What could security win you?
New laws. Attacks run by AI. Security is landing on everyone's desk now. We are leaders at Belgian smart-product companies, who decided to turn our security investments into a growth lever.
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The Cyber Resilience Act.
AI-automated attacks.
Hostile geopolitics. Every company must respond.
Most will do the minimum.
How will you make cybersecurity a competitive advantage?
If you don't know: no shame. It's all new.
There's still an opportunity for first movers.
Belgian companies are often first movers.
We can make that our competitive advantage.
Nobody has a proven strategy yet.
So we're working ours out together.
We are leaders from smart-product companies: sales, marketing, product, security and C-level. Every role holds a piece of the puzzle. By exchanging insights and experiences, we turn security into growth.
Who should participate?
- Builds and sells smart physical products
- Design team based in Belgium
- Leader of sales, marketing or product
- Or C-level: CEO, CTO, CIO or CISO
Would you dare put security in your public story today?
This isn’t a lecture series, these are intense conversations and you’re part of them.
A speaker who lived it kicks off, then breakouts of three, one sharp question at a time. Nothing is recorded. Nobody is selling.
Six sessions.
Six questions you’ll be able to answer.
William Visterin
IT & business journalist (incl. De Tijd), editor-in-chief of Computable.be, program manager of Cybersec Europe. His career revolves around getting management and IT to speak the same language.
Session 1 Your company already does a lot on security: why can't sales and marketing talk about it?
Thu 12 Nov 2026
11:30 – 13:30
Online
Your company already does a lot on security: why can't sales and marketing talk about it?
David Martens
Head of Product Security at Barco
Session 2 How do you make security a real sales argument: in conversations, campaigns, and questionnaires?
Thu 10 Dec 2026
11:30 – 13:30
Online
How do you make security a real sales argument: in conversations, campaigns, and questionnaires?
Security is often discussed as a commercial differentiator, but what customers really evaluate is trust. This session explores where that trust comes from, how it becomes visible, and why credibility is shaped long before the security questionnaire arrives. Don't sell security. Earn trust.
Gert Heiremans
Head of Technology & Security at itsme
Gert has led technology and security at itsme since 2022, where he's responsible for the platform's infrastructure and for building secure, scalable and reliable digital identity solutions. His focus is cybersecurity, zero-trust architecture and digital resilience, and he believes security, reliability and ease of use should go hand in hand.
Session 3 The CRA holds you responsible for security long after the sale. How do you turn that into an edge?
Thu 21 Jan 2027
11:30 – 13:30
Online
The CRA holds you responsible for security long after the sale. How do you turn that into an edge?
Maxim Baele
Founding Board Member at OWASP Foundation and Principal Consultant at Toreon
Session 4 When your incident comes, will you lose trust or win it?
Thu 18 Feb 2027
11:30 – 13:30
Online
When your incident comes, will you lose trust or win it?
Speaker to be announced soon
Session 5 How do you embed security in the whole company - and get your own team on board?
Thu 11 Mar 2027
11:30 – 13:30
Online
How do you embed security in the whole company - and get your own team on board?
Speaker to be announced soon
Session 6 What could security win you in the long run, and what do you start building today?
Thu 15 Apr 2027
11:30 – 13:30
Online
What could security win you in the long run, and what do you start building today?
Anneleen Vander Elstraeten
Managing Partner at Four & Five
And one dinner.
An evening at the castle,
off the record.
Dinner at the castle
No slides, no vendor talk, just the group and deep conversations. The exact venue – centrally in Flanders, Belgium – is revealed to participants.
Director General of the Belgian National Crisis Centre (NCCN)
Jack Hamande is the Director General of the Belgian National Crisis Centre (NCCN), under the FPS Interior.
The NCCN operates across the entire risk cycle: risk analysis, critical entities, preparedness, emergency planning, effective crisis management and resilience. Crisis management in Belgium runs on multiple levels, from municipal to provincial and ultimately federal. When a federal-level emergency is declared, the NCCN takes charge of coordinating all relevant ministries and crisis management actors.
Jack has held executive positions in both the private and public sector: at Verizon, at BIPT (the Belgian regulator for electronic communications and network security) and at FPS BOSA, in charge of digitalisation (trust services, large citizen applications, AI). Internationally, as a Belgian representative, he has been actively involved in the work of the European Commission, BEREC, UPU and ITU.
How online sessions work
Introduction
A leader with hands-on experience introduces the topic. No vendor pitch, no polished keynote. The good, the bad and the ugly, ending with the questions for the breakouts.
Three breakouts
One sharp question per breakout, groups of three. Small enough for honest answers, and for connections that outlast the session. Peers only. Nobody is there to sell.
Action plan
People share what they realized and what they'll do next. The host brings it together, and session by session your action plan grows.
Some of the people you'll be talking with
Gert Heiremans
Head of Technology & Security at itsme
David Martens
Head of Product Security at Barco
Geoffrey Crespin
Head of Information Security at EVS
Hilke Heremans
Chief of Product at Charp
Louis De Jaeger
IT Lead at In The Pocket
Bart Sprengers
Director at Belden BEC Olen
Luc Joosen
Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Automatic Systems
Maxim Baele
Founding Board Member at OWASP Foundation
Mathieu D'Hondt
Managing Partner at Blue Moon
Wouter Paesen
Co-Founder at Senhive
Kristof Gilleman
COO at SkeyDrone
Christophe Dejan
IT Manager at Soleras
Rik Deruyter
Co-Founder at Amplifino
Karel Vergote
Chief Innovation & Technology Officer at Automatic Systems
Anneleen Vander Elstraeten
Managing Partner at Four & Five
Mattias Vanhoutte
Product Cybersecurity Manager at Televic Rail
Alice Verdonk
Director Manufacturing and Quality at Loop Earplugs
“A peer tells you what they actually did, what it cost, and where they went too far.”
Places are limited and carefully curated.
- Leader of sales, marketing or product
- Or C-level: CEO, CTO, CIO or CISO
- Builds and sells smart physical products
- Design team based in Belgium
€200
Includes six online sessions and the dinner.
Not accessible to security vendors or consultants.
Thanks for applying! We'll be in touch soon.
Questions,
answered.
Can't join?
You can still learn.
The key insights from the sessions, summarised into one whitepaper. Sign up and we'll send it to you in May 2027, once the sessions wrap up.
Thanks! We'll send you the whitepaper in May 2027, once the sessions wrap up.
We'll only use your email to send the whitepaper.