CIDO Women Business Brunch in Munich: How IT Transparency Leads to Better Decisions

On 23 September, we supported the CIDO Women Business Brunch by CIONET Germany in Munich as a sponsor: a confidential exchange among women CIDOs and female senior decision-makers from user companies, held at the CIONET CoWorking Space at 1000 Satellites in Theresienhöhe, right at the start of the Wiesn season.

Why IT transparency is a leadership task

Well-founded decisions need transparency rather than assumptions. In grown IT landscapes, that is often exactly what is missing: applications emerge in silos, data is scattered, and connections stay hidden. This makes investment decisions, modernization projects and the prioritization of resources uncertain.

The brunch was therefore not about yet another tool, but about a fundamental question: How do we create the data foundation for better decisions? Put differently: how does "invisible" become "visible"?

The program

Sandra Rauch (CDO, formerly E.ON) moderated the morning together with Mark Hayes, Managing Director of CIONET Germany. As community speaker, Daniela Horn, VP Product at PAYBACK, shared her perspective. Carsten Hochschon, our founder and CEO, gave an impulse on portfolio, cost, risk and demand data at a glance. A guided group discussion over brunch followed.

The guiding questions of the discussion:

• How can CIOs make well-founded decisions when their own IT landscape becomes a black box?
• Is complete IT transparency realistic, or is "good enough" sufficient?
• Which blind spots prevent transparency over costs, risks and dependencies?
• How do fragmented pieces of information become a holistic view of the IT landscape?

Technology is not a shortcut. It is an amplifier.

— Key learning of the brunch, according to CIONET Germany

From transparency to the agentic organization

In her recap, Sandra Rauch widened the lens: AI changes not only technology, but also how companies work, decide and are led. Four topics were central for her:

• Transparency: Is our own technology, data and process landscape understood well enough for AI to scale sensibly?
• Business value: Where are the real levers beyond IT, in processes, products and business models?
• Target picture: How do people and AI agents actually work together in an organization?
• Risk and resilience: How can more autonomy be reconciled with governance, security and auditability?

Her conclusion: AI leadership means shaping technology, business, organization and governance together.

For us, this confirms why transparency comes first. Anyone who does not know how the applications, costs, risks and demands in their own landscape connect can neither scale AI sensibly nor take responsibility for more autonomy. That is exactly what we work on at knooing: making IT portfolios visible so that decisions are based on facts rather than assumptions.

Thank you

We thank CIONET Germany for the invitation and the great partnership, Daniela Horn and Sandra Rauch for their impulses and moderation, Mark Hayes for hosting, and above all all participants for the open exchange between equals.

Next date: 16 November in Munich

CIONET invites the CIDO Women community to its next get-together on 16 November in Munich. If you are a women CIDO or senior decision-maker from a user company and would like to join, you can register here. And if you know a colleague or fellow traveller for whom this circle would be just right: feel free to pass it on.

Sources

• CIONET Germany: München, CIDO Women Business Brunch (event page)
• CIONET Germany on LinkedIn: recap of the Business Brunch, 23 September 2026
• Sandra Rauch on LinkedIn: recap of the CIDO Women Business Brunch