traditional wealth management industry using leading-edge technology to cater to individuals accustomed to always-on services and social responsibility. However, the founders had no idea that they were launching a new business just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the pandemic arrived in the UK in March 2020, CWPW saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the face of the industry with its digital services. Its founders knew that the firm could stand out from the competition and help future-proof its business by providing a 24x7, client-focused experience.

“Wealth management firms typically use live call center approaches,” says Ashlea. “The majority in the UK, and in most countries, don't have any form of online interaction; they don't have a live chat or chat assistant in any form.”

Already, the firm was looking at IBM watsonx Assistant technology to meet its requirements. “IBM Watson® is the leader when it comes to conversational AI and the kind of machine learning and natural language processing we needed,” says Elemi.

 

Accuracy

Successfully answered 92% of queries correctly

 

 

Conversions

Webinar registrations resulted from 47% of queries

 
We did our background research. We knew that IBM Watson was the leader in conversational AI. 
Elemi AtigoloCo-founderConsult Venture Partners
 
 

As the rest of the financial services industry scrambled to serve its customers despite having no in-person meetings and severely reduced call center services, other firms lost valuable traffic and interaction from prospective clients visiting their websites because of poor user experiences. They rushed to improve their online presence to respond to the change in client expectations for a digital, always-on experience.

As a new firm, CWPW had no entrenched customer service operations. It could create an all-new digital customer service experience from scratch. Using the leading-edge IBM Watson technology on IBM Cloud® would provide chat interactions that would feel as if a prospective client were speaking to a human, rather than a robot, without the expense of staffing a call center 24 hours a day.

The founders of CWPW knew just where to go for the right technology. They turned to INATIGO, an innovation company that creates AI solutions with a human touch.


 
 
 More than a chatbot

CWPW wanted an enterprise-grade digital assistant that would respond to website visitors’ questions like a human help desk agent, not a typical rules-based chatbot. Alda Ai, a conversational, AI-powered digital concierge from INATIGO, fit its needs perfectly. Alda Ai uses IBM watsonx Assistant technology to understand questions posed in natural language. The enterprise-grade solution is built for security and scalability because it runs on IBM Cloud.

“We did our background research. We knew that IBM Watson was the leader in conversational AI,” says Elemi. “We also knew that because the INATIGO solution is enterprise-grade, security would be taken care of and it would deal very well with data privacy, which was important to us as a financial firm.”

By using Alda Ai from INATIGO, CWPW gained a turnkey solution with all the embedded security, privacy and scalability features that IBM watsonx Assistant and IBM Cloud offer. Critically, Alda Ai is fluent in financial industry customer service and financial literacy thanks to INATIGO’s extensive experience in the financial as well as technology sectors.

“It was very important that if we were going to be setting a precedent in pioneering this type of technology in our firm, we had to be sure that this would be one of the top AI assistant experiences in the industry,” says Ashlea. “Because from our experience, other assistants are just not very good.”

By using the INATIGO solution powered by IBM Watson technology, CWPW also created an efficient way to engage with as many people as possible from the moment they reached the firm’s website. The digital assistant was the first-of-its-kind in the wealth management industry that could provide detailed answers to questions regarding the firm’s products and services, guide users to the right pages and suggest that they sign up for a webinar or a personal consultation.

“We wanted this experience to be as if someone came to our actual office and got a chance to speak with us,” says Elemi. In an in-person visit, a prospective client could learn about the firm and its values. “Those tours are typically interactive. It's not just taking someone around the office. They get to ask their questions and express what is important to them, why it's important and so on. And that's really been put into the assistant, which is difficult to do.”

INATIGO implemented the solution in just three weeks. The company offered the Alda Ai assistant as a service to CWPW. INATIGO continues to add value by updating the content and continuing to train the assistant as it learns. It also provided performance reports to CWPW. Alda Ai is also available as an interactive voice response (IVR) assistant.

Although INATIGO has been working with IBM for less than two years, it was quickly accepted into the prestigious With Watson® program. It catapulted from the starter program into the Embedded Solution Agreement (ESA) program in just 12 months because of its already mature and deployable solutions, such as Alda Ai.

A lot of people think that this is a live chat and that they are speaking to a live person. 
Ashlea AtigoloCo-founderConsult Venture Partners
 
 
 
 Digital assistant or live agent?

When it launched Alda Ai, CWPW became the UK’s first wealth management firm to offer an AI-powered digital assistant. Following the launch of the service in October 2020, the wealth management firm received industry accolades, including qualifying as a finalist for “Most Innovative Wealth Management Model” in the Wealth Management Technology category from the WealthBriefing European Awards. That’s the kind of name recognition and reputation boost a wealth management firm critically needs, especially when in-person engagement is limited.

INATIGO trained the IBM watsonx Assistant-powered Alda Ai to provide conversational responses that keep users engaged. Alda Ai responds to questions just as a human concierge might. When it doesn’t fully understand a question, it asks, “did you mean?” and provides alternative topics. After responding to an inquiry, the digital assistant asks whether it correctly answered the user’s question. The firm reported that up to 95% of website visitors say their questions were answered correctly.

“A lot of people think that this is a live chat and that they are speaking to a live person,” says Ashlea.

Alda Ai provided an around-the-clock digital customer service experience specific to CWPW’s products and services. The fact that the assistant understood the very specialized terminology of the wealth management industry set CWPW apart from competitors that might offer simple chatbots. The IBM Cloud-based digital assistant also provided a financial advantage to CWPW as it provided service without heavy investment in a 24-hour “live chat” or call center staff. When users wanted one-on-one human interaction, they could easily set up appointments with the firm’s wealth managers through the website.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alda Ai was initially created to provide general information to prospective and new clients. According to Ashlea: “Financial firms needed to offer some sort of concierge-like way to digitally engage. So we heavily pivoted Alda for new clients — to attract them in, nurture them and then give them the information quickly and easily so that they could then convert into a lead for the firm.”

Alda Ai thus helped CWPW generate business even when the firm wasn’t open. From October 2020 to June of 2021, an average of 39% of Alda Ai inquiries translated into leads. Alda Ai also offered a link to its on-demand webinars. During this period, 47% of inquiries resulted in webinar bookings.

As a result of CWPW’s success—and prompted by numerous inquiries and interest from private equity firms and wealth management firms—Ashlea and Elemi decided to change their focus and launch Consult Venture Partners. Thus, in 2022, CWPW became Consult Venture Partners.

Consult Venture Partners’ mission is to provide world-class and award-winning expertise to some of the world’s leading businesses and institutions to help them stay ahead of the curve. The company powers its customer service with Alda Ai acting as a digital concierge, which enables the young firm to quickly and affordably drive customer engagement.

Consult Venture Partners also plans to support its clients with other INATIGO offerings. INATIGO continues to improve and enhance Alda Ai and its other AI-powered solutions, including solutions designed to increase financial literacy. Toward this end, INATIGO offers EcoTaylor, the world’s first AI-powered voice assistant that helps people tackle climate issues; Finley AI, the world’s first AI voice-powered financial well-being assistant; and Monay, a financial literacy AI assistant.

“Using this type of conversational AI can help firms showcase how they are digitally engaging and future-proofing their companies and businesses with this forward-thinking technology,” concludes Ashlea.

 

CIONET Circles

CIONET Business Circles

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Healthcare Circle

Digital Transformation is redefining the future of health care and health delivery. All stakeholders are convinced that these innovations will create value for patients, healthcare practitioners, hospitals, and governments along the patient pathway. The benefits are starting from prevention and awareness to diagnosis, treatment, short- and long-term follow-up, and ultimately survival. But how do you make sure that your working towards an architecturally sound, secure and interoperable health IT ecosystem for your hospital and avoid implementing a hodgepodge of spot solutions? How does your IT department work together with the other stakeholders, such as the doctors and other healthcare practitioners, Life Sciences companies, Tech companies, regulators and your internal governance and administrative bodies?

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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
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Bahadir Samli
Bahadir Samli
CIO
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Bart Kerkhofs
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Group CIO
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Koen Segers
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Thierry Driesens
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Koen Vandaele
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Liesbet D'hoker
Managing Director
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Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
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Cassandre Laurent
Directeur général
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an swalens
An Swalens
Head Of IT (CIO)
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Elke Laeremans
Chief Digital & Supply Chain Officer at Casa International
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Peter Sany
Executive Advisor
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Dean
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Christel Plessers
Head of IT European Markets
Mercedes-Benz Europe

Team

Luc Hendrikx
Luc Hendrikx
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
Founder - MD
Untitled design (1)-2
Jelte Scheys
Tribes Sales Director Belgium
foto Herman
Herman Roelandts
Tribe Master
Joseph Antoun
Joseph Antoun
Senior Program Director
1-Dec-16-2021-02-15-57-02-PM
Eman De Sutter
Program Manager
4-Feb-08-2022-10-22-09-03-AM
Shelly Deracourt
Program Manager
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Charlotte Coen
Partner Success Manager
Untitled design (1)-Nov-22-2023-08-56-42-6802-AM
Ivana Bradvica
Junior Event Manager
ML B-W-1
Martine Lefevre
Financial Controller
Vlera Berishaa (1)
Vlera Berisha
Junior Community Manager
Phaedra Vanhaeren
Phaedra Vanhaeren
Programme & Event Manager

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!