As organisations enter 2027, CIOs and CISOs are navigating an increasingly complex European technology landscape shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, regulatory pressure and growing scrutiny over where critical data and technology reside. From cloud and third-party dependencies to NIS2 and CRA, operational resilience and the drive for greater digital autonomy, leaders are being forced to reconsider how much control they really have over their technology environments. This opening panel will explore how technology and security leaders are responding in practice, where priorities and investment are shifting, and how organisations can strengthen resilience and control without limiting innovation or business growth.

Discussion Points:
• How organisations are assessing cloud, supplier and infrastructure dependencies and where does greater digital sovereignty genuinely make business sense?
• As NIS2, CRA and wider European requirements reshape accountability, how are CIOs CISOs turning compliance obligations into meaningful improvements in security and operational resilience
• Where are leaders increasing investment, changing strategy or accepting trade-offs as they balance innovation, cost, resilience, security and greater control over critical technology?

To defeat the adversary, we must move beyond tracking their tools—we must understand their mind.
The traditional approach to cybersecurity has focused relentlessly on the technical what (malware signatures, TTPs) and the macro why (geopolitical tension, economic drivers). However, the next decisive frontier in intelligence and defence requires a pivot to the who: the personality dynamics that fuel cyber threat actor groups and using autonomous tools to follow in their footsteps.

As the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) moves toward enforcement, organizations across Europe face new compliance obligations that will redefine how digital products are designed, maintained, and secured. This open forum brings together experts from the Rijksdienst Digitale Infrastructuur (RDI) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) to demystify the upcoming changes, clarify enforcement expectations, and discuss how enterprises can prepare ahead of the September 2026 deadline. We’ll also hear from Maarten Merkens, CISO at Boels NL, who will share a leadership perspective on building a resilient enterprise through culture, exploring what it means to be a resilient leader, foster a security-first mindset, and embed secure-by-design principles within teams and technology alike. This interactive discussion and audience Q&A will give leaders the opportunity to eliminate confusion, gain practical guidance, and align strategy, compliance, and culture in preparation for CRA enforcement.

Key Takeaways:
• Understand the scope, timelines, and enforcement mechanisms of the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA).
• Implement “secure-by-design” principles across products, systems, and the full lifecycle.
• Explore how resilient leadership and team culture drive organizational readiness and compliance.
• Clarify reporting obligations and the roles of RDI and NCSC-NL in supporting CRA enforcement by 2026.

Business demands are evolving faster than ever, requiring technology leaders to rethink how decisions are made, executed and scaled across the enterprise. This session explores the operating models, processes and technologies that improve agility, strengthen collaboration and accelerate decision-making. Discover practical approaches to simplifying complexity, aligning technology with business priorities and enabling organisations to respond with greater speed, confidence and measurable impact.

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The most successful technology organisations share more than modern tools, they build strong leadership, clear priorities and a culture of continuous improvement. This session explores the strategies, operating models and decision-making approaches that set high-performing teams apart. Through practical insights and real-world examples, discover how leading organisations align technology with business objectives, foster collaboration, drive innovation and consistently deliver measurable value in an increasingly complex and fast-changing environment.

With 20+ years of experience as a DevOps Engineer and Team Lead, Martin Dimovski stepped into the CISO world to lead a transformation that started not from zero — but from -1. In just 2.5 years, he built a full DevSecOps capability inside one of Europe’s largest banks, aligning over 600+ DevOps teams through culture, tooling, and measurement. This session tells the unfiltered story: from discovering missing solution designs and secrets in pipelines to creating DevOps Security Checklists, launching Threat Modeling at scale, and measuring DevSecOps maturity with DORA-aligned KPIs – all without relying on commercial tools. If you’re curious about what real-world secure transformation looks like – the blockers, the breakthroughs, and the blueprint – this talk is for you. Through collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning, ABN AMRO turned a systemic weakness into a strength, proving that when security becomes integral to DevOps, it drives both resilience and agility.

Organisations today face the twin challenge of advancing AI-driven capabilities while maintaining a robust information security posture. Many existing Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) struggle to absorb the unique risks introduced by AI – such as model bias, data poisoning, drift, and opaque decision-chains, because traditional frameworks were never designed for these domains. Discover how to successfully integrated an AI security layer into its mature ISMS. The solution involved aligning AI-risk controls with the ISMS control landscape, creating cross-functional governance that spans data science, operations and security, and implementing phased deployment of AI-security tooling and metrics. The result achieve greater visibility into its AI-asset inventory, reduced blind-spots around model lifecycle risks, and improved audit-readiness to meet both security and regulatory demands, all while innovating with AI safely.

In this second roundtable breakout, enterprise leaders will guide discussions on their favorite topic, fostering an environment of open exchange, exploration of diverse perspectives and experiences. Attendees can grab a coffee and anticipate engaging conversations through roundtables discussions, driven by shared challenges and interests, offering valuable insights and opportunities for collaborative learning and networking.

Cyber resilience is no longer measured solely by preventing attacks, but by how effectively organisations prepare for, respond to and recover from disruption. This session explores practical lessons from today’s enterprise, examining the strategies, technologies and leadership approaches that strengthen resilience across people, processes and operations. Discover how leading organisations are improving readiness, reducing risk and building the capabilities needed to maintain business continuity in an increasingly complex threat landscape.

As AI evolves from a supporting tool into an active participant in enterprise workflows, technology and security leaders must rethink how work is designed, decisions are made and accountability is maintained. The challenge is no longer simply adopting AI, but preparing people to work effectively alongside autonomous agents while protecting the human judgement, specialist expertise and oversight organisations still depend on. This closing panel will explore how leaders are redesigning roles, teams and operating models for the agentic era, balancing automation with human capability, developing the skills their workforce will need and bringing employees with them through the transition.

Key Takeaways:
• Redesigning Work: Identifying which tasks can be delegated to AI agents and where human judgement, creativity and accountability must remain.
• The Human–AI Skillset: Developing the technical, critical-thinking and leadership capabilities required to work confidently alongside increasingly autonomous systems.
• Rebuilding Teams and Trust: Evolving roles, structures and governance while managing workforce concerns and maintaining clear ownership of AI-supported outcomes.