About
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
Why this matters now
- Cost-out, myth or material? Where do savings actually land (telco, SD-WAN/firewalls, licenses, ops, incident impact), what new costs appear, and what gets stranded?
- Board-ready story under scrutiny: Move from posture lists to exposure, recovery SLOs and risk appetite, but be ready for the “what if?” and “what fails first?” questions.
- Scale & agility vs. friction: Policies that follow users/apps/OT promise speed, yet legacy gear, vendor contracts and habits fight back.
What we’ll examine together
- Economics with guardrails: Proven wins, soft benefits, hidden costs, stranded assets, and how to stage the transition to protect cash flow.
- Board & audit narrative: Show euros-at-risk, detect - recover targets, and an honest invest vs. accept decision—without hype.
- Architecture shift, carefully: From MPLS/SD-WAN + firewalls to open-internet Zero Trust and app-level access by default; where it works, where it doesn’t.
- OT realities: Micro-segmentation patterns for factories/legacy devices; cutover plans that avoid downtime.
- Failure modes & competence gaps: Outages, identity dependency, policy drift; upskilling network/security/plant teams; new operating rituals (decoys, phishing, red-team cadence).
- Change management: Unwinding contracts, managing vendors, sequencing pilots, and communicating trade-offs to execs and the shop floor.
Who should attend
CIOs, CISOs and digital/infrastructure leaders accountable for P&L-visible tech spend and board-level cyber reporting—ready to compare evidence, doubts and decisions with peers.
Seats are limited. Join fellow CIOs & CISOs for an honest, numbers-first debate, no hype, just what it takes.
Register now.
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